Patna, Nov. 30 -- This July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Greenland, the world's largest island lost 11 billion tons of its ice on a single day. Permafrost is ground, including rock or soil, with a temperature that remains at or below the freezing point of water 0 degC for two or more years.

Permafrost holds more than ice - it holds methane, a potent greenhouse gas, it holds a variety of substrates, it holds poisonous mercury, it holds the geological history of the locale and figments of its life in form of perfect fossils of mammoths and homonids, and it holds life... dangerous life, more than that meets the eye. Deep permaforst is a thawing reservoir of ancient microbiota, including pathogens that humanity was effective...