UQx DENIAL101x 2.7.1.2 Full interview with Fabrice Calmels

[00:00:00] Fabrice Calmes: I am Fabrice Calmes. I'm working for the Yukon Research Center of the Yukon College at Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. And I'm studying permafrost and northern geomorphology. So I am a permafrost scientist. So I'm studying frozen ground. I'm very involved in the impact of climate change on permafrost and how this induce landscape change that may affect society. For example when permafrost is degrading there is a lot of settling that occurs, collapsing, and if it occurs below buildings or infrastructures so you can have a lot of damage. But also if your landscape is changing the activity of the people living on the territory may be affected by that. So I'm studying all the impacts from permafrost degradation. Permafrost is a really a climatic phenomenon. It's there because you have cold air temperature all year long. So when you have this cold air the ground start to freeze and it exists for millennium. And so obviously when the atmosphere is warming permafrost will be impacted because it is not now in thermal equilibrium with the atmosphere. So permafrost starts to tow. Depending the kind of permafrost that you have, you can have no sign of degradation because permafrost contains no ice for example. So when it tows there is no loss of volume in the ground. But we can see the temperature of the permafrost warming. When you have what we call tow-sensitive permafrost, which means that it is a permafrost with warm temperature and also an important amount of excess ice in the ground, then you can observe a lot of phenomenon like landslides, collapsing, collapsing, collapsing, the formation of lakes and ponds, the formation of lakes and ponds. Presently I'm working along the Alaska Highway and when permafrost is in the ground, then you can see a lot of phenomena like landslides, collapsing, the formation of lakes and ponds. Presently I'm working along the Alaska Highway and when permafrost is towing, you can see cracks appearing in the shoulder of the road. You can also have bumps forming, a lot of collapsing. Okay, so the cracks in the highway. So we made a calendar with different pictures of our research at the Yukon Research Center and this is a picture I took. So if you want to see the kind of cracks that we can have, that this kind of crack and why it forms is because you have a lot of ice in the ground and this is a picture of a permafrost core. So you can see because it is a cylinder so we use a corer and you can see that all this part is pure ice. So of course when permafrost tow and it starts from the top of the permafrost, all the ice is melting and all the ground is knowing subsidence. So the road has to be maintained on almost a yearly basis. They have to resurface the road constantly. For the Alaska Highway, it takes eight times more money to maintain than any other road in Canada. So yes, it takes a lot of money. We made also a survey in communities, in villages and we saw a building affected by permafrost tow. And the buildings start to be, start to tilt. Some cracks appear in the walls. Sometimes windows break because, you know, the building change of shape. The doors cannot close anymore. In one of the schools, in a community in Whitehorse, one of the big glass in the window in the library just fall on the ground. There was nothing at the time. Sorry, there was nobody at the time. But it was, like, relatively scary for the kids. Okay, so permafrost is any kind of ground that is frozen at least for two consecutive years. It means that it can be bedrock in mountain, it can be gravel, and it can be any kind of sediment, pit. The one that is the most problematic is a fine sediment, silt, clay. Because in this kind of sediment, when permafrost develops, a ground ice named segregated ice forms. You have lands of ice forming each time that the permafrost progresses in the ground. So it's only, it's mainly occur in sediment soil. And it's quite widespread, at least in many areas of the world. This kind of fine texture, sediment, and permafrost is really common in a lot of areas. In Northern Quebec, it's, in Northern Quebec, it is a marine, marine clay. In Northwest Territories, it can be marine clay but also lacustrine clay from ancient Glacial Lake. You can have this also in all the rivers channel. So yes, it's relatively widespread. [00:06:28] Speaker 2: It's hard to put numbers in it, you know. [00:06:35] Fabrice Calmes: So I was talking about the school in the community of Frost River. They already, they made the, they made the first school and others at the end of the seventies. And they rebuild it completely in the early 2000s. So you can consider that each 20 years, sometime you have to rebuild your building. So life expectancy of, of building in permafrost is for sure, is shorter than any other building. And now it depends also about how well the building was built. When you're trying to build on permafrost, you want to make it in equilibrium with permafrost. You don't want to disturb the ground surface. So you will try to build on gravel pad and, or to use piles. And you will try to have air passing below the building to keep the permafrost cold. And help the heat to extract from the ground. You