Area Of E. Siberian Lakes Up 12% In 30 Years Thanks To Big Melt - RFE

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By Julie A Corwin for RFE/RL (13/10/06)

The landscape of Siberia is transforming. New lakes are forming in the north, while existing lakes are getting larger. Some buildings and houses built upon the permafrost are sinking and starting to crack. What's more, scientists expect this process to speed up, because as the lakes thaw, they release carbon and methane into the air, which in turn contributes to global warming.

Permafrost exists all over the world, but Russia has the largest patches of it. Scientists estimate that permafrost covers more than 10 million square kilometers of Russia. A Russian scientist, Mikhail Sumgin, first coined the term permafrost, or "vechnaya merzlota" (eternal frost), in the late 1920s. But now, less than a century later, scientists are worried about how permanent the permafrost really is.

Larry Smith, professor of geography at the University of California-Los Angeles, and colleagues compared satellite images of Siberia from the early 1970s to those taken in 2004. They found that the total area of lakes increased by more than 12 percent. "If you just think of a deeply frozen landscape, when you first start to thaw it out, it's going to puddle up at the top," Smith says.

In southern Siberia, where the permafrost is more sporadic, lakes are actually disappearing at an equal rate, as the permafrost degrades and lake water seeps into the ground. The effects on wildlife are profound. Birds in the south have to find new areas to raise their young, while small mammals, such as badgers, are now being seen in parts of the north for the first time.

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