The Permafrost globally has been deteriorating for years. Yale is finding a more sustained length of these fires. Permafrost is carbon-intensive. When they burn it is damaging to the climate in ways other fires are not. I remember how the Alaskan Pipeline had to invent new supports for the pipe through these lands. They had to invent support that was as cold at the base as the Permafrost so they didn't sink into the land hence destroying it. The base of the support was refrigerating the Permafrost.
During warm months, (click here) wildfires can burn across Arctic tundra. When fall arrives, cooler, wetter weather usually helps extinguish the fires. But some only appear to be gone. Despite the blanket of winter snow, they reemerge in spring – returning to life like zombies.
Jessica McCarty is director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University in Ohio.
She says a zombie fire can occur when wildfire burns in peatlands, areas that are covered with a carbon-rich layer of dead plants. The fire gets so hot that it burrows down into the peat and moves underground, even after the surface fire is extinguished.
“So that when spring melt occurs, it dries out the soil above it and allows the fire to reemerge on the surface,” McCarty says.
She says zombie fires are a growing risk as the climate warms.
“As permafrost thaws, as more Arctic peatland dries out … there’ll just be more fuel for them to burn,” McCarty says. “So the likelihood of them does increase for that reason.”
These fires are hard to find and monitor in the Arctic because of harsh winter weather. So, like their namesake, zombie fires are difficult to kill.
Jessica McCarty is director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University in Ohio.
She says a zombie fire can occur when wildfire burns in peatlands, areas that are covered with a carbon-rich layer of dead plants. The fire gets so hot that it burrows down into the peat and moves underground, even after the surface fire is extinguished.
“So that when spring melt occurs, it dries out the soil above it and allows the fire to reemerge on the surface,” McCarty says.
She says zombie fires are a growing risk as the climate warms.
“As permafrost thaws, as more Arctic peatland dries out … there’ll just be more fuel for them to burn,” McCarty says. “So the likelihood of them does increase for that reason.”
These fires are hard to find and monitor in the Arctic because of harsh winter weather. So, like their namesake, zombie fires are difficult to kill.
It is amazing to realize the moral content in which the USA conducted itself when the land was actually important. We were that country once. Land mattered, its preservation mattered and scientists' words actually carried brevity.
Ecology. Earth Day. Endangered Species Act. Clean Air Act. Clean Water Act. They all were required vocabulary words in the USA. What the heck happened?
Art Lachenbruch (click here) was a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California, when he first caught wind of the Trans-Alaska pipeline project. Lachenbruch was an expert in permafrost, the rock-like layer of frozen soil just below the thin, insulated cover of soil and vegetation. In December 1970, he released a study in which he explained the damage a hot pipe would inflict upon the permafrost. At a temperature of 158 to 176 degrees, the oil in the pipe would thaw a cylindrical area 20 to 30 feet in diameter within a decade. The thawing would cause damage not only to the pipe, but also to the landscape. It's legend at the USGS that Lachenbruch's conversation with Tailleur -- in the office men's room -- led to the complete redesign of the pipeline....
...Across 420 miles of the pipeline's route, where the permafrost was unstable and the pipe could not be buried, the engineers designed vertical support members (VSM). These H-shaped pilings elevate the pipe several feet above the ground. The pipe is placed in a Teflon-coated steel shoe that sits on top of the crossbeam. This allows the pipe to slide sideways as it expands (when it's hot) and contracts (when it's cold). In particularly sensitive areas where the permafrost hovers just above the freezing temperature, the engineers added a passive refrigeration system. At those sites, each VSM was equipped with a pair of tubes that sit inside the VSM and descend into the ground. The tubes are filled with anhydrous ammonia, which absorbs the heat, releases it in to the air and then circulates back into the ground.
Buried Pipe with Refrigeration
For four miles of the route, neither the conventional buried method nor the elevated one was possible. At these locations, pipe had to be buried in the permafrost to avoid getting in the way of the highway or animal migration as well as a precaution against rockslides and avalanches. These stretches of pipe got their own refrigeration system. The pipe sits on two six-inch coolant pipes. Refrigerated brine is circulated through these lines, powered by electric motors that are housed in a nearby building, which also contains a heat exchanger that removes the heat from the coolant to the outside air. The brine goes into the ground at 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit and comes out at 18-21 degrees Fahrenheit, absorbing a significant amount of heat from the oil in the pipeline.
