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"The building has rocked about 42 centimeters" in two years, he said activist Yakutsk, the capital of Sakha, a region of Siberia deemed to be the coldest on the planet.
"But it may be more inclined, "he adds, as the workers try to solve the problem at -35 ° C
These are numerous in this city of 300,000 inhabitants: made of panels of concrete fixed on pillars to provide ventilation under the building and thus prevent the heating of permafrost.
These frozen soils cover about 65% of all soils. Russia and almost all Sakha, which borders the Arctic Ocean and whose territory is five times to France
Mineral layer cemented by ice, the permafrost is stable only if the water is cold. If the temperature increases too much, it can melt and cause the collapse of permafrost and all it contains: roads and houses, lakes and fertile land.
Cracks
The people of Yakutsk, the largest city in the world built on permafrost, are particularly concerned about the risk of melting ice. Most of the city's multi-story buildings built by the USSR were not designed to withstand climate change.
In the 1960s, legislation required that six-meter-long beams be built in mbadive permafrost, which is now insufficient, according to Eduard Romanov.
Some residences had to be demolished because they became very dangerous.
"All Yakutsk are in danger: the owners can lose their property and no one is prepared," Romanov explains.
"They are filled with cracks that the inhabitants are trying to seal in order to protect themselves from the cold.
It is estimated that Russia warms up 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world.
The inhabitants of Yakutsk say that, 20 years ago, clbades could be suspended for weeks when the temperature was below -55 ° C. At that time, children were playing hockey.
These temperatures are rarely attained today. According to Mikhail Grigoriev, deputy director of the Russian Institute of Permafrost in Yakutsk, the thermometer averaged 2.5 degrees Celsius, the only center in the world dedicated to this phenomenon.
Related risks
In its annual report, the Ministry of the Environment of Russia admitted that permafrost degradation poses serious risks to the population and to nature, jeopardizing infrastructure such as water supply and sanitation. 39; water , pipes and storage structures for chemical, biological and biological products.
In Yakutsk, "critical" global warming, according to Griogriev, could put the city at risk in the coming decades.
Melting permafrost can also accelerate the spread of pollutants. especially if the old pipes of the Soviet buildings leak and accelerate the thaw.
What worries Gregoriev is the permafrost located in the south, which mainly crosses western Siberia, rich in petrl and the soil is less cold, uniform and thick, and global warming can "confuse deformations of buildings", [19659005] At the Institute, scientists and engineers develop building techniques and ways to keep the ground frozen when the temperature rises.
One method already available is to install vertical refrigerator tubes around buildings to keep the soil cool
Obsolete Act
However, permafrost protection techniques are costly and the legislation It is not adapted to climate change, does not force them to be applied, regrets Vladimir Prokopiev, regional deputy of Sakha.
The effects are clearly visible, however, the Russian coast accelerates and Sakha loses control.
This year, the region was the first to pbad legislation to protect permafrost.
The crucial question, especially given that Russia wants to develop the regiotic. Despite pressure from Sakha, Moscow has yet to adopt any measures at the national level.
When founding, the cold soils of permafrost threaten to escape Forgotten viruses and billions of tons of greenhouse gases blocked for thousands of years
Permafrost is a year-round frozen ground that covers 25% of the Earth's land surface. Northern hemisphere, particularly in Russia, Canada, and Alaska, may consist of small ice fragments or large mbades and may range in thickness from a few meters to several hundred
. 1.7 tonnes of carbon, almost double the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the permafrost warms up and begins to melt e, releasing as have been neutralized. The phenomenon, according to scientists, must accelerate.
Acceleration of global warming
Thawing of permafrost j is already jeopardizing the goal, announced by the Paris agreement, of limiting global warming to less than 1.5ºC compared to was pre-industrial, according to a study published in September.
Scientists describe a vicious circle: Permafrost gas accelerates warming, accelerating melting of permafrost.
By 2100, the latter could, according to the least catastrophic scenario, reduce by 30% and release up to 160 billion tons of greenhouse gases, warned Susan Holder of the Woods Hole research center in 2015.
In addition to the climatic effects, the melting of permafrost, which sometimes contains bacteria and viruses, also poses a threat to health.
In 2016, a boy died in Siberia after being infected with anthrax, which was not 75 years old in the region.
For scientists, the cause was probably the thaw of a reindeer corpse victim of anthrax several decades ago. Deadly and lethal bacteria, preserved in permafrost for more than a century, have infected reindeer herds.
The threat is not limited to anthrax. Scientists have discovered that in recent years, two types of giant viruses, a 30,000-year-old virus, have been preserved in permafrost.
In the tropics, thawed permafrost has become more accessible to the mining and oil industry. predict that some viruses might wake up one day if the man removes the soil too much.
Finally, thawing permafrost also causes costly material damage: building collapses, landslides, roads and landing strips at unstable airports. According to a 2009 report by Greenpeace, Russian companies spent 1.3 billion euros a year repairing distorted pipes, buildings and bridges in Siberia.
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