Keeling Curve

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Due to global warming, permafrost is thawing. These permafrost soils make up almost 25 % of the earth’s land surface area and contain 1600 billion tons of carbon, which would be released into the atmosphere if thawed and would lead to a climate catastrophe. The permafrost soils are known to be the world largest inland storage of carbon. The highest carbon carrying capacity of soils is in the northern regions, where low decomposition allows building up to a 100kgC/m2. Modern Arctic vegetation is low productive and doesn’t form big and deep root systems, so the accumulation of a soil carbon pool is very slow. The Pleistocene & Permafrost Foundation supports the building of the Pleistocene Park. The Park is in the north-eastern Siberia Permafrost/Yedoma-Region close to the town of Chersky and covers an area of 144 km2. Yedoma Soils are a special kind of organic rich permafrost soils, which store carbon at an above average level. You can find these Yedoma soils beside Siberia also in Alaska and Canada, so this project can be scaled up.

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The concept is to convert dwarf shrubs and widow tundra into a highly productive grazing ecosystems, which sequesters carbon in form of organic matter in the permafrost soils due to a far better root system. In the restored pasture ecosystems rapidly growing grasses and herbs maintain a strong flow of carbon from the atmosphere to the leaves and this guarantees a more efficient binding of CO2 from the atmosphere. To make this process sustainable, a sustainable ecosystem is needed where the domination of grasses and herbs will be supported by big herds of animals. Herbivores, like bison, reindeers, camels, and musk ox are reintroduced. The roaming large herbivores alter and disrupt the insulating snow layer in winter by trampling and grazing, causing the ground to freeze more intensively and thereby restore the permafrost. As a result, permafrost temperatures remain permanently below the critical -4°C level and the thawing of the permafrost stopped. In addition, northern grazing ecosystems provide numerous climatic benefits, like cooling of climate through the albedo effect, preservation of 1000+ Gton permafrost carbon pool and reduction of the methane emissions. Such ecosystems existed for millions of years, in different climatic conditions and on most of the continents. This project means to restore this functionality so that it will become independent of human activity. With this project we are already able to avoid the emission of 130.000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

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The thawing of the permafrost causes the ground to slump away. This poses a major problem for affected communities and industries. Since the foundations of houses, roads, electricity towers, critical infrastructure, etc. are no longer stable, this causes enormous damage. These areas will become increasingly difficult for communities to live on and will eventually lead to a loss of livelihood. If no action is taken, the grounds will become inhabitable. 
Secondly, bacteria and viruses are present in the permafrost, which have been stored there for thousands of years.  With further thawing of the permafrost these unknown viruses and bacteria will be released, and possibly threaten animals and humans. This may lead to further global pandemics like COVID-19. In 2016 we already experienced an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia which led to several deaths of animals but luckily, due to the remoteness of the location a further spread of the disease could be prevented. 
Furthermore, in these areas many of the existing animals are listed as endangered or threatened, such as the Wood Bison. With our project we target to bring back these kinds of animals and in doing so, contributing to their persistence on this planet.

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