can put a price on a building on a road. But it's, sometimes it's hard more to put a price on the health of people. The way that the, you know, the change of way of life in some, in some case, is hard to quantify, you know. Some people are living in a land, a lot of first nation rely on, on their land to have, to find food and supply. And they hunt for us specific animals. They live in specific environment. And these environments are changing. So the animals, the fauna is changing too. And they cannot hunt this animal anymore because the environment is not suitable for them. So they will have to rely more on the food coming from the salt. How can you, can you put a price on that, you know. When permafrost degrades, it's induced a lot of change in the landscape. You may have some forest in some area with permafrost underneath. And when the permafrost is towing, we say that the forest get drunk, you know, because the trees are tilting. And all this forest is replaced by wetland, marsh, ponds, lake. So if you needed the wood, the wood is not there anymore. If you have a trap line, you know, to trap animals for food or for food, you have difficulties to access your, your, your site. Because trees are collapsing. Or because there is a pond on your trail. Some animals are very attached, linked to some specific environment. Like caribou. Caribou eat lichens. But, and you can find a lot of lichens on permafrost. Permafrost, permafrost mounds and permafrost plateau in some area. When these permafrost mounds and permafrost plateau disappear, the caribou won't, won't come here anymore. There is people gathering berries, medicinal plants on this area. So when the area disappear, well, they lose this, this land for these activities. Yeah. So for sure, you know, I think that ground is part of three very important elements for life. You have air, you have water, you have the ground. You're living on it, right? Except if you are a bird and you can fly all the time. So, and permafrost is frozen ground. So when it froze, when it freeze, the ground change. And when it tow, the ground change back to something else. So it's just like we are changing your environment. And it's very, we, you know, when we say our ground is solid, you know, ground is like something certain. With permafrost, it's not the case, you know. Because you can walk on a place one year, and the year after, you cannot walk there. There is a lot of discussion about how permafrost, when it will tow, or when it is tow, will have an impact on greenhouse gases. Okay. So about how permafrost may produce greenhouse gases. Because the soil that is frozen is relatively, biologically is not very active. We don't have a lot of bacterial activities and, but a lot of permafrost occur in organic soils. And when it starts to tow, there is a layer that we call the active layer, which is the top part of the ground. And that tow and freeze each year. If your permafrost is warming, this layer will become more and more thicker each year. And all the elements contained in this layer will be reactivated. So there will be more bacterial processes, biological processes. In some cases, this layer, this permafrost contain gases. So when the active layer is deepening, you will have more biological activity, more greenhouse gas release, like carbon dioxide, methane. And we try to put number on this, on this gas emission, because it's like a cycle, you know, climate is warming, permafrost is towing, gas are released. So the warming is even more important. And there is a loop, a feedback. And so, yes, this carbon dioxide and methane release from permafrost is one of the current hot activity research. Originally, I come from Corsica, which is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. So very warm, very beautiful, mountain everywhere. And I made, I made a part of my study in oceanography. At some point in my study in France, I went in a laboratory that was specialized in periglacial processing. And it was about modeling some deposits, some coastal deposits. So you see the link with oceanography, under a cold condition, making a toe-freeze cycle. And I was looking how this deposit was evolving. And I found that very neat, you know, I was interested. I didn't know, like, cold environment. But I got interested and I decided to make, to come in Canada and to make a PhD at Laval University. And, yeah, so it's like, you know, you cross paths in your life. And, but I was, if you asked me, like, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, no, I would, I couldn't say that, oh, I will study permafrost. The first thing you do is to listen and ask questions. And then after, after that you can talk, I think, because you will know about their concerns, you know, about their problem. And then when you know them, you can, you know what to say and what they are, what are the answers that you are looking for. And not, you know, only your own perspective and, yeah, well, I will explain how it works in your landscape, you know. I try as much as I can, you know, you have also to work, as much as I can, I try to communicate my results in conference. And not only with my fellow scientists, but also with all the people and the people and the communities in the north. Of course, we try also