#rowboats and pool noodles

[ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok]

I can't love you this much, baby And love you from this far

#starwasp #peterhope #hope/peter #hope van dyne #peter quill #what if...? #hope x quill #rowboats and pool noodles #graphics #graphical hodgepodge #feat. 'waiting for a star to fall' by boy meets girl #look... if marvel didn't want me to ship them then they shouldn't've done what they did #i'm not made of stone damn it! #spoilers #what if spoilers #kinda sorta technically

[shippy-pjo-shipper]

I saw some people associate their fandom's ships to this post, so here's my take with the pjo/hoo nc ships :

Supercarrier: Valdangelo/Theyna

Dreadnought: Reynabeth/Zartemis/Litpollo

Cruiser: Percico/Pipabeth/Jasico

Frigate: Pipeyna/Reychel/Valgrace

Gunboat: Perachel/Jeyna

Tugboat: Lazel

Rowboat: Percalypso

Canoe: Preyna/Lecho

Submarine: Jasabeth/Leyna

Pedalo: Pertemis/Rachello

Barge: Reynalypso/Jastavian

Raft: Racheleo

Barrel: Reynico

Pool Noodle: Ethachel/Ethalypso

#ok it's not 100% accurate but it was really fun #anyone wanna do it? #valdangelo #theyna #reynabeth #zartemis #litpollo #percico #pipabeth #jasico #pipeyna #reynachel #valgrace #perachel #jeyna #lazel #percalypso #preyna #lecho #jasabeth #leyna #reynalypso #jastavian #racheleo #reynico #ethachel #ethalypso #pertemis #rachello #text post

[kholran]

You probably have answered this in the past but I can't find it. How did you come up with the 'pool noodle' name for Risang?

Ahaha thank you for asking! I'm not sure I have mentioned it here, but even if I have, it's worth repeating.

I wish I could say I was creative enough to have invented the term "Pool Noodle" all by myself, but alas. That credit goes to someone much more witty than me.

This post explains the differences between various fandom ship sizes, and defines "Pool Noodle" ships as:

It’s just you, kicking your feet. You named the ship and wrote it on your noodle with a big sharpie. You tell people about it and are met with confused blinking. Most of the fics in the tag were either written by you or for you. You are caught between wanting to shout about how lovely life is on this floating scrap of whimsy and fearing that your noodle can’t bear much weight. Or worse, that someone will come over and dunk you, take your noodle and fwhap you on the head with it.

Up until very recently, the only RiSang fics in the tag on AO3 were mine. And I was the only person adding to the tag here on Tumblr. So I started calling it "The Pool Noodle". And I guess it kind of stuck, even though some lovely people have since come to join me in this corner of the swimming pool and now it's more like a Rowboat.

#asks from magic voice #risang

[thetextilealchemist]

Last month, I went up to Future House Spouse’s family cottage in the Muskokas, and did the entire trip in Victorian garb, and then forgot to post about it.

Because FHS and I are both Very Ravenclaw, we took in a lot of data and treated the whole thing as a series of experiments/proof of concept. After insisting I would not make a Victorian bating costume, I did precisely that (in weld-dyed cotton with way too many buttons, pattern from the Victorian Dressmaker), which was very comfy and helped keep me a bit warmer in the lake. I had made a flotation corset with half a pool noodle crammed into the hip spring as padding, since I Do Not Float, and it worked in practice! With a few tweaks to design, fit, and materials, I think I could make a much better version for next year. I also want to keep an eye out for a used life jacket, so I can make it look like a waistcoat to match my outfit and still be safe on a boat.

I also made a simple sports corset without the extra hip spring and padding, which definitely worked for canoeing and hiking. We had a tea picnic on the lake and then another one on the very top of the island, as one does, and we had so much fun that we have plans to make it A Thing, especially if we can rent a rowboat more locally.

