Public Lecture: When Permafrost Thaws: Addressing complex problems through convergence and collaboration

The Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) proudly presents this Walter Orr Roberts Memorial Public Lecture, presented by Dr. Jessica Gilman Ernakovich (University of New Hampshire). Permafrost thaw seems to tell a simple climate story; thaw exposes previously frozen carbon to microbial decomposition, releasing heat trapping gases (like CO₂ and CH₄) to the atmosphere. But, it’s more complicated than that. What actually happens depends on complex interactions between microbial communities, plants, minerals, hydrology, temperature, redox conditions, and landscape change, all of which vary across space and time. That complexity exposes the limits of any single disciplinary lens and of the simple stories often told about climate change. Predicting the consequences of permafrost thaw requires connecting processes that operate across disciplinary scales from molecules and microbes to ecosystems and the Earth system. Public narratives such as “tipping points” or the “permafrost carbon bomb” capture real risks, but also obscure uncertainty, mechanisms, and the range of possible futures. Understanding a changing planet therefore requires more than accumulating knowledge within individual disciplines; it requires integrating knowledge across them. Addressing Arctic challenges requires that scientists recognize what their own expertise can and cannot inform, and incorporate different ways of observing and understanding rapidly changing systems. Preparing the next generation of polar researchers offers an opportunity to build science differently from the beginning. By training researchers to think convergently and collaborate across disciplines, cultures, and ways of knowing, we can move toward a richer – and ultimately more predictive – understanding of environmental change.