MAINTAINING ASSET INTEGRITY IN CONTINUOUS PERMAFROST REGIONS 8

A warming environment is a threat to infrastructure built on permafrost. Darren Hughes from Concrete Canvas explains how Concrete on a Roll could help When considering land area, around a quarter of the northern hemisphere has continuous permafrost, that is 23 million km2 where the ground is frozen all year round. This phenomenon is widespread in the Arctic regions of Siberia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska, and even on the floor of the Arctic Ocean as undersea permafrost. The definition of permafrost can be quite complex, but a simple way to think of it is as a layer of soil, rocks and sand that are bound together by ice. The ground will stay frozen all year round and after two consecutive years, it is described as permafrost. When the temperature of the permafrost rises above freezing, it may thaw. These changes can be studied and enable scientists to understand changes in Earth’s climate over time. It is currently thought that Earth’s permafrost warmed by 6°C during the 20th century and this trend is expected to continue through the next century. PROBLEMS OF THAWING PERMAFROST Soil that is frozen and thawed contributes to a large number of environmental processes. Frost...