I made the split skirt and matching petticoat right before we went to the cottage, and I absolutely love them. The length is perfect if I’m not carrying anything (there are stairs up to the cottage, and I only had to lift up my skirts if I was weighed down), and from the back and sides it looks like a walking skirt, but from the front it’s clearly trousers. I wear these all the time now, and they almost look fashionable. I also had doubts about my cute little heeled shoes for hiking, but they were remarkably comfortable.

The wig got a bit hot out in the August sun, but this is the price we pay for having a non-period undercut. Seriously, I got into big hats around the same time I got into small hair, which is quite the mismatch. But the wig is pretty simple and gives me something to pin my hats to, so I have no complaints. FHS even bought me some cute cheap hat pins to use so I wouldn’t be risking any of my antiques on the lake.

I didn’t get sunburned, I didn’t get eaten by mosquitoes, and my temperature was much easier to regulate between daytime sun and lying on the dock at night to watch the Perseids. I took a long time to get dressed/undressed, and I need to make some sort of tea gown to wear around inside, but I loved the experience and would totally do it again.

#Cottage Life #cottage victorian #keystone fashion

[pocketramblr]

i celebrate that sixth/gran and davetoshinko were upgraded from pool noodle to little rafts... perhaps one day they’ll be whole rowboats

#in contrast there are other pool noodles with my handwriting on them that BETTER stay pool noodles or ill never forgive yall

[the-messenger-hawk]

My ships based off of this post:

Jetka: Used to be a Canoe, now a Rowboat. I take pride in having converted enough people to have caused this. 

Sokkla: Upper end of a Gunboat. Almost popular enough not to be a rare pair.

Katoph: Something of a Tugboat, more or less. 

Yukka: A duality. As far as accepting/appreciating the ship, it’s around a Frigate or a Gunboat. But if you want Yue happy and alive, it’s a Canoe. 

Lukka: It’s technically a Canoe, but it feels more like a Pool Noodle.

Urzai: As far as actually shipping it goes, more of a Tugboat. 

Hakozai: Definitely a Raft.

Piankoda (hakoda/piandao): A Pool Noodle in the truest sense of the word. 

#my ships #atla

[luckyladylily]

Using this guide, tell me about your favorite ships! For me:

Overwatch

Symettra/Pharah/Mercy - I think this one is a raft. Me and Kina are the ones I really know, I think there are a few others that write for this, but everyone seems to be cool with it when it comes up (as long as they are cool with polyamory). You tend to get a lot of Pharah/Mercy shippers stumbling into these fics (which is probably one of the two supercarriers of this franchise). This is my ship of ships in overwatch. Tracer/Widow/Emily - Simply by being an OT3 this is never going to reach dreadnought, but probably cruiser level. Tracer/widow is definitely a supercarrier, tracer/emily is is a cruiser at least so you get a ton of people coming in from the OTPs to check out the poly ship. I really like this ship and I get a lot of requests for it so I tend to write a good amount for it.

Mei/Ana - probably a canoe, but maybe a pool noodle. I have actually written some of this (and plotted out a fairly large fic) but never got around to editing and posting it. As far as I can tell there are zero fics for this and I have never seen someone else suggest it. Despite the significant age gap I think it really works as a sort of “Commander + recruit” sort of thing (particularly because Mei isn’t really military), especially pre freezing, and there is some potential for fantastic angst and drama with the whole freezing thing. I should really write and post that fic sometime.

Final Fantasy VII

Tifa/Aerith/Cloud/Zack - The ultimate polycule. Any individual pairing works well and is quite popular (with the exception of Zack/Tifa), but you rarely get the full polycule. In that sense it is a bit of a rare ship, but each individual ship gets tons of attention, often with the other two playing wingman, so it isn’t all that hard to find content. Technically a gunboat or so, feels more like a cruiser.

Barret/Elmyra Gainsborough - I looove the idea of these two together, bonding over having both adopted a child and being good parents. They are great for each other, and there is a ton of story potential here! Despite how perfect it is there is very little shipping of this going on. There are only 6 fics tagged with it on AO3. Rowboat at best.

