Vladimir Romanovsky, associate professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska, has been studying permafrost for more than 30 years. Roads and cycle paths have twisted and buckled, buildings have cracked and across the town there are large "sink holes" where the land has simply fallen in on itself. Residents say the local authority has stopped repairing the damage to roads in anything other than a temporary fashion, knowing that each spring the land will likely melt and sink again.One of the leading experts on permafrost is one of Mrs Macchione's neighbours. That might not seem much until you consider the average global increase in surface temperatures over the last 100 years has been 0.6C.Around Fairbanks the implications are considerable.
But in recent years all that has changed due to an increase in soil temperatures in parts of Alaska of three per cent in 30 years. Permafrost is the name given to that part of topography that has been constantly frozen since the last Ice Age and in places such as Alaska it had long been considered safe to build homes on permafrost. The couple built the 26ft by 16ft (8m by 5m) log cabin by hand almost 50 years ago. But in the late 1970s the couple felt the ground move beneath their feet.Bit by bit the cabin started to sink. Mrs Macchione placed blocks under the tables in an attempt to keep things level but it was no good. When her husband died in 1987 she was loathe to move from the home they had shared but eventually things became too dangerous and in 1999 she had a new house built nearby.
"The last two or three years it really took a dive," she said "All that hard work for nothing. It's heart-breaking."The problem was that the ground was melting. It is also where Ruth Macchione and her late husband, Peter, literally made their home. There used to be huge floes that broke off into the bay but now the glacier is stuck on the ground. It's still on the water's edge but it's no longer floating." He added: "It's hard for people to swallow.
