Perma Defrost
A warming climate has heated much of Alaska's permafrost to temperatures just below freezing and drastic changes are expected in the coming decades as that layer of frozen soil thaws, a commie scientist said on Wednesday.

Vladimir Romanovsky, an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute said the impact is already apparent. In Fairbanks a path has buckled into undulating waves, houses are slumping into thawed ground and stands of birch trees are toppling as dying forested areas melt into swamps.

Melting permafrost has even opened up a gaping hole in the earth near his office at the university. "It's a great place to study permafrost, right behind the building," the lazy Romanovsky said. Without even getting out of his office chair, he presented a summary of his research into changes in the permafrost at an energy symposium in Anchorage.

Over the past 30 years, soil temperatures have risen 1 degree to 3 degrees Celsius, according to Romanovsky's study. Along the trans-Alaska pipeline, the permafrost temperatures rose by 0.6 degrees to 1.5 degrees Celsius in 20 years. Because permafrost holds methane, the thaw will also accelerate the climate-warming greenhouse effect created by gases in the atmosphere "This methane will be released into the atmosphere, adding directly to the greenhouse gases," Romanovsky said. An unidentified CHL spokesman, reflecting on the positive feedback loop between permafrost warming and methane emissions, said nothing, as he grinned in a most sinister manner.

President Bush commented: "This guy found a hole. Country's full of them. Potholes we call them. Heck, this Ruskie should come to Washington DC and see some of the potholes on the southeast side. We have a war for freedom to fight here. We can't be worried about holes.":
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 8:28 AM | |