Arctic infrastructure was built on frozen ground that’s starting to thaw – drones can help spot the permafrost changes coming

A regional permafrost map can’t tell a builder if a particular foundation or road will survive as temperatures rise. Engineers need to see beneath the surface to find the weaknesses.

By: Ming Xiao, Penn State, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: September 29, 2026

Words: 1,050

Last Updated: 2 weeks, 2 days ago

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By Ming Xiao, Penn State

From the air, Wainwright, Alaska, looks like a perfectly stable band of homes and roads between the Chukchi Sea and a vast, flat tundra. But just below the surface, the frozen ground that this town was built on contains large bodies of ice. Along the eroding coastal bluffs, that hidden ice is becoming exposed and literally melting away.

This is more than a landscape change. When ice within frozen …

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