Climate change thawing permafrost in Northern Canada

holster Coppola NOSSA cidade permafrost what do you do you can't insulate the whole North as Canada's permafrost continues to thaw it is affecting Arctic communities and the long ribbon of roadway connecting them to the rest of the country and that as many who live there deeply concerned as part of our CBC News series in our backyard the National Susan ormiston traveled into northern Canada to see what climate change means for towns and the crucial infrastructure that keeps them going and as she discovered while the effects might manifest slowly they are quite literally moving the ground beneath people's feet hidden inside an historic church above the Arctic Circle is a story of our warming climate be careful watch your step low ceiling as well and dark parishioner Joe leboy offered to show us what you normally can't see I've been here for over 30 years and in never seen a problem until these last five years of course you can see all the poles that have fallen down and if you look to that side you see the gap underneath the the blocking yeah and the post oh yeah right it's blocked and reblocked several times one time it was a funeral service going on there was approximately 200 people attending and the floor was shimming shaking pretty bad and so after the service I asked father if we could we should maybe come take a look and about 50 percent of these posts were down the igloo Church as it's called was built on top of thick layers of earth and solid ice but that concealed permafrost is now thawing threatening the church's foundation Joe standing here you can even see it's kind of clean right yes I'd say probably it's a Donald downloaded slope of three to four inches minimum maybe even more Wow yeah I could roll a marble here you sure don't want it to collapse absolutely not yeah for sure that would be a real tragedy the Inuvialuit have been living on ice for centuries but the town Inuvik was only incorporated in 1961 tradition is baked into their culture just like the certainty of 24-hour sunlight in summer and a dark frozen landscape in winter but ask anyone here the Western Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else in Canada mean temperatures rising a staggering three and a half degrees over 50 years most of the Western Arctic is underpinned by icy permafrost and as it degrades it's causing all kinds of challenges the climate is not just warmer here it's wetter we're motoring up a branch of the Mackenzie River which in winter is a nice highway Chris Byrne has been coming up here for 36 years he's professor of geography at Carleton University and works with the Aurora Research Institute Byrne wanted to show us the dramatic changes in the caribou hills at an old camp called reindeer station first we have to navigate the landing there's about 90 metres of permafrost below us here and some of that is thawing the top of that is thawing years ago this was a Hudson's Bay Trading Post solidly built like everything else on buried ice but that scar in the hill was recently carved by a landslide after heavy rain at the end of a summer the warming earth simply gave way the only one that night no no no there's 87 other landslides from that night in in about 17 kilometers of hillsides so is a phenomenal event this is a remote retreat now no one lives here permanently but the changing geography is the same in populated areas we have to figure out what we're going to do in the future and we have no basis to believe that this will not will not continue it won't stop now so then when we make an investment in a building which is meant to last 50 years if in 15 years it's no good we've wasted a huge amount of resources Inuvik is adapting an above-ground sewer system is being retrofitted flexible space frames prop up some housing but it is patchwork back in the 60s when Inuvik was built permafrost seemed a more reliable solid coal it was Prime Minister John Diefenbaker dreams a northern road linking southern Canada to the Arctic a road to resources the Dempster Highway finally opened in 1979 a construction marvel over 700 kilometers of tundra but every year it costs more to upgrade the highway climate change over the last 15 years has pushed up cost by the millions it's kind of like the lifeblood of the Western Arctic Steve Coppell is with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey he's been up and down the Dempster for a decade the Dempster highway is built pretty much entirely over permafrost terrain so the frozen ground beneath the road embankment provides a foundation for the embankment and the actual road itself has a frozen core but this plateau is warmer and wetter now and the highway is showing fatigue so clearly Steve the Dempster is falling off here there's a big hole in the side of the road yeah this is a location we have slope where water is collecting along the side of the road and the combination of warming climate the impact of the road and the moisture is causing the underlying ice rich permafrost to thaw and as that ice rich permafrost thaws the ground consolidates or settles proportional to how much ice there is in the ground and this is one of the consequences of that now you told me that across here this happened on the other side of the road first yeah Eve explains that load after load of gravel has been dumped into this subsidence just to keep the highway open but it keeps sliding off leading to a key question do we fix it or do we start to adapt differently yeah I mean I think that's that's a really interesting and important discussion it really fascitis or highlights the need to start to think innovatively about the solutions because these types of phenomena are but going to become more and more commonplace he's not finished our permafrost lesson a few kilometers down the road we clamber up to a high ridge this whole area here is developed over the last couple years that's which is very very rapid the head wall here has been carved out exposing a wide band of ice so the bottom five to eight meters is all ice so that's what's going that's exactly what's thought yeah constant thawing is creating a gully of mud pushing toward the Dempster highway which in time could compromise the road we've had this debris tongue that's grown about a hundred and fifty meters towards the road that that's developed in the last two years Canada's permafrost problem has become a hot research environment a recent Senate report identified northern infrastructure as an urgent priority the challenge is luring international scientists and students like this University team on a field trip to study the ice under the tundra traveling further north on a new highway we head towards Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea I made it to tuck as a traveler's badge of honor but this Hamlet has become a climate change crucible going forward we just were just not building anywhere near the coast anymore we're slowly moving our infrastructure inland Mervyn Grubin the mayor of tuck grew up here out on the point grubens ancestors are buried now perilously close to the sea the cemeteries vulnerable with more erosion it could fall into the ocean but moving graves is a last resort what do you do you can't insulate the whole north the dual threats of rising seas and thawing permafrost are undeniable to Sandy Adam a homeowner in Tucker you could see their land eroding his house is exposed right near the rocky edge in 50 years he's watched that Coast steadily erode for outdid the shoreline go right to about the middle of the ocean I mean where the open waters that's how far the land used to be here it's really happening facets we've got no time to waste what do you fear I fear that my house cannot fall into the ocean his house is on an emergency list to be moved inland five others already have yeah I guess they gotta move me gotta move me I don't want to go but can't be helped why don't you want to go I'm used to living at the point no cooler come from the ocean on it's summertime and you don't get as much bugs as inland better out here coastal erosion could cost Tuktoyaktuk up to 50 million dollars a budget it doesn't have environmental in astir Catherine McKenna on a recent trip to tuk was pressed to increase support for climate change costs so one of the things they say here is look we've studied this enough we've lived it we can't afford the infrastructure changes that are happening in the Arctic well I mean we've started we've already made investments and continued to make investments but we are gonna have to rethink how we build things and how do we build resilient infrastructure we're going to need to work together and also really try to imagine what the future is going to be like so that you know that communities are resilient to the impacts of climate change in this land of pingos and permafrost change has already come Susan ormiston CBC News Tuktoyaktuk

Channel: CBC News: The National

Views: 144,846

Keywords: Climate change, climate, change, environment, permafrost, thaw, arctic, north, northern canada, melt, warming, community, impact, shifting ground, In Our Backyard, CBC, The National, Susan Ormiston

Id: R8ynabSmGGs

Length: 12min 34sec (754 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2019