2019-09-01_National_Geographic_Interactive

(vip2019) #1
Sergey Zimov, right,
and his son, Nikita, run
an Arctic research sta-
tion in Cherskiy, Russia,
along the Kolyma River.
The elder Zimov first
figured out that perma-
frost stores far more
carbon than scientists
once thought. Some
of it is now escaping as
temperatures rise.

SERGEY ZIMOV, AN ECOLOGIST BY


training, tossed a woolly mammoth


bone on the pile. He was squatting in


mud along the cool, wide Kolyma River,


below a towering cliff of crumbling


earth. It was summer in eastern Siberia,


far above the Arctic Circle, in that part


of Russia that’s closer to Alaska than to


Moscow. There wasn’t a speck of frost


or snow in sight. Yet at this cliff, called


Duvanny Yar, the Kolyma had chewed


through and exposed what lies beneath:


a layer of frozen ground, or permafrost,


that is hundreds of feet deep—and warm-


ing fast. ¶ Twigs, other plant matter, and


Ice Age animal parts—bison jaws, horse


femurs, mammoth bones—spilled onto


a beach that sucked at Zimov’s boots. “I


love Duvanny Yar,” he said as he yanked


fossils from the muck. “It is like a book.


Each page is a story about the history of


nature.” ¶ Across nine million square


miles at the top of the planet, climate


change is writing a new chapter. Arctic


permafrost isn’t thawing gradually, as


78 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

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