Beavers aren't typically associated with climate change, but scientists studying thawing permafrost in the Arctic say the two go hand in hand.

The toothy animals, known for their habit of felling trees to build dams and their voracious appetite for bark, stems and twigs, have moved from forests into the Arctic tundra as climate change opened up more habitat for them over the past two decades.

Now they're gnawing away at the thawing permafrost in areas where beavers have never been seen before, boosting the impacts of climate change as they take over more and more land.

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They build their lodges and dams in lakes, some of which were created by melting ice and thawing permafrost where the water is warmer than the surrounding earth. At the same time, their structures cause more areas to be covered with warmer water, which leads to further thawing.

Thawing permafrost also releases methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

"Basically by building a dam it was more or less a triple whammy," Benjamin Jones, a professor in the Institute of Northern Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told weather.com in a phone interview Wednesday.

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Jones is lead author of a study published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters that tracks beaver activity in parts of Arctic Alaska. Using high resolution satellite images of a roughly 60-square-mile area near the northwest town of Kotzebue, the team discovered a beaver boom that is chipping away at the already-thawing permafrost.

Warmer temperatures have brought less ice cover and more vegetation to the region, likely making it more hospitable to beavers.

"They were actually targeting these features that were indicative of permafrost degradation previously, but that led to an exacerbation of permafrost degradation," Jones said. Jones and his team counted 98 beaver dams in the area in 2019, up from just 2 in 2002. At the same time, the surface area covered by water in the Kotzebue region grew by 8.3 percent. The scientists connected about two-thirds of that growth directly to beaver activity.

Jones said future studies will continue to track the beaver's impacts on permafrost and the effects of climate change.

“What our study does is it adds a new disturbance factor to already a pretty dynamic and changing landscape,” Jones said. “Basically with the beaver activity going on we’re highlighting that they are a primary driver of changes to surface body water and contributing to permafrost degradation.”

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