Siberian region fights to preserve permafrost as planet warms In Russia's Siberian city of Yakutsk, one of the coldest on Earth, climate change is causing dangerous melting of the permanently frozen ground, or permafrost on which the buildings stand. Average temperatures in Yakutsk have risen by 2.5 degrees Celsius over the past decade, according to scientists at the Russian Permafrost Institute, the only research centre of its type in the world. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES