Prof. Merritt Turetsky, a permafrost expert from the University of Guelph’s Department of Integrative Biology, appeared on the CBC Radio show The Current on May 6.

The segment included community leaders from the North who are already seeing the effects of permafrost thaw. They discussed the changes occurring in their towns and surrounding landscape. Turetsky then explained some of the science behind permafrost thaw.

The full segment is on The Current’s website.

The journal Nature recently published a commentary from Turetsky on the problem of rapid permafrost thaw, which she said is causing large carbon releases, changing forests into lakes and wetlands, altering wildlife habitat and disrupting northern ways of living.

Turetsky recently received more than $570,000 in federal funding to study permafrost vulnerability to thawing under climate change in the Northwest Territories. She will work with Prof. Aaron Berg, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, and government scientists to develop better tools to assess permafrost changes and likely impacts on communities in the North.