A Blessing and a Curse: Melting Permafrost in the Russian Arctic

Increasing warming and subsequent permafrost melt release methane stored in the ground, exacerbating climate change. This image shows the High Arctic Tundra in Northern Taimyr, Russia in July 1990. Photo: Peter Prokosch

Permafrost thaw is one of the world’s most pressing climate problems, already disrupting lifestyles, livelihoods, economies, and ecosystems in the north, and threatening to spill beyond the boundaries of the Arctic as our planet continues to warm. To examine the effects of permafrost degradation, and increase our understanding of what this phenomenon means for the future of the region (and the world), The Arctic Institute’s new two-part permafrost series aims to analyze the topic from scientific, security, legal, and personal perspectives.

The Arctic Institute Permafrost Series 2020

• Permafrost Thaw in a Warming World: The Arctic Institute’s Permafrost Series Fall-Winter 2020
• Takeaways from the Arctic Tundra
• Dwindling Arctic Sea Ice and Impacts to Permafrost Health
• Frozen-Ground Cartoons: A Multiform Innovative Project for Permafrost Science Communication and Outreach
• The Intersection of U.S. Military Infrastructure & Alaskan Permafrost Through the 21st Century
• When ‘Perma’ Is No Longer ‘Perma’: Investigating Permafrost Degradation in Churchill, Manitoba
• A Blessing and a Curse: Melting Permafrost in the Russian Arctic
• Carbon: Three Observations on Life, Death, and Uncertainty in the Permafrost
• Translating Newfound Permafrost Knowledge into Climate Action

The Arctic makes up 65 percent of the Russian landmass and the region drives the country’s economy: about 10 percent of the Russian GDP comes from the Arctic, where only 1.5 percent of the population lives. The recent environmental disaster in Norilsk, where a major fuel leak painted the nearby rivers blood-red, caused significant damage to the local ecosystem. According to scientists, it will take many years before the surrounding environment will recover. The Norilsk disaster uncovered Russia’s kryptonite – the Arctic is both the country’s most powerful asset and the most dangerous and fragile region. Permafrost thaw, accelerated by our warming climate, is threatening vital infrastructure in the area and may cause unprecedented environmental devastation. 

Russia has recently joined the ranks of the Arctic countries which have developed their own climate change adaptation plans. Yet the Russian government is lagging behind in its response to climate change risks. It was only in 2019 that the Russian government published its climate change adaptation plan after ratifying the Paris Agreement in September that year . This coincided with Putin’s changing views: during his annual conference in 2019, Putin changed his stance on climate change science compared to almost two decades ago, when at the International Conference on Climate Change he infamously stated that, “an increase of two or three degrees wouldn’t be so bad for a northern country like Russia. We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up.”

While it is true that there are certain economic benefits that climate change would bring with it to the Russian Arctic, such as ice-free navigation via the Northern Sea Route, increased warming in the region might turn the Russian Arctic from a blessing into a curse. The Arctic is warming two times faster than the rest of the world. Now that the tundra is ablaze, the country whose economic prosperity depends on its northern lands needs to speed up its adaptation preparedness. 

Multiple studies point to the fact that warming climate and the subsequent permafrost degradation will give rise to geocryological hazards. Infrastructure in the Russian Arctic (buildings, oil and gas pipelines, roads, heat-supply networks, electricity transmission lines, etc.) has been designed to withstand a certain range of external weather conditions. However, changes that were not considered in past engineering practices, such as polar amplification, whereby the Arctic warms twice as much as the rest of the planet, can cause significant damage to the infrastructure and engineering structures, causing deformation and structural failure. Already, there are approximately 35,000 incidents on major oil and gas pipelines in Western Siberia per year, 21 percent of which are linked to loss of stability and deformation of foundations. 

According to a model of geocryological damage in the permafrost-covered regions in Russia, the areas most at risk from permafrost degradation include Chukotka, southeastern Yakutia, West-Siberian plain, Kara Sea coast and Novaya Zemlya among others. These regions have a well-developed oil and gas infrastructure, nuclear stations and radioactive waste storage areas. This is of concern as temperature increase and the subsequent rise in ground temperatures in the Arctic would lead to a reduction in bearing capacity of the structural foundations i.e. the ability of frozen ground to carry structural loads will be reduced. This can potentially increase the incidence of Natech disasters, whereby technological incidents are triggered by a natural hazard, resulting in the release of hazardous substances. Although permafrost melt is a slow-onset event and is not considered to be a natural hazard, its ramifications can indeed be disastrous. The Norilsk disaster this year is a case in point: Nornickel blamed the incident on melting permafrost beneath the tank’s supporting pillars which caused the tank to crack, leading to a diesel spill. 

By 2050, it is estimated that 20 percent of commercial and industrial structures and 19 percent of critical infrastructure representing 84.4 billion US dollars, and 54 percent of residential buildings with a total cost of 20.7 billion US dollars in Russia will be negatively impacted by permafrost degradation. Mitigation measures to address the negative impacts of permafrost degradation would cost Russia between 0.1 to >3 percent of its GDP under various scenarios. Despite high economic stakes, the Russian government is treading lightly towards implementing its climate change adaptation plan. The plan bears mostly a prescriptive character: for instance, it includes a development of a sectoral plan for adaptation to climate change in the Russian Arctic in 2022. However, ultimately, the plan leaves it up to the regional governments to adapt to the Arctic warming and permafrost degradation. 

Most of Russia’s climate change adaptation measures will be developed and published by 2023, and currently there are no specific targets in place to mitigate the consequences of the warming Arctic and address the issue of permafrost degradation. By contrast, northern countries with Arctic territories such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark published and adopted their climate change adaptation plans in the early 2010s. Russia’s laggard approach to Arctic climate change will not spare the country’s infrastructure – as the clock is ticking, the permafrost is melting.

Maria Polovtseva is a recent graduate with a master’s in international oil and gas business from Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).