In the places where winter lasts for nine months, we don't need to use freezers. We simply store things outside and reduce our energy consumption. Even during Arctic summer temperatures reach into the high 30s Celsius we know how to keep things cool.
Since half of the Arctic and Siberia stands on continuous permafrost, the cellars – dug into the frozen ground – are very cold and mainly used to store frozen food. These ice or permafrost cellars or caves are common in Siberia, Arctic Canada and Alaska.
This creative use of the frozen ground was practised by indigenous northerners long beforethey were discovered by scientists. They didn’t need to know the science – they just used their observations and experience which was passed down through the centuries. The techniques behind a household ice-cellar’s construction and maintenance have not changed much.
Many cellars have multiple rooms with different depths and temperatures. The coldest room is located in the actual permafrost – below the active or thawing layer. The temperature may vary depending on location, season and purpose but need to be lower than -4°C to prevent melting.
Rapid climate change in the Arctic is affecting many community freezers and threatening food security of some Indigenous communities, such as the Inupiaq in Barrow, Alaska.
To avoid exposure to carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and mercury that are released from the thawing permafrost, the cellars are aired out in the summer. In early winter the ventilation is usually done for another purpose – to refreeze the permafrost using colder outdoor air.
It’s essential to insulate the surface above the cellar with different natural materials or grow vegetation on it to decrease the loss of heat. It is also possible to build a shed above it in order to create a shadow and stimulate airflow. Proper insulation helps keep the active layer thinner and the permafrost frozen.
Finding the right place to build is complicated and the surface conditions and surroundings have to be considered. The surface appearance can tell about the underground temperature, the thickness of the active layer and the amount of underground ice or water.
There are also large, modern freezing facilities that use the frozen ground in numerous locations, including communal freezers such as Tuktoyaktuk Ice House, which was built with government assistance in the 1960s.
The largest permafrost storage facility – Merzlotnik in the Yamal-Nenets region of Russia – is also used for preserving commercial products. And the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard and the Siberian “Noah's Ark for plants” are filled with seeds of thousands of plants for the purposes of flora conservation.
But perhaps the most sophisticated innovation is a planned cryo-storage facility for the remains of Pleistocene animals like the mammoth which were once abundant in Northern Yakutia, Russia. Organizers expect the facility will be visited by “scientific tourists”. It will have quarantine chambers to ensure there is no transfer of dangerous bacteria and diseases.
*Marina Antonova is from Yakutsk and was an intern at GRID-Arendal. She has a three-room ice cellar with a main room kept at a cool -14°C.
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