to publish our results and make communication with the media to make the people aware about what we are doing. You know, I came in Ottawa for the Arctic change conference. I was at the European conference on permafrost like four months ago. And before that I, I went to a lot of workshop in Canada too. There is different kind of workshop like about mountain permafrost, about the impact of permafrost and infrastructures. We went in other area in the north to give, to give a conference about the impact of permafrost on, on the first nation and societies. [00:16:35] Speaker 2: Yeah. [00:16:39] Fabrice Calmes: How to be politically correct about that. You know, I have a Darwin fish. Do you know the Darwin fish? Okay. It means like, I believe in evolution. It's not, it has a difference that it's not origin, right? It is a theory, a scientific theory, relatively well proven for now. So, sometimes you have the things that you're dealing with irrational. You know, it is belief. It is faith. It does, it does not, this kind of people, it's hard to get some logic into their system. They are in their own logic. And they also have like a circle thinking, you know, like a snake eating his tail. And so, it's, it's very hard. I think that there are a minority, but they, they, they speak a lot. And they are very active. And I prepared, when I prepared a course in geomorphology for a Tabasco university, I wanted to be very interactive. So, I put a lot of links to videos, document. And at some point, I was looking for, you know, documentation explaining dating, dating technique. Carbon dating and things like that. And I made that, you know, in Google and I was surprised because like half of the videos were about dating is crap. It was skeptical about evolution. It was skeptical about dating. And I said, wow, incredible. You know, I didn't believe about that. And at the very beginning of the, of my geomorphology course, I talked about, I talked about the very start of geomorphology. When there was two theories with, with that quote-uniformitarism, you know, when the landscape, do not move or evolve very slowly. And catastrophism, when the landscape change, you know, because there was an explosion or thing like that. And yes, I start to enter this world. And I, I found out that there was more, sometime more preeminent in the web or to access large public than scientists. And it was five, six years ago. No, I think that improved. But sometimes we should speak up more, but trying to reach people with education. Put our videos on the web, explaining what we are doing. Make it or search, you know, two or three minutes of video explaining what we are doing or discover. Very simple. You know, just a video of you walking on a, on a site and showing this is a permafrost mound. It, it melts and this is a tall lake. So I think that there are people that are skeptical, very motivated to do nothing. Like, you know, and you have to, sometime, you know, you have to push excessively to counteract to this, this, this, this guy. Can we convince them? As I said, I don't think so. I mean, I, I, I, I might, I, I might be pessimistic about that. But, uh, I think that's education. And, and also, they have the, they have the easy job, right? Because we arrive and we say, you know, climate is changing. It will be some impact. It can be difficult. We'll have to cope with it. You know, as Churchill was saying, you know, I promise you, uh, blood and guts, you know, or something like that. And they arrive and they say, well, don't worry. Everything was going to be fine. All these scientists are crazy. There is nothing occurring or it is natural. Everything get back to normal at some point. Who do you want to listen? The guy with, uh, the, uh, with the sugar in the hand or the guy with, uh, the lemon, you know? Climate change is just like, you see, you have a natural equilibrium that, uh, allow to have development of life and a natural cycle to occur. Uh, at, uh, at a way in, in such a, in such a rhythm that we can adapt to that. You know, it takes millennium to change from one temperature to another. Now we just put our, uh, our feet on the, uh, our foot on the accelerator and the engine is running very fast. Uh, we can, uh, and, uh, we can, and it starts to be very late to push on the brake. And I'm not sure that we can cope with all the change, the changements that will occur. Because our industrial activities, right? Mainly that's, that's, that's the source of our problem. Uh, it's a burning, burning stuff. If I was to explain that. The problem is we are burning, burning too much stuff. Gas, oil, um, and that's affecting our atmosphere and our atmosphere now is warming. So there is not, except if you come with a very, uh, special recipe to, uh, grab all the bad stuff in the area, in, in, in the atmosphere. I guess you have to, uh, to, uh, to slow down. My mother is like kind of hard to explain what I'm doing to her, uh, because she's living in somewhere where they were, where permafrost does not exist. So, uh, we don't really care. She has no idea about how it may impact other people in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? [00:23:14] Speaker ?: She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right? She's living in the world, right?