Talk:Permafrost

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Untitled
The band Permafrost was formed in 1996 in Ukraine. They only ever released two albums. Lunar poetry and forgotten evil (1996) and Darkness falls over these mountains (1998). The band members actually got together in spring 1995, however they couldn't decide on a name so they went around as Ukraine 32. They then changed the band name to Frost and after that to Permafrost because they thought that implied an eternal winter. The members in 1995-1996 were: Thermagoth (vocals and guitars) Alkine (Bass guitar) Thomas Alpersćuk (drums) Thomas was kicked out of the band in 1996 because of problems he developed regarding drugs. They recruited another drummer Nhico Caršvaý.

In 1999 Thermagoth was found dead in a graveyard, he was murdered. His killer is currently still in prison and will be released at the end of 2009.

Intresting notes:

→              Darkness falls over these mountains was nominated for an award, but Thermagoth declined for whatever reason.

→	Thermagoth served a short time in prison for assault.

→	Band broke up when they found Thermagoth was murdered.

→	Alkine now lives in Sweden.

→	Before Thermagoth was murdered, the band was working on their third album called Satanic Hymns calling to the Hatred in my Heart. The band had nearly finished it. So an imcomplete version was released.

→	Satanic Hymns calling to the Hatred in my Heart was recently recorded in 2005 with Alkine on bass and Caršvaý on drums. They recruited a vocalist from Sweden for the last two tracks which Thermagoth did not feature on. The man from Sweden was strangely not given credit.

→	Varggoth, frontman of the band Nokturnal Mortum, contacted Permafrost because he believed they had breached a copyright on their album, Lunar Poetry. The result was that Permafrost had to pay royalties to Nokturnal Mortum for any copies of Lunar Poetry and Forgotten Evil.
 * Shouldn't this be its own article? Fishhead64 07:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. In my experience, it would be handled as a new article. -- Paleorthid 00:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Image removed
This image has been replaced by a table. Mssnlayam 07:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Solifluction in Greenland?
The caption on the photo suggests it's of solifluction in Greenland, whereas the metadata in commons suggests Svalbard. Which is correct? 131.111.21.21 (talk) 11:42, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Things found in permafrost
Their record made to things found in permafrost. e.g.,


 * Mammoths
 * Palm trees and tropical vegatation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Standforder (talk • contribs) 23:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Things not found in permafrost: palm trees and tropical vegetation... Where does this idea come from – it can't have a reliable source.  Richard New Forest (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well that is That is inaccurate.

"An extraordinary testimony to the widespread watery destruction of animal life...They are sometimes found in a near-perfect state of preservation, with undigested tropical vegetation in their stomachs." - Earth’s Most Challenging Mysteries.--Standforder (talk) 00:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The "ice age" wasn't a long period, the term is misleading. The earth previous to this brief "ice age" was tropical-like. This rapid freezing put the earth in freezing [temperature]]s. The "ice age" occured nearly 4,400 years, (Compare Genesis 7:18, 21).--Standforder (talk) 00:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

"A sinking of the sea basins would cause the waters to collect there, allowing dry land to appear again. Compare Psalm 104:8. In the oceans today there is more than enough water to have accomplished what the Bible describes; 71 percent of the earth’s surface is water, with an average depth of two and a half miles."--Standforder (talk) 00:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is a factual encyclopaedia. It works on reliable sources, not pseudoscience or religious texts.  Richard New Forest (talk) 00:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Chlorpromazine
Chlorpromazine is also abbreviated CPZ. I think a disambiguation page must be made —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awanta (talk • contribs) 03:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes – done. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello,

I am new to this site as a participant. A citation is requested in the second prargraph of this article and I thought the following might be useful?

Cryosols as a test of our knowledge of Earth as a system: Review by J.G.Bockheim, page 1. retrieved 14/01/11 from http://www.ldd.go.th/swcst/Report/soil/symposium/pdf/0219.pdf)

Thanks SE — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shamalaevans (talk • contribs) 21:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Report in Nature Geoscience suggested...
I took out:


 * Report in Nature Geoscience suggested in April 2012 that huge 'surges' of methane are released by melting permafrost. These are methane fields on a scale not seen before. The emissions went directly into the atmosphere.(Rob Waugh "Global warming puzzle becomes even MORE complex - as methane is detected seeping directly from the Arctic ocean" The Daily Mail, 24 April 2012) The Arctic meltdown has grave consequences for the entire planet.Arctic & Climate Change

for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as a science-type article, refs from the mail or greenpeace aren't good enough. Secondly, we have Arctic methane release and this stuff probably belongs there not here. Third its all a bit overenthusiastic and... what you'd expect from the mail, really William M. Connolley (talk) 12:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Fast facts about permafrost
I've left some suggestions with Kent Pørksen about how he (or another editor) can develop his good-faith contribution of "Fast facts" to better conform with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. User:HopsonRoad 13:01, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The new fast facts contribution contains material that mostly belongs in other sections. I plan to move much of the material there. "Fast facts" is not a title that evokes the substance of the section. I would recommend a summary of important facts that are beyond the scope of the lead section. User:HopsonRoad 01:45, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The fast facts section contain interesting information. I would like, very much like HopsonRoad, to see it included in the prose of the other sections. As prose it would fit Wikipedias Manual of Style. Dentren  |  Ta lk  08:37, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Dentren. That's consistent with my intentions. User:HopsonRoad 17:04, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Unreferenced items moved from former section entitled, "Fast facts about permafrost"
Editors who can provide suitable references for the following statements are welcome to move them into the narrative of pertinent sections in the main article. User:HopsonRoad 00:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * In northern Siberia and Canada, the permafrost can extend down to depths of more than 700 meters.
 * When the climate becomes warmer, the permafrost layer thaws completely or partially in parts of the landscape. In areas where ice caps are melting and glaciers are retreating, permafrost will again be formed.
 * Permafrost does not disappear from Greenland, because the permafrost is more than 100 meters thick in large parts of Greenland. Only the upper 1–2 m of permafrost is threatened by thawing in the coming years.
 * Permafrost may include both soil and solid rock. Rocks contain no organic material, while soil contains large amounts of organic material. If soil layers thaw due to global warming, the warming may increase the microbial decomposition of organic material.
 * Areas covered by permafrost are often a mosaic of areas with herbaceous plants, ericaceous plants, low scrub with willow bushes, and marshes, ponds and streams. In the areas bordering the Arctic permafrost is common in open forests with tree species such as birch, pine, larch and spruce.
 * The plant cover of permafrost in Greenland is dominated by a few hardy and hardy plants such as the Arctic Willow, heather, saxifrages, Dryas and various species of mosses, lichens, grasses and sedges. Under the extreme growing conditions in the high Arctic even 100 year old specimens of Arctic Willow are just a few centimeters high. In Russia, Scandinavia and Canada large areas of permafrost are covered with pine and birch forest. Due to global warming, plant growth in the Arctic increases and the tree line moves north.
 * Different groups of microorganisms produce carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases when permafrost thaws. Carbon dioxide is formed by a multitude of fungi and bacteria during break down of old plant material in soil. Methane is formed exclusively by a specific group of archaea (bacteria-like microorganisms) and converted to carbon dioxide by certain groups of bacteria. Nitrous oxide is formed by certain bacteria, which may also convert the nitrous oxide to atmospheric nitrogen (N2).
 * Measured over a 100 year period, the warming potential of methane in the atmosphere is 25 times higher than carbon dioxide. Methane formed in deep soil layers may be converted into carbon dioxide by micro-organisms in the upper layer of soil prior to the release from the soil surface to atmosphere.
 * Permafrost may contain large quantities of ice, which is released as water when the permafrost thaws. This may cause soil collapse and increase transport of solutes, including organic matter, nutrients and pollution, which may be carried long distances by river or sea water.
 * Permafrost properties can rarely be assessed from the surface or from satellite images, so it is necessary to drill through the permafrost to measure its distribution and condition.
 * A warmer climate and less permafrost can open up a number of advantages for the people of Greenland, e.g. in relation to agriculture and extraction of minerals.

