Arctic Permafrost: The Carbon Problem Nobody's Tracking
- yanabijoor
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
The Problem
Frozen Arctic soil (permafrost) is thawing and releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This creates a dangerous loop: warming melts the permafrost, which releases more greenhouse gases, which in turn causes more warming.
The Arctic is heating up three times faster than the rest of the planet. As the ground thaws, two crises emerge: Arctic communities are losing their homes as the land beneath them becomes unstable, and the released carbon is making climate change worse worldwide.
The biggest issue? Climate scientists aren't tracking these emissions. There aren’t enough monitoring stations in the Arctic, so we can't measure how much carbon is escaping. That means our global climate models are missing a major piece of the puzzle.
The Solution
Woodwell Climate Research Center, based in Massachusetts, has launched the Permafrost Pathways initiative, which has three components:
Scientific monitoring:Â Collecting detailed data across the Arctic to predict how fast permafrost is thawing and how much carbon it is releasing.
Policy integration:Â Turning their research into actual climate policies that governments can use.
Community adaptation:Â Working directly with Alaska Native communities to create fair climate solutions that protect their homes and give them a voice in decisions.
Why It's Innovative?
Indigenous Knowledge Integration:Â Woodwell combines scientific data with knowledge from Indigenous communities who have lived on this land for generations. For example, it is building a flood prediction model that uses both satellite sensors and on-the-ground observations from Native partners who observe land changes firsthand.
Strategic Data Gaps: Instead of trying to monitor everywhere, they use satellite images to identify the most important places to install monitoring equipment—focusing on areas in Siberia and northern Canada where data is most needed.
AI and Deep Learning:Â In 2023, Google.org awarded Woodwell $5 million to develop a free tool that uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to track permafrost thaw in real time.
The Impact
Scientific Breakthrough: In 2024, Woodwell scientist Dr. Anna Virkkala made a major discovery: the Arctic tundra is now releasing more carbon than it absorbs. For decades, the Arctic absorbed carbon from the atmosphere. Now it's doing the opposite—a finding that changes everything we thought we knew about future climate change.
Infrastructure Growth:Â In 2024, Woodwell installed four new monitoring towers in Canada and Alaska to measure carbon emissions. They also helped upgrade existing towers in Canada and Russia.
Policy Legacy:Â Woodwell has been influential in climate policy for decades. The organization helped draft the UN's climate change framework in the late 1980s and was named the world's top climate think tank for 4 years in a row (2013-2016).
What Needs to Improve?
Funding Sustainability: Woodwell runs on a relatively small budget. When MacKenzie Scott donated $10 million in 2025, it highlighted how underfunded climate research institutions are—even the leading ones.
Scale of the Monitoring Network: The Arctic is enormous, and Woodwell's monitoring stations cover only a tiny fraction of it. Even with new towers, there are huge gaps in the data they can collect.
Policy Translation Gap:Â Woodwell's research is solid, but it's not translating into action. Permafrost emissions are still left out of most countries' climate plans, meaning the science isn't influencing policy as it should.
Community Adaptation Resources: Arctic communities don't just need help studying the problem—they need money and resources to actually protect their homes and adapt to the changes happening now. Right now, most funding goes to research and planning, not implementation.
Woodwell's work shows what's possible when scientists partner with Arctic communities to tackle a major climate problem. But good science isn't enough. To actually address permafrost thaw, we need more funding, more monitoring stations, and most importantly, governments must start counting permafrost emissions in their climate plans.
Right now, Arctic communities are watching their land sink beneath them. The carbon locked in permafrost is already escaping into the atmosphere. The only question left is whether we'll act fast enough to make a difference.
Sources:Â