Researchers and engineers flock to Yukon to witness the thawing of permafrost live

Kathrin Maier, a doctoral student in environmental engineering, studies the subsidence of permafrost due to thaws, but before this week she had never seen the phenomenon up close.

Maier, who works at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, is one of the delegates in Whitehorse this week at the International Permafrost Conference. She said she was excited to be in “permafrost territory.”

“I’ve never experienced a Thaw Massacre in my life and it’s only a 30-minute drive (away), so I think it’s an incredible opportunity to have it here and to really see in person the things we’re researching,” she said.

“Especially if you’re doing remote sensing and don’t normally go out into the field.”

The international conference takes place every four years and is being held in Canada for the first time since 1998. It brings together scientists, engineers and rural residents to discuss the latest research on permafrost thawing and adaptation.

“We wanted to bring the international community to the north, to a place where they can see people living in permafrost and where they can see the changes that are currently taking place in the permafrost environment,” said conference chair Lukas Arenson, a Vancouver-based consulting engineer.

The event, which began on Sunday and runs through Thursday, will include oral presentations as well as online discussions for those unable to attend in person.

“The permafrost… the frozen ground brings us together,” Arenson said.

Arenson said it was important to organize field trips as part of the conference to find evidence of environmental changes.

A drone image of a permafrost incursion near the Alaska Highway, northwest of Whitehorse, in 2023. The territorial government said last year the highway would be relocated away from the incursion. (Fabrice Calmels/Yukon University)

In the Yukon, thawing permafrost has long posed a threat to infrastructure such as buildings and roads. Just west of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway, a permafrost collapse has recently threatened part of the highway as it slowly approaches the road.

The regional government therefore announced last year that it would relocate the road because it was concerned about its “long-term viability”.

“We ensure that the researchers and engineers not only stay here at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, but also go out into the country and have the opportunity to experience the permafrost in action,” Arenson said.

Claire O’Hagan, a master’s student at York University who is researching permafrost thawing in the Mackenzie Delta, said it was important for researchers to collaborate and share knowledge.

“The Arctic environment is so diverse and varied that it is very important to know what is going on in other areas,” she said.

“Understanding the research here can almost serve as a warning signal and help us understand what we can expect in other parts of the world as climate change continues to progress.”

The conference will take place at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre and will run until Thursday. (Sarah Xenos/Radio-Canada)

Arenson said one of the topics being discussed this year is the increasing use of artificial intelligence in permafrost research. He says machine learning can make it much easier to map landforms and track changes.

“So instead of taking a map and manually plotting changes, we can now train computers to do that for us. And that helps us a lot in understanding regional changes,” he said.

“Having these tools available to us, the scientific community, will, in my opinion, bring about groundbreaking changes in some areas.”