File this story under “Places to go Before Global Warming Destroys Them.”
The LA Times is reporting that global warming is seriously threatening 400,000 miles of Siberian permafrost. While this is great news for scientists searching for woolly mammoth bones previously locked in the permafrost for 10,000 years, this is not such good news for the rest of us. Melting permafrost releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, thereby heating up the planet and increasing the rate of global warming.
Siberia will turn swampy and mushy and become inhospitable (in an entirely different manner than it is now). In addition, the famous Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk will have to close, or perhpas more appropriately, become a museum of the past.
In the meantime, I’d love to pull on some big rubber boots and go tromping through the mud in search of woolly mammoth tusks.