Name: [ES Subs] ScienceCast 109 | The "Sleeping Giant" in Arctic Permafrost HD
Uploaded: 2013-11-29T18:19:50.000Z
Duration: 4 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The 'Sleeping Giant' in Arctic Permafrost

above the pristine terrain of Alaska's North Slope

and the mysterious object reveals itself to be a massive herd

puts what we're doing here in the Arctic into perspective' says Miller

who is on a five-year mission named 'CARVE'

to study how climate change is affecting the Arctic's carbon cycle.

for the 'Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment.'

the airborne campaign is testing the hypothesis that

Arctic carbon reservoirs are vulnerable to warming

while delivering the first source-maps of greenhouse gases

'The Arctic is critical to understanding global climate' says Miller.

'Climate change is already happening in the Arctic

is like looking at the canary in the coal mine

arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon -

an estimated 1400 to 1850 billion metric tons of it.

That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon

have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion

may not be as permanent as its name implies.

'Permafrost soils are warming even faster than Arctic air temperatures -

'As heat from Earth's surface penetrates into permafrost

that mobilize these organic carbon reservoirs

and greatly exacerbating global warming.'

are conducted aboard a specially instrumented NASA C-23 Sherpa aircraft

the pilots and crew wear noise-cancelling headphones to communicate.

it's like being at a NASCAR race' Miller quipped.

But what the C-23 lacks in beauty and quiet

and its ability to fly 'down in the mud.'

it flies about 150 meters above ground level

with periodic ascents to higher altitudes

sophisticated instruments sniff the atmosphere for greenhouse gases.

[We] need to fly very close to the surface in the Arctic

to capture the interesting exchanges of carbon

taking place between Earth's surface and atmosphere' Miller says.

they have completed three monthly campaigns-

interior and Yukon River Valley over tundra

permafrost boreal forests peatlands and wetlands.

Miller has seen many things he won't forget.

For more news from the ends of the Earth-and-beyonds-

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[ES Subs] ScienceCast 109 | The "Sleeping Giant" in Arctic Permafrost HD

warm

plane

fast

nearer