Thawing permafrost: something I don’t want to think about“So you know how we keep putting off
Thawing permafrost: something I don’t want to think about“So you know how we keep putting off things that scare us into inaction? Like our taxes, or that cholesterol test we probably need? Well, I feel the same way about studying trends in Arctic permafrost thