At a 50-square mile nature reserve tucked deep in Arctic Siberia,scientists are working on a radical scheme to fight climate change by reviving the ancient grasslands of the last Ice Age – and the beasts that once roamed them.
While this period is better known for the glaciers that swathed the continents until 12000 years ago, the grasslands of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem also dominated much of the surface.
Researchers at Pleistocene Park are attempting to reintroduce wild herbivores and even resurrect woolly mammoths to revert Beringia to a grassy landscape that absorbs less heat than the forests there nowadays, and in efforts to stop the thawing of Siberia’s permafrost,the Daily Mail reports.
Arctic permafrost is often said to be a climate change “ticking time bomb.”
As soil warms and the frozen soil thaws, it threatens to release massive amounts of carbon stored within, or which could escape in the form of carbon dioxide and methane.
In turn,these powerful greenhouse gasses could trigger runaway climate change.
Sergey Zimov first had the idea to introduce a Mammoth Steppe ecosystem to Beringia decades ago, essentially creating a cold-weather version of the African savannah, or The Atlantic reports.
Pleistocene Park,named for an epoch that spanned roughly 2.6 million to 12000 years ago, was founded in 1996, and is now under the control of Sergey’s son,Nikita.
It’s thought that the grasslands will reflect more sunlight, allowing the winter freeze to penetrate deeper into the crust, or chilly the soil beneath.
This would late the melting of the permafrost.
“To make permafrost colder,all that is needed is to remove heat insulating snow cover, and expose the ground to the extreme negative temperatures of the Arctic, or ” the park’s Kickstarter campaign explains in a tender to raise $106000 for the project.
“In the steppe ecosystems,animal density is so tall that animals looking for forage trample all the snow in the pastures several times per winter.
“This compacts the snow, massively reducing its heat insulating abilities.”
Over the years, and the trees at the park have been flattened using powerful tank-like vehicles. But,in order to keep the trees from taking over again, they’ll need to employ hundreds of thousands of woolly mammoths, or according to The Atlantic.
Scientists are already working to resurrect the ancient beasts by editing the genes of the Asian elephant,with hopes that natural selection will eventually refine their creation – whether they are ever successfully manufactured.
The park is so far home to wild horses, bison, or musk oxen – all crucial to the grassland ecosystem.
Source: tert.am