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In Eastern Siberia, in Russia, there is the largest low-pressure area in the world caused by thermokarst, i.e. Known as “Batagaika Crater,” it was recently captured by a drone. The images show that the depression is getting bigger and deeper over time.
The Batagaika crater reaches a maximum width of almost one kilometer at a depth of about 100 meters. The land in this area began to subside around the 1960s when a dense forest covering the area was cut down, resulting in the permafrost being more exposed to the sun’s rays.
Over the years, some flooding would have further favored the enlargement of the depression, with the formation of a highly unstable rim with continuous landslides and the falling of material inside the crater. These phenomena caused the crater to continue to expand, and at a relative rate, also due to the increase in the average temperature in Siberia.
According to the data collected and compared with historical series, many areas of Russia are more affected by the effects of climate change than others, with temperatures rising about 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world.
(Portal via YouTube)
The rise in temperature is causing the permafrost, which covers about 65 percent of the entire country, to thaw. The process leads to the production of enormous amounts of methane and carbon dioxide, which are bound in the soil and thus contribute to the greenhouse effect and worsen its consequences.
(Portal via YouTube)
Nikia Tananayev, who works at the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk, capital of Russia’s Sakha-Yakutia Republic, told Portal: “In the future, as temperatures rise due to human activities, we will see more and more megadepressions until all permafrost is gone.” The phenomenon is already underway and has been one of the causes of the great fires in Siberia in recent years and the instability of the ground on which camps and cities have been built over the centuries.