In Siberia, climate change comes to the coldest village on earth

The Siberian village of Oymyakon is regarded as the coldest permanently-inhabited place on earth. 

Though it is only a few degrees of latitude further north than Aberdeen, the village of 500 residents is in a mountain valley where cool air pools, isolated from warmer currents by the “Siberian high” pressure system and the Chersky range.

Yet even here, the effects of global warming are already being felt. 

There are no walruses tumbling to their deaths like in David Attenborough’s new Our Planet series. But as the permafrost soil thaws in this region, thousands of people have had to move to new housing, and animals face new predators and diseases.

When I arrived after a bumpy 26-hour journey on…