Around 11% of the Earth's land mass is covered by permafrost. But its delicate balance is being threatened by climate change.
But what permafrost does is of huge importance to the entire planet. This is a map of permafrost, and you see in purple here, the dark purple especially, the areas that are permafrost. But just because it's ancient doesn't mean all the permafrost is always frozen. As temperatures rise, the permafrost is thawing. On average, the active layer has been deepening about 0.6cm per year for the last ten years, which is about this much, but think about that through the whole landscape. We're seeing that the active layer is getting deeper and deeper in permafrost regions around the world. It creates immediate impacts.
We have this organic matter that's stored in the freezer, and as soon as you open the freezer door, then that becomes available to decay. Buildings start to crack, the roads will buckle, powerlines will tear. We just try to fix things for now and just take it, like, year by year.