Former "See also" items to be worked into article
I deleted all but one of the following from "See also", which didn't meet WP guidelines for that section. They can and should be incorporated into the article, itself: User:HopsonRoad 15:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Arctic methane release
 * Drunken trees
 * International Permafrost Association
 * Palsa
 * Permafrost carbon cycle
 * Pingo
 * Qingzang Railway
 * Utility tunnel
 * Yedoma
 * Now incorporated in article. User:HopsonRoad 17:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Moved from External links
WP:External Links limits the number and character of these, so I have parked the following here as resources to be worked into the article, as appropriate: User:HopsonRoad 20:31, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Center for Permafrost (CENPERM)
 * International Permafrost Association (IPA)
 * What is Permafrost?, Geological Survey of Canada
 * Melting Russian Permafrost Could Accelerate Global Warming - ENS (7 September 2006)
 * PERMAFROST: A Building Problem For Alaska
 * Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN)
 * United States Permafrost Association (USPA)
 * Conversion Calculator
 * Geophysical Institute Permafrost Lab, University of Alaska Fairbanks
 * United States Permafrost Association (USPA)
 * Conversion Calculator
 * Geophysical Institute Permafrost Lab, University of Alaska Fairbanks
 * Geophysical Institute Permafrost Lab, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Repetition of word, "permafrost," in titles
I believe that the word "permafrost" is redundant in all or most of the section titles, since that's the subject of the article. Unless I hear objections, i will delete it from most section titles. User:HopsonRoad 17:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Southern map
The map of the extent and type in the Northern Hemisphere is awesome! Would it be useful to have a similar one for Antarctica? The text implies that most but not all of the continent is permanently frozen. -- Beland (talk) 22:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I added a link to the copyrighted map of permafrost in Antarctica. I'll improve the description, as well. User:HopsonRoad 02:39, 23 April 2016 (UTC) I have improved the description for Antarctica and the description of alpine permafrost in the Andes. User:HopsonRoad 03:04, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Thaw
Shouldn't we mention something on the use of natural gas locked in the permafrost, and due to be released soon. My understanding is that this is carbon negative. I also brought up the issue at Talk:Natural_gas KVDP (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Illustration in Construction On Permafrost
The photo of an unevenly settled house doesn't belong here because Tomsk is to the south of the permafrost limits. Unevennes in this case was caused by shallow foundation and seasonal frost-thawing cycles. RlyechDweller (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that observation, RlyechDweller. The image is a legacy from a much earlier version of the article. The caption of the source image doesn't mention permafrost. The vegetation in the image doesn't suggest a permafrost area. So, I've deleted the image. Sincerely, User:HopsonRoad 16:24, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Further update, RlyechDweller, the image has been recategorized and renamed in WP Commons. User:HopsonRoad 16:42, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Svalbard Global Seed Vault and Permafrost melting
At Talk:Svalbard Global Seed Vault I have been in an interesting discussion about recent sources that reported flooding of the seed vault. At issue is whether the flooding was caused by rain and snowmelt, or whether the permafrost itself actually melted, with what looks like reasonable sources for both claims. I could use some help sorting this one out. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:39, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111005174426/http://globaltwitcher.auderis.se/artspec_information.asp?thingid=44751 to http://globaltwitcher.auderis.se/artspec_information.asp?thingid=44751
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103247/http://www.lter.uaf.edu/pdf/1754_Zimov_Zimov_2012.pdf to http://www.lter.uaf.edu/pdf/1754_Zimov_Zimov_2012.pdf

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Mercury
Is there mercury in the permafrost ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.122.61.124 (talk) 02:23, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Mercury (element) is extremely rare and not known to occur in areas underlain by permafrost. User:HopsonRoad 02:49, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Extraterrestrial permafrost
, thank you for adding images of Martian permafrost in a new section. MOS:OVERSECTION suggests that there is not enough material here to warrant a section. Can you supply some supporting text that explains the images that you supplied? Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 22:01, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Brown University EEPS1960X course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a class project aimed at updating IPCC references to the most recent report (AR6). More details can be found on the course page. Student editor(s): JF726. Updates will be made according to the IPCC citation guide. — Preceding undated comment added 18:23, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Soil surface temperature or air temperature?
It says, "Thus, if the mean annual air temperature is only slightly below 0 °C (32 °F), permafrost will form only in spots that are sheltered—usually with a northern or southern aspect (in north and south hemispheres respectively) —creating discontinuous permafrost. Usually, permafrost will remain discontinuous in a climate where the mean annual soil surface temperature is between −5 and 0 °C (23 and 32 °F). In the moist-wintered areas mentioned before, there may not be even discontinuous permafrost down to −2 °C (28 °F)."

First, air temperature is referred to, then soil surface temperature, and then just temperature. So at best, it's unclear. Furthermore, the soil surface temperature is never defined in the article, and the phrase is used exactly twice, while in all other instances, it is air temperature that is referred to. So it looks to me like "air" should be substituted for "soil surface". The link in the citation was of no use to me.

