June 22, 2017

New Studies on Thermokarst


Thermokarst and associated landforms have always been the subject of intensive research at MPI. Early studies of thermokarst terrain in central and northern Yakutia by Evgeny Katasonov, Felix Are and Petr Solovyev provided a valuable basis for further studies which are continued today by the MPI’s Laboratory of Permafrost Landscapes in cooperation with colleagues in Germany, France, Japan and the USA. With global climate change, it becomes increasingly important to understand the evolution of permafrost landscapes and its socio-economic effects.

A recent article in the journal Anthropocene titled "Permafrost livelihoods: A transdisciplinary review and analysis of thermokarst-based systems of indigenous land use" by Susan Crate, Mathias Ulrich, J. Otto Habeck, Aleksey R. Desyatkin, Roman V. Desyatkin, Aleksander N. Fedorov, Tetsuya Hiyama and Yoshihiro Iijima focuses on Sakha (Yakut) animal husbandry as an example of indigenous land use. The article is a result of the joint activity of the IPA Action Group "Permafrost and Culture". It is freely available following this link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305416301060.

Joint studies are now being planned in cooperation with the University of Southhampton, UK. Prof. Mary Edwards visited MPI from June 11-16, 2017 to discuss plans for thermokarst investigations using remote sensing and modeling. The themes will be landscape resilience and community response to increasing thermokarst. Photo (top): Prof. M. Edwards observing a thaw lake near Yakutsk.


Mary Edwards 2017

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