Vladimir Romanovsky is retiring after 30 years of studying permafrost at UAF's Geophysical Institute. He enters professor emeritus status while seeing changes in Alaska's frozen ground he never anticipated when scientists spoke of a new ice age in the 1970s. Romanovsky talks about why these discoveries of rapidly thawing ground are hard on roads and houses built over permafrost — frozen ground that has survived the heat of two summers — but are fascinating to him as a researcher. Part 1 of 2.