Permafrost
Permafrost is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years.
At a glance
Key signals
0% cross fields · reaches 1 more
- Earth & Space Sciences
- Climatology
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
System context
Permafrostis aSoilEstablished
permafrost is a kind of soil.
Mechanism: Permafrost is soil (or rock) that stays frozen for at least two years; thawing it releases trapped carbon and destabilises the ground.
- Wikidata verifiedmoderate evidence
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
Currently dark in the atlas: no key date stored · 1 of 1 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
Exercises 2 annotated mental models — a concept that connects several thinking patterns.
curated · Curated annotations, not a derived measure.
Structural neighbourhood: 1 → 10 → 25 concepts reachable within 3 hops.
structural · Structural reach — being reachable is not the same as being understood.
All 1 of its relationships stay within its own discipline — a field-specific concept in the current atlas.
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
cross-field
1 within-field, 0 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
- No dated history stored — the atlas records no key date for this concept. atlas representation
Conditions
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Through this lens it connects to Soil.
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Thresholds & tipping points23 disciplines · 15 concepts
Feedback loop47 disciplines · 44 concepts
Concepts
shares a mental model · shares a mental model
shares a mental model · shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
Mental models at work here
Thresholds & tipping points
A level below which little happens and above which the behaviour changes sharply — sometimes irreversibly.
Some changes are gradual; others wait, then flip all at once.
Feedback loop
A loop where an effect feeds back to change its own cause. Reinforcing loops amplify change; balancing loops resist it.
Ask: does the result push the system further in the same direction, or pull it back?
- Connects 1 other ideas across 2 disciplines.
- Most of its connections are of the “Kind & structure” kind.
- It exercises 2 reusable thinking patterns.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English & German editions) verifiedmoderate evidence
- Wikidata verifiedmoderate evidence
- Degrading permafrost puts Arctic infrastructure at risk by mid-century (2018) verified
- Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements (2019) verified
- Introduction: Historicizing Permafrost (2020) verified
- Permafrost verified