Super Smash Bros

Samus/Wii fit trainer - A pool noodle crack ship if I have ever seen one. I initially put these together simply because two flexible women hnnnng, but then somehow along the way it accidentally turned into a real ship. I am not even joking! There is an interesting dynamic here! I should really plot some of it out some time.

Final Fantasy VI

Terra/Edgar/Celes/Locke - Probably my first ever set of ships, I individually shipped all of the het pairs when I was a tiny kid and I remember *really* struggling with who Terra in particular should end up with lol. These days I tend to ship all of them together as a polycule. I think Edgar/Terra was the first ship I ever wrote content for. I wanted them to kiss so bad! With the fandom being so old it is really hard to say what the state of each ship is or was.

[radical-rad1986]

So Konstantya reblogged this and I thought about some of the Esca ships as I read through it. (https://radical-rad1986.tumblr.com/post/627559876961370112/ship-sizes) So here, have some ramblings. (Note: Bc the fandom is so small, any askblog descriptor doesn't apply; same with AO3 mentions.)

Supercarrier: Van/Hitomi, obviously. (Side note: I feel like the shipname Vantomi isn't that popular, or even old? Like I remember suddenly seeing it on ff.net ONCE, then it pops up randomly. WAY more likely to see VH. Ha, not even with the slash.) Ah, Dilandau/oc. Dreadnought: Millerna/Dryden. Except there's not a lot of fic compared to other ships; I think that's because it feels like its an endgame thing in the Series that it's just going to happen eventually. Cruiser: Maybe Van/Celena and Van/Merle? Frigate & Gunboat: Folken/Eries and Gaddess/Eries; I think Dilandau/Dragonslayers goes here too? I remember there being several fics on ff.net by a few different authors. Tugboat & Rowboat: Actually lol, F/E and G/E kinda fit all four categories. Canoe: Merlandau, ala Pethics. Submarine: Does Eries/Allen go here? Hahaha... where does E/A go? :smile: Pontoon: Pacific Rim, AtLA,  and mebe Star Wars? Barrel: Millerna/Moleman, except there is actual signed fic of it (or there was) on ff.net; Van/Chid, which I remember reading on ff.net but it actually made it over to AO3?? (https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727) Pool Noodle: Special mention of MaMa because Fayrinn named the ship... but really, where does MaMa go? It's canon, we all support it, but there's hardly any fic about it and we don't talk about it like we do basically everything else.

Also not sure where to put OT3 Folken/N&E... Hn, not sure where to put Celena/Gaddess either. Or Millerna/Allen. Or Allen/Hitomi.

Thoughts?? Other ships that I am not familiar with?

#Escaflowne #E meta #fandom #tiny fandom woes

[anneimaginesundertale]

Welcome to the Pond Party!

You went home to get your swimming stuff once Anne told you that the party would be a “pool party” in the pond.  Now you walk around the side of the house toward the pond.  You’ve barely reached the backyard when Papyrus greets you. 

“Welcome!” he says, dropping a pool float around your neck and handing you a brightly colored foam noodle.  “The pond is cool and refreshing, and we have several skeletons - myself included - acting as lifeguards to make sure no humans drown!  Help yourself to a drink and some treats, or jump right in!  Oh!  And make sure you put on a bit of sunscreen!  We don’t want you to burn!”  He boops your nose with a bit of coconut-scented sun lotion, then steps aside to let you pass.  

You take a moment to note where all the skeletons are. 

Sans is on a lounge floaty, drifting in the middle of the pond and already half-asleep.  

Papyrus is greeting people and acting as a lifeguard (so you can stay here and hang with him if you want). 

Blue is helping Sweets set up the refreshment table.  There’s lemonade (both sweet and sour) as well as a variety of juice, pop, water bottles, and a few alcoholic drinks.  Sweets made what looks like every possible kind of cookie, which are spread out on the table in colorful and tempting rows.  There are also leftover burgers and hot dogs from the picnic (made with magic so it doesn’t go bad) and a variety of chips.  

