Stanford Team Develops Tech To Allow Far More Accurate Surveys Of Permafrost Melt
A Stanford geophysicist and his colleagues have developed a new system that should aid scientists trying to map the Arctic's thawing permafrost, where greenhouse gases are escaping into the atmosphere from deep beneath the frozen soil.
Those gases speed the pace of global warming, and climate scientists working in the Arctic's icy ground need to understand their sources and how those sources are spreading as the world's climate changes.
The Stanford scientists report that the water-detecting tool they've created can reveal how the thawing permafrost creates deep pools of underground meltwater where organic matter has long been decomposing and generating methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Arctic veterans say the new technique will prove a valuable addition to their toolkit as they try to understand more details of what contributes to the planet's changing climate. Andrew Parsekian, a Stanford geophysicist, and his team of scientists have adapted a widely used hospital imaging system for their technique, and successfully used it to map hidden pools of meltwater inside the permafrost beneath two small Arctic lakes.
EDIT
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Stanford-Arctic-thawing-detection-tool-4247558.php
