Permafrost is ground that stays frozen year round; the permafrost in interior Alaska also has massive wedges of actual ice locked within the frozen ground. When that ice melts, the ground surface collapses and forms a sinkhole that can fill with water. Thus, a thermokarst lake is born. At first glance, Big Trail looks like any lake. But look closer and there's something disturbing the surface: bubbles.

Wild roses usually bloom in May and June, but warm fall temperatures may have signaled roses in Fairbanks to bloom later than usual.

“It’s an area that I and some other colleagues have started thinking about: can you get methane forming in terrestrial environments? But it’s a very new area of science,” carbon scientist Katey Walter Anthony said.

Prickly rose plant is blooming when others have gone to hips.

Little early for blueberry to be ripe.

A sinkhole has opened up on Ft. Wainwright in Fairbanks. The 3-foot diameter void discovered Monday near a housing unit, is suspected to be the result of thawing permafrost.

The unexpected appearance of sinkholes or groundwater flooding is something to which residents have grown accustomed.

The slope of permafrost where an 810-foot section of pipeline is secured has started to shift as it thaws, causing several of the braces holding up the pipeline to tilt and bend, according to an analysis by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.