Secondly, shouldn't that be, "in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively"? Polar Apposite (talk) 07:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Nothing About The History Of Permafrost?
Something important missing from this article is a section on the history of permafrost, how it formed in the first place, what holarctic conditions were like before there was permafrost, where all the carbons now sequestered within and beneath permafrost today were in the environment, &c. My understanding is that permafrost in the holarctic region is a geologically recent phenomenon, tied to the Ice Epoch of the Pleistocene period, but I'm not an authority. It was confirmation of this, and details related to the origins of permafrost is why I came to this article in the first place. I understand that climate science has very real worries about the release of permafrost sequestered carbon dioxide and methane, via a positive feedback loop with human caused global warming, but, for me, it begs the question: if permafrost in the arctic region is only ≈ 2 million years old, then where was all that carbon before that? How were global climate and temperatures affected before there was any permafrost? If anyone has sourceable information to include in this article about the origin of permafrost, I think it would be a useful addition to this article. 2604:3D08:2678:84E0:E1F2:4175:F60C:2CB3 (talk) 05:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree this sounds quite interesting. Perhaps this kind of information is already included in some other Wikipedia articles that deal with the history of planet Earth? We have this one: History of Earth but it only mentions permafrost once. EMsmile (talk) 10:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

What are current weaknesses of this article?
Hi User:InformationToKnowledge I see you did a lot of work on this article recently (the tool "Who Wrote That" tells me that you have written about 30% of the article). I have just now changed the article quality label from C to B. I would like to know from you what are remaining weaknesses in this article that you can identify? If you had time, or if someone else had time, what would you recommend they focus on? One thing I noticed from looking at the section sizes (see table at the top of the talk page) is that the section "Revival of ancient microorganisms" might be overly big, possibly violating WP:DUE, i.e. too much weight for it. Do you see room for condensing this or would you say the space that it takes up matches with its importance compared to other issues?

I am also wondering whether "permafrost thaw" should be a separate sub-article. For now I have redirected permafrost thaw to Permafrost. As the article on permafrost is not too large yet (37 kB (5857 words) "readable prose size"), a split-off for "permafrost thaw" is probably not warranted yet. EMsmile (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

P.S. I really like the work you have done on the article, e.g. the way you have made the lead into a better summary of the article and also restructured the section headings, giving it a more logical flow (in particular the section about impacts of climate change). Thanks for this excellent work! EMsmile (talk) 10:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it!
 * To me, what is currently the last section of the article, "History of scientific research" is definitely the weakest part. Loose, grammatically questionable sentence structure, disproportionate amounts of detail about ~150 year-old publications, and yet effectively nothing about any research which had taken place starting from around 1950. While the section title might be setting overly high expectations (I am not sure if anyone can easily assemble a timeline of permafrost research based on online RS alone, while avoiding overlap with the other sections), what is currently there is just subpar.
 * Another thing this article needs is "In Popular Culture" section, as permafrost has featured in quite a lot of stories - particularly in speculative sci-fi of all kinds. The idea of plagues and the like emerging from the thaw is a particular favourite - which is one reason why I do not think that the microorganism section is excessive, as it discusses what appear to be long-held concerns in the popular imagination. Similarly, I find the idea of splitting off permafrost thaw really weird, when this article isn't too large, and when permafrost carbon cycle already exists (and has relatively few views, suggesting that splitting off the main reason most people care about permafrost isn't likely to be a good idea.)
 * I am also not sure if the "Classification" sections are as well-written as they could be, but I do not see any obvious improvements myself. And it would be nice to have some image for "Ecology" - the simplest solution might be to move the second image from the gallery (peat plateau complex) to it, while replacing its spot in the gallery with that image you just removed. However, there might be better options as well. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Undefined ref
you forgot to fill in a source for the ref name "Douglas2020".&#32;-- Fyrael (talk) 17:07, 13 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I have now ended up outright replacing the image which used that ref with a more suitable one. Still, thanks for letting me know! Now, to discover where the last few stubborn maintenance messages are from... InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Transcribe the lead of this article to cryosphere?
I was just looking at the cryosphere article today and noticed its section about permafrost. It is mostly unsourced and seems outdated to me. I am thinking of deleting the entire content that is there about permafrost and replacing it with an excerpt from here. Thoughts? And is there anything at Cryosphere that would be worth keeping and perhaps incorporating to here? EMsmile (talk) 11:12, 25 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Adding a "main" link there and copying and citing the lead section of this article would be great. Using "excerpt" is not great as the lead here, while it contains some of the citations, also contains refs to citations made in full in the article body, so they'd break... best to have a stand-alone copy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:48, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply, Chiswick Chap. I don't understand what you mean with "also contains refs to citations made in full in the article body, so they'd break..."? Did you mean the short ref style? As far as I can see they are all long ref style. I would prefer to use the excerpt tool, rather than copy & paste because the permafrost article's lead will likely be updated and improved further in the future. The permafrost article will be a GA article soon, whereas the cryosphere article is only C. So transcribing from a GA article to a C article makes sense, I think. - But perhaps I misunderstood what your exact concern was? EMsmile (talk) 13:28, 25 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Whatever. You'll find shortrefs like the United States or China. in the lead here, not to mention among others. As for your point about updates, it's always unwise to bet on the future; changes can go in any direction (and usually do). There is no guarantee that they'll cause the excerpts to "improve" from the point of view of the article including them, and every likelihood that they won't. Please don't do it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The beauty about the excerpt tool is that those refs won't get broken. It's a very smart tool. The only refs that get "broken" are those that use short refs and those could be copied across separately under a section called "sources". I can understand that a featured article should not include excerpts but an article like cryosphere, which is C class and has been lingering unimproved for a very long time, I think it's an improvement. You are a general opponent of excerpts then, I take it? - I use them regularly, and I've seen others, like User:InformationToKnowledge use them a lot as well. I think they are a brilliant tool, especially for B and C class articles (not for FA articles). EMsmile (talk) 19:26, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Is any of this useful?
Is anything from this textblock worth keeping and integrating into the permafrost article? It's not very well sourced though and possibly outdated, so I doubt it. It stems from cryosphere which is where intend to cut it out and then replace it with an excerpt from the lead of this article (or a copy of the lead but I think an excerpt would be better in this case).