Stretch is manning (skeletoning?) a table covered in pool noodles and floaties in every color of the rainbow and a number of interesting patterns.  (Did you know you can get noodles with emojis on them?) He’s also looking very smug for some reason. 

Grim and Boss have both volunteered as lifeguards and are seating next to each other in tall chairs, matching silver whistles around their necks.  

Red and Smiley are having a water balloon fight in the shallows.  Both of them are already soaked. They seem to be aiming for their brothers as much as each other, but every time a balloon heads their way, either Boss or Grim will catch it with blue magic and redirect it at their brother.  

Mutt and Black are down in the shallows with the Newfies, romping and playing around with the dogs. Well, Mutt is romping.  Black is throwing a toy into the pond for Artemis to retrieve. Sansy is down there as well, waist deep and throwing a toy for Hope that is nearly as big as she is. 

Bones and Lucky have set up a couple of little rowboats about halfway around the pond and have stuck a sign in the ground that says, “Boat rides 10 5 1G. Price negotiable.  Singing skeleton optional.” It seems they’re planning on rowing people around the pond?  

Where do you go first? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply to this post to join the party! (I want to try the reply method instead of asks this time.  Let’s see if this works better than the ask system.) 

#skeleton pond party

[virtualfindingsdocumented]

https://metastories.tumblr.com/post/184542149034/ship-sizes

Hmm

Supercarrier: LemBea

Dreadnought: Jacques/Olivia

Cruiser: Kitlaf

Frigate: Quiglet

Gunboat: Eslaf, Kit/Dewey

Tugboat: B/B, Larry/Ernest

Rowboat: B/B/L (Lemonberry ice)

Canoe: Jacquelyn/Gustav

Submarine: the Ships We Dont Talk About (idk, their shippers seem to be proud but I never see anyone talking about them on tumblr, yet the fics are popular, idk)

Pontoon: something stranger things something umbrella academy

Pedalo: Bea/Bomby? Uhhh I feel like Lemolaf could also belong here

Barge: a lot of f/f ships: Bea/R, Kit/Ellington, Kit/Esmé, Kit/Bea, also Lemony/Ellington

Raft: Georgina/Esmé, Bertrand/Moxie (I am one of the two people)

Barrel: Lemolaf

Pool Noodle: for me personally it’s Geraldine/Eleanora, Armstrong/E, Theodora/The Woman, Lemony/Editor, etc. For other people: Henchperson/Fernald (that person is an inspiration), some of @ beatricebidelaire’s ships

#from the volunteer #feel free to reblog this with your version of it (in this fandom) i am always curious

[ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Scarlet Witch (Comic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alice Gulliver/Wanda Maximoff Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Alice Gulliver Additional Tags: Reunions, Developing Relationship, Butch/Femme, Making Out, magic tutoring, Falling In Love, Drabble Sequence, Double Drabble, Non-Linear Narrative Series: Part 5 of Marvel Femslash Week 2023 Summary: Hong Kong feels exactly like she’s left it, somehow.

-

Today I come baring a fic rec, because the world needs more Wanda/Alice and this is lovely.

#wanda maximoff #alice gulliver #wanda x alice #rowboats and pool noodles #fanfic #fic rec #femslash february rec

[thelastarchangelaskblog]

You can’t be a pool noodle bc you got the rest of us shipping it as well- I suppose we might be a rowboat???

Rowboat, is it?

#ask and you shall receive #plsdontfightme #apparently tumblr doesn't like me putting a gif on this #:(

[laufire]

"#kinda sideeying how many of my current otps are rowboats and canoes lol#and lets not forget the pool noodles fml" LMAO I knew you'd appreciate the pool noodle one. My current pool noodle is Isabelle and Jordan in an unhealthy "I can't have what I want but you'll do." kind of way.

I saw they had some scene(s) in the finale and it’s currently the one thing in the pros column wrt whether I’ll catch up or not lol.

