Siberia’s ice is melting, revealing its past and endangering its future
< < Go Back
Nikita Zimov walked through the sticky brown muck of Siberia, just above the Arctic Circle. The sun radiated over the Russian republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, on a nearly 70 degree day. It was August of 2022, but in many ways the young scientist had traveled back in time thousands of years.
Layers of thawing ground towered dozens of feet above Zimov, the manager of Pleistocene Park and head of the Northeast Science Station in Yakutia. They contained leaves, roots and the remains of animals that died millennia ago, during the Pleistocene period, known as the planet’s most recent Ice Age.
Siberia is heating up around twice as quickly as other parts of the world. The rapid change is causing the frozen ground known as permafrost that coats about two-thirds of Russia to thaw for the first time in ages.
More From The Washington Post (subscription required):
Rss Feed