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Science Quickly

Researchers Just Created the World's First Permafrost Atlas of the Entire Arctic

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Arctic Permafrost Atlas, which took years to create, is both beautiful and sobering, given the pace of climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

May I have your attention please you can now book your train tickets on Uber and get

0:08.0

10% back in credits to spend on your next Uber ride so you don't have to walk home in the rain again.

0:16.5

Trains now on Uber. T's and C's apply. Check the Uber app.

0:22.4

Imagine the entire earth.

0:26.0

Now think about the places where all the ground is frozen solid.

0:30.0

Do you know where they are?

0:32.0

What if I told you that permafron Do you know where they are?

0:33.0

What if I told you that permafrost isn't only found at the poles and that it exists under the sea on the Tibetan Plateau and on top of North America's Rocky Mountains.

0:45.7

For science quickly, I'm Emily Schwing.

0:51.6

For more than six years, researchers have been working to account for all of the planet's frozen ground as part of the Nunatoriuk Permophrost research project.

1:01.0

They're also going one step further to document who lives on Permophrost, makes use of it, and what its

1:08.6

cultural significance is.

1:11.0

What's come of their effort is the world's first and only Perma Frost Atlas of the entire Arctic.

1:17.0

So it's a coffee table atlas that you can open anywhere and start reading and learning about Permophrost.

1:22.0

Lavey Westerfeld is a geographer and cartographer.

1:25.0

He worked as an editor on the Arctic permafrost Atlas.

1:29.0

I think one of the first questions we ask ourselves is what was the ultimate goal of the Atlas and what was the

1:35.5

audience we are trying to reach and quite fast I think we came clear that we wanted to

1:40.7

create something that was very accessible from policymakers who might not have heard of

1:45.2

permafrost before to children and schools that are interested to learn more in the topic.

1:50.3

What came of the project is a nearly 160 page document loaded with dozens of

1:57.0

maps, high-resolution images and charts and graphs that explain what

...

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