My current pool noodles are Rosita/Waverly, Rosita/Wynonna, Diana/Victor (DCEU), a few other crack and poly ships I wanna write fics for so I’m gonna keep them private for now... 

why.do.we.do.this.to.ourselves.mp3

#equusgirl #replies #shipping #talking to the void #my thougths #fandom

[doctorsupernova]

Ok I'm gonna be really predictable: 1) Metroid 2) Samus x Madeline 3) hmmm... Samus?

well, you asked for it

Leaving out the third because I feel like it’d be redundant after the first two.

METROID

Favorite CharacterThe obvious answer here is Samus, since she’s everyone’s favorite, so I’m gonna go with my personal faves: Madeline and Melissa! I maintain that Other M should’ve had a much greater focus on them.

Least Favorite CharacterDoes the Boost Guardian count as a character? Also, I’m kind of behind on Samus Returns because of exams last week, but I’m dreading having to fight Diggernaut. (Apparently it’s a chase sequence and puzzle? That’s all I’ve heard, don’t spoil it for me)

5 Favorite Ships (canon or non-canon)Samus x Madeline, Kreatz x Mauk (from the manga), Samus x Not Losing Everyone She Cares About (will never be canon, ever), Melissa x Living (it’s canon shut up), Prime 4 x A Release Date…This series doesn’t give a whole lot of shipping material.

Character I Find Most Attractiveall the women are wonderful, this question is BS

Character I Would MarryMelissa. I’m a sucker for villains, what can I say?

Character I Would Be Best Friends WithI’d love the chance to hang out with Samus and Anthony! They have a fun dynamic that I wish we could’ve seen more of.

A Random ThoughtI was home from college for the weekend when Samus Returns came out, so I got to sit with my family and kitties while I played it! At one point early on I said “I don’t think I’m too good at this game yet” and my mom just looked at me and said “You’ve been playing it for ten minutes, Peyton”

An Unpopular OpinionI’m going to give two because I can’t decide which one to say:

I’m super excited about Prime 4 being announced, but I’m not so sure about the name they gave it. The trilogy was named after an entity called Metroid Prime that was pretty unambiguously annihilated in the third game. So, unless it’s meant as an interquel or something, I can’t help but feel like the name was just a publicity stunt.

I feel like I’ve already made it clear that the merits of Other M outweigh the faults for me personally. But when did a portion of the fandom decide that it’s complete trash and anyone who likes it at all is a moron? It got pretty good reviews for the most part, and the kind of people who police others’ tastes tend to be the same people who take reviews as objective truth. So what happened here? And can’t we all just get along?!

My Canon OTPI don’t actually remember any canon ships except for Rodney and Virginia Aran, and we all know what happened to them

Non-Canon OTP*sweats nervously* I think you can tell from the next section

Most Badass Characterthis is Metroid we’re talking about, could it be anyone besides Samus

Pairing I Am Not a Fan ofSamus and Adam. Writing missteps with troubling abusive undertones aside, it really does seem like it’s more of a parental relationship than a romantic one. Not hating on anyone who does ship them!

Character I Feel the Writers Screwed Up (in one way or another) Adam. And this isn’t so much the writers as the designers, but I feel like Samus outside her suit tends to be oversexualized to the point of it, ironically enough, being a turn-off? At least in my opinion. (She looked so much better in that green jacket at the end of OM.)

Favorite FriendshipSamus and Anthony, best bros

SAMUS X MADELINE

When or If I Started Shipping ItI honestly don’t remember. I think I cracked a joke to myself while playing and was like “heh, yeah, she wants her to come closer bby” and it kinda spiraled from there.

My ThoughtsThe best possible ship between Samus and a canon character, in my opinion. I feel like they have so many significant parallels - shared personality traits shown by their heroic actions, extremely similar traumas and struggles with surrogate motherhood, common interest in technology - that I’m surprised it seems like I’m the first to think of this ship!

