Inadequate cliffs:
- Human overhunting caused prehistoric populations of giant herbivores (including mammoths) to fall precipitously in the region of Siberia.
- This in turn helped cause the change from grassy steppe to tundra/taiga because too few animals existed to clear the ground of snow/moss etc.
- This build up of snow prevents the earth beneath from cooling.
- Hypothesis is that reintroducing huge herds of large herbivores (horses, bison, oxen, yaks etc) will reverse this process and allow the area to return to the steppe it once was.
- A natural consequence is that snow cover will be greatly reduced. This will allow the earth to cool more freely during winter months.
- This should make for a deeper permafrost which will then be more durable to the summer sun.
- More durable permafrost = less emission of buried greenhouse gases
