Photographer Katie Orlinsky has been documenting the impact of climate change for four years, but says what she recently witnessed on assignment for National Geographic frightened her like no other assignment has. National Geographic sent Orlinsky and writer Craig Welch to northern Russia and Siberia for a look at permafrost: the layer of ground below the soil that (usually) remains frozen solid throughout the year. This year, however scientist Nikita Zimov and his father, Sergey, drilled into the ground and found soft mush where the earth should be frozen solid. Welch writes, “For the first time in memory, ground that insulates deep Arctic permafrost simply did not freeze in winter.” Story editor Sadie Quarrier explains that National Geographic plans to publish Orlinsky’s and Welch’s full story in fall 2019. However, “The pressing nature of their discoveries made our coverage of this specific aspect of story more urgent, which is why we decided to file a digital story just days after they returned from the field.”