What Makes Me Happy About ThemI haven’t seen anybody notice this, but it’s adorable how much Samus seems to admire Madeline! I mean, Samus praises her actions a lot, keeps her protection a top priority (despite the whole mess being partially her fault), and seems really sad when it looks like she’s about to be arrested. It seems like the makings of the “badass who’s a complete softie around their partner” trope, which is the good shit

What Makes Me Sad About ThemThey both lost their babies… (also, the fact that they only know each other for one cutscene in canon)

Things Done in Fanfic that Annoys Meum, what fanfic

Things I Look For in FanficIts existence? Y’know how some people say they don’t have a ship so much as a little rowboat? This isn’t even that. This is, like, a pool noodle.

My KinksI can’t decide if they’d have fluffy vanilla sex or be the kinkiest fuckers in the galaxy. Either way, they’d praise each other through the whole thing and there’d be an absurd amount of cuddling afterward.

Who I’d Be Comfortable Them Ending Up With, if Not Each OtherI’d be cool with Samus ending up with Anthony, because they’ve got a solid friendship that’d translate well into a healthy relationship for both of them. As for Madeline? …I don’t know.

My Happily Ever After For ThemWhen Samus isn’t off saving a civilization or blowing up a planet, they live a peaceful life on a restored Aether with an android daughter they made together.(this is so sappy holy shit)

#metroid #peyton speaks #eevee-nicks

[archangels-and-timelords]

My Armada

Inspired by this post, I thought I’d classify all my ships. Like one of those tag games folks are always coming up with. Keep in mind that I don’t ship all of these anymore. I tried to create an authoritative list of all the ships I’ve shipped over the years. I’m probably missing some, but whatever.  So here goes.

Supercarriers: Noctis/Prompto (FFXV), Cloud/Tifa (FFVII), Cloud/Zack (FFVII), Zack/Aerith (FFVII), Doctor/Master (Doctor Who), Poe/Finn (Star Wars), Cassian/Jyn (Star Wars), Baze/Chirrut (Star Wars), Steve/Bucky (Marvel), Sherlock/Watson (Sherlock Holmes), Dean/Castiel (Supernatural), Sora/Riku (KH), Sam/Jack (Stargate)

Dreadnoughts: Gladiolus/Prompto (FFXV), Noctis/Ignis (FFXV), Han/Lando (Star Wars), Kylo/Hux (Star Wars), Thor/Loki (Marvel), Shiro/Keith (Voltron), Allura/Lotor (Voltron), Bilbo/Thorin (The Hobbit), Axel/Roxas (KH), John/Rodney (Stargate)

Cruisers: Noctis/Luna (FFXV), Rufus/Tseng (FFVII), Vincent/Yuffie (FFVII), Ezra/Sabine (Star Wars),  Kanan/Hera (Star Wars), Kallus/Zeb (Star Wars), Tony/Strange (Marvel), Clint/Natasha (Marvel), Michael/Lucifer (Supernatural), Daniel/Vala (Stargate) 

Frigates: Ardyn/Aera (FFXV), Tifa/Aerith (FFVII), Fang/Vanille (FFXIII), Rey/Finn (Star Wars), Luke/Wedge (Star Wars), Lorne/Zelenka (Stargate), Teyla/Beckett (Stargate), Legolas/Gimli (LOTR)

Gunboats: Ignis/Ravus (FFXV), Luna/Aranea (FFXV), Ardyn/Gilgamesh (FFXV), Genesis/Sephiroth (FFVII), Rude/Reno (FFVII), Ahsoka/Barriss (Star Wars), Tony/Pepper (Marvel)

Barges: Ardyn/Ravus (FFXV), Rey/Jess (Star Wars), Ronon/Keller (Stargate)

Tugboats: Paine/Rikku (FFX), Braxiatel/Romana (Doctor Who), Jamie/Zoe (Doctor Who), Sam/Meg (Supernatural), Bobby/Crowley (Supernatural), Weir/Caldwell (Stargate)

Rowboats: Piett/Veers (Star Wars)

