the.com/permafrost
Ground that pinky-promised to stay frozen forever, then met climate change.
means A layer of soil or rock that has stayed below freezing for at least two consecutive years, often for millennia.
from A 20th-century blend coined by scientists smashing together 'permanent' and 'frost' — a no-nonsense compound built for a no-nonsense phenomenon. The term entered English in the 1940s, largely through research into Arctic and subarctic ground conditions, including Soviet and North American studies of frozen subsoil. No myth here, just geologists needing a word as blunt as the ice itself.
- depth record
- Some Siberian permafrost runs over 1.5 kilometers deep
- carbon bomb
- Holds roughly twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere
- zombie microbes
- Thaw revives bacteria and viruses frozen for millennia
- name trap
- Permafrost can still have unfrozen soil wobbling above it