A backyard science expedition is enlightening for kids and potentially promising for adult researchers

Leanne Bulger stands holding her daughter Violet, 2, next to Rose, 6, within a sunken thawed-permafrost feature called a thermokarst in the boreal forest on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus on May 22, 2024.

The fist-size opening in the forest floor seemed to be exhaling. It exhausted so much air during the spring that it had built its own chimney of frost that looked like a snowman. Bulger apologized again for not being able to secure the gas-measuring kit she had hoped to bring. Her boss, Go Iwahana of the International Arctic Research Center, was using it elsewhere.

As the science party progressed slowly through the woods, Bulger said her husband was just about to retire from the military. After years of moving across the country as a military wife and mother of four children, she was looking forward to pursuing her own career. Another permafrost scientist at UAF said he thought the ground was exhaling due to temperature differences between the air at shoulder level and the air within the void caused by chunks of ancient ice that had melted. The ground might be expelling greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, as is the case as permafrost thaws all over the north.

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