Canoes: Luna/Crowe (FFXV), Kain/Lightning (FFIV/XIII), Nyssa/Turlough (Doctor Who), Gabriel/Kali (Supernatural)

Rafts: Inias/Samandriel (Supernatural), Xemnas/Saix (KH)

Submarines: Ardyn/Prompto (FFXV), Weiss/Nero (FFVII)

Pontoons: 

Pedalos: Marluxia/Vexen (KH)

Barrels: Adam/Jo (Supernatural)

Pool Noodles: Hester/Rachel (Supernatural)

#tag game #I think that's everything #I haven't recorded any character/oc pairings I had back when I did that #or pairings where I changed a canon character so much that they may as well have been an oc #which is why no Harry Potter ships are here #and why LOTR is so sparse #feel free to do this if you want

[newstfionline]

Arctic permafrost is starting to thaw. Here’s why you should care.

Amy Martin, PRI’s The World, November 11, 2018

On a lovely summer day in northern Sweden, Mathilda Nyzell is rowing a boat across a lake, as flocks of birds circle in the sky.

“We have so much fun in the boat when me and Jenny go out,” Nyzell says.

Nyzell and her colleague Jenny Gåling are master’s students at Stockholm University. They’re here in Abisko, Sweden, to study Arctic permafrost--soil that’s been frozen year-round for at least two years--and the gases that seep out into the atmosphere when it thaws. Specifically, they’re measuring the gas bubbling up from sediment in lakes like this one, which dots the landscape here.

These scientists love the research process and the places it takes them--places like this lake. But the data they’re collecting tells a very sobering story.

One of the main gases bubbling up and out of this lake is methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. As our human-caused carbon pollution causes the planet to heat up, that warming is thawing out Arctic permafrost, which, in turn, is triggering an increase in natural carbon emissions from places like this.

In other words, all around the Arctic, climate change caused by human pollution is causing even more of the same greenhouse gases to move from once-frozen soil into the atmosphere.

For researchers around the world, that is a very frightening change, because there is a lot of carbon in that soil.

“The amount of the amount of carbon that’s stored in [Arctic permafrost soil], it’s twice the amount that we have in the atmosphere,” says Joachim Jansen, lead researcher on this project and a doctoral student at Stockholm University. “And so if that will all be released into the atmosphere, that would mean a huge climatic change.”

This is a statistic worth remembering, so let’s put it another way: If all the carbon currently in the atmosphere could fit into one bucket, all of the carbon currently frozen in Arctic permafrost would fill two buckets of the same size.

Nobody knows how much of that carbon will actually end up in the atmosphere or how quickly. That’s why these researchers are here.

Not far from the lake, ecosystem ecologist Gesche Blume-Werry stabs the soil with a long steel rod called a permafrost probe to find out how much of the soil in this spot is frozen or not. At first, the probe makes a sort of hollow sound as it pushes into the soft soil. About a foot down, though, it hits something that sounds like a big rock.

“This is frozen soil,” Blume-Werry says.

And in that soil, there’s all kinds of stuff--plants, dead animals, and other organic material that Blume-Werry says was buried and frozen during the last Ice Age.

She pulls the probe back out and touches it. In just a few seconds, the end has become really cold--so cold that it’s uncomfortable to touch--just from brief contact with the permafrost less than a foot below.

Permafrost can be anywhere from a meter to a kilometer thick. It can be very cold or just barely frozen. But all around the Arctic, it’s starting to thaw.

You might’ve seen some of the pictures of the local impacts of this transition from rock-hard to squishy soil--roads that are sinking and buckling, homes shifting and cracking, and trees tilting at awkward angles, giving rise to the label “drunken forests.” In fact, there’s a line of telephone poles next to the meadow where Blume-Werry is working, including one that also looks a little drunk.

“That is probably standing in an area where the permafrost is just disappearing now,” she says. “So they will have to redo that soon.”

