Kiara Kearns, January 19, 2020, Blog : Russia  

The current article I found takes place in Russia and is authored by Neil MacFarquhar. I found this article on NYtimes.com and chose it because I found the topic very interesting and feel it very much relates to Geography.  

The geographic aspects I found in the news story, Russian Land of Permafrost and Mammoths Is Thawing, include: shrinking ground, global warming, permafrost, land movement, and thawing of the ground.

This article discusses the impact thawing permafrost has on the land and how it is deforming the landscape. It begins by introducing a lab assistant that discovered a part of a wolf that had been, as the text states, “preserved in the permafrost, 65 feet underground in Yakutia in northeastern Siberia' (para 4). This wolf is just one of many animals has emerged from the frozen ground recently at an alarming rate. Although, the loss of the permafrost does more than resurface previously frozen animals. It is causing the land to move and change, floods, and the coast line to vanish into the rising water levels and shrink. The text continues on to explain that while researchers in the capital are looking into it, the government does not show much concern.  

Why is the previously frozen ground warming so quickly? MacFarquhar explains this is due to the rising temperatures in the remote region. Paragraph 17 informs us that “the average annual temperature in Yakutsk has risen more than four degrees.' This temperature difference has also affected the migration of birds in the area, the natural migration routes of reindeer, and the plants that find a home in the woods. Lastly, the permafrost is causing the terrain to sink into swamps, lakes, craters, and hummocks (para 32).  

Here’s a link to the article for a very interesting read!  

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/world/europe/russia-siberia-yakutia-permafrost-global-warming.amp.html