++++++++

Frozen ground and permafrost
Frozen ground (permafrost and seasonally frozen ground) occupies approximately 54 million km2 of the exposed land areas of the Northern Hemisphere (Zhang et al., 2003) and therefore has the largest areal extent of any component of the cryosphere. Permafrost (perennially frozen ground) may occur where mean annual air temperatures (MAAT) are less than −1 or −2 °C and is generally continuous where MAAT are less than −7 °C. In addition, its extent and thickness are affected by ground moisture content, vegetation cover, winter snow depth, and aspect. The global extent of permafrost is still not completely known, but it underlies approximately 20% of Northern Hemisphere land areas. Thicknesses exceed 600 m along the Arctic coast of northeastern Siberia and Alaska, but, toward the margins, permafrost becomes thinner and horizontally discontinuous. The marginal zones will be more immediately subject to any melting caused by a warming trend. Most of the presently existing permafrost formed during previous colder conditions and is therefore relic. However, permafrost may form under present-day polar climates where glaciers retreat or land emergence exposes unfrozen ground. Washburn (1973) concluded that most continuous permafrost is in balance with the present climate at its upper surface, but changes at the base depend on the present climate and geothermal heat flow; in contrast, most discontinuous permafrost is probably unstable or "in such delicate equilibrium that the slightest climatic or surface change will have drastic disequilibrium effects".

Under warming conditions, the increasing depth of the summer active layer has significant impacts on the hydrologic and geomorphic regimes. Thawing and retreat of permafrost have been reported in the upper Mackenzie Valley and along the southern margin of its occurrence in Manitoba, but such observations are not readily quantified and generalized. Based on average latitudinal gradients of air temperature, an average northward displacement of the southern permafrost boundary by 50-to-150 km could be expected, under equilibrium conditions, for a 1 °C warming.

Only a fraction of the permafrost zone consists of actual ground ice. The remainder (dry permafrost) is simply soil or rock at subfreezing temperatures. The ice volume is generally greatest in the uppermost permafrost layers and mainly comprises pore and segregated ice in Earth material. Measurements of bore-hole temperatures in permafrost can be used as indicators of net changes in temperature regime. Gold and Lachenbruch (1973) infer a 2–4 °C warming over 75 to 100 years at Cape Thompson, Alaska, where the upper 25% of the 400-m thick permafrost is unstable with respect to an equilibrium profile of temperature with depth (for the present mean annual surface temperature of −5 °C). Maritime influences may have biased this estimate, however. At Prudhoe Bay similar data imply a 1.8 °C warming over the last 100 years (Lachenbruch et al. 1982). Further complications may be introduced by changes in snow-cover depths and the natural or artificial disturbance of the surface vegetation. EMsmile (talk) 20:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

EMsmile (talk) 20:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Nearly all of this is based on a 50-year old article? Effectively useless. I cannot think of anything here which newer references do not address already, and some sentences appear extremely dated. I am amazed that it stayed this way for so long, effectively unnoticed, and agree that using an excerpt was long overdue! Thank you for being the one to finally act on this. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Relationship with article permafrost carbon cycle
For anyone watching this page but not the permafrost carbon cycle one, please take a look at this discussion where I try to optimise how the permafrost article interlinks with the permafrost carbon cycle article. It currently feels sub-optimal to me. EMsmile (talk) 11:51, 12 October 2023 (UTC)