These changes are a big deal for people who live in the Arctic. In many northern cultures, cellars dug into the permafrost have been a reliable way to store food for generations--nature’s freezer. Now, people can’t always trust that their food won’t spoil.

Thawing permafrost affects newer kinds of infrastructure too--buildings, water mains, sewage drains, even cemeteries. Communities are scrambling to adapt as the ground literally shifts beneath them.

But the impact is far more than local. All that organic material in the permafrost has a lot of carbon in it. That’s what “organic” means--organic chemistry is carbon chemistry. And for thousands of years--all of recorded human history and then some--that carbon has been locked up. Put in the freezer, you might say.

Now, Blume-Werry says, “we are unfortunately kind of taking the plug out of the freezer, and it’s starting to thaw.”

When that happens, all the frozen organic material in permafrost finally starts to decompose. Microbes spring into action and start chowing down on the remains of those plants and animals.

“Microbes are eating it,” Blume-Werry says. “And then they emit carbon.”

That’s how the carbon moves from the permafrost into the atmosphere. As the microbes begin breaking down the buried organic material, they transform its carbon molecules into gas--methane or carbon dioxide--which then float up into the atmosphere and help trap heat from the sun.

It is a long, slow process, but it’s starting to reactivate around the Arctic as the region rapidly warms up. These scientists are trying to help figure out how quickly it’s happening here, right now, and what might happen in the years ahead.

Back at the lake, Nyzell steers her rowboat close to an odd contraption floating in the water. It’s a big funnel, sitting upside down with a big syringe sticking up from the skinny end. If the thing looks homemade, Jansen says, that’s because it is.

“The way we make them float is by using pool noodles,” he says.

The contraptions are gas traps, designed to capture bubbles floating up from the lake bottom below. Nyzell rows up to one of them so Jansen can reach over the side of the boat and suck out the gas that’s accumulated in it with a syringe.

“We [have] about seven milliliters of gas, most of which will likely be methane,” he says. Jansen’s team will measure the actual methane concentration of the sample later in the lab.

The team has placed 40 of these bubble traps on this lake, and a bunch more nearby, which they check multiple times a week, all summer long. That’s a lot of effort just to understand how much methane is coming off this one small area, this year, under very local weather and ecological conditions.

Groups of other scientists are at work elsewhere around the Arctic studying sites that are wetter or drier, colder or warmer, with more or less vegetation. They’re all trying to understand just how quickly the billions of tons of carbon locked up in all of the Arctic’s permafrost might be released.

It’s a massive challenge, but Jansen says it’s vital to understand what may happen to the Earth’s climate, with temperatures that could rise by as much as 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

“The scary part is that we don’t know what an extra four degrees of warming will do to this huge amount of carbon that’s stored here in the permafrost,” Jansen says. “And we are trying to actively figure that out.”

The worry is not just about that possible 4 Celsius warming, though. Just one degree of warming, Blume-Werry says, can make “all the difference in the world.”

In many parts of the Arctic, she says, permafrost has already thawed enough to start emitting carbon. In other places, the frozen soil is right on the cusp of that pivot point, where a change of just one or two degrees can transform it from frozen to thawed, from something that stores carbon to something that emits it.

“And that is something that scientists are really worried about because there are many thresholds that you might cross there,” Blume-Werry says. “We might tip the scales of these really large exchanges, then we can have really dramatic consequences.”

We don’t know how close we are to a massive release of carbon from frozen Arctic soils, but we do know that every bit of carbon humans emit into the atmosphere gets us closer to that point. The pollution from our vehicles, businesses, and power plants will cause more carbon to be emitted from thawing permafrost.

Scientists call it a positive feedback loop: More carbon in the air leads to more warming, which leads to the release of more carbon, and the process just builds on itself.

Another thing we know is that we don’t get a second chance at this. If our pollution triggers a huge release of carbon from Arctic soils, we’ve put ourselves at the mercy of processes we can’t control, and that will dramatically reshape the Earth’s climate and our own civilizations.

#Arctic permafrost #permafrost thawing