According to Alexander Gabyshev, an employee of the Scientific Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, the Batagayka crater in Siberia is expanding to 20 meters per year. This suggests, according to the scientist, at what speed global warming occurs in the world.
Locals call the crater "the gateway to the underworld" and since its sudden appearance in the center of Siberia they are afraid to pass even near it.
And to some extent, they are right to be afraid.
The fact is that it is expanding in a manner similar to how permafrost melts. Its dimensions today are about a kilometer in length, and its depth is 90 meters. And since the crater is expanding at a rate of about 20 meters per year, it is very dangerous for people to walk along its edges.
According to the researchers, the crater, which appeared 25 years ago, also indicates the rate of climate warming, since such small craters appear more and more often in the northern hemisphere.
As for the melting of permafrost, this is the greatest concern of mankind, since in the process a very large amount of methane and greenhouse gas is released, and the greenhouse gas is much more dangerous than carbon dioxide.
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If everything was in the very process of melting glaciers - however, when the warming process goes over four degrees, it will become a global catastrophe for all mankind. Such a scenario could plunge the planet into the greatest horror, which is difficult even to describe.
Geologist from the University of Sussex, Professor Julian Merton, returning from a trip to the crater, said that studying its slopes will help to obtain information about what happened to the Earth about 200,000 years ago.
This shows that in the days when hippos and hippos lived around Trafalgar Square, the climate on Earth was warmer than it is today.
"The appearance of the Batagayka crater testifies to what happened to our planet in the past and what may happen to it in the future," says Professor Merton.
“As the climate warms, in my opinion, the temperature on Earth will increase, the melting of glaciers will accelerate, and eventually thermokarst signs will begin to develop,” the researcher says, noting that thermokarst activity in the northern hemisphere is increasing, for which there is a lot of evidence collected over the past decades.
Be that as it may, the process of a sharp melting of Siberia will not begin soon. While in this region, the temperature regime will reach minus 68 degrees Celsius.
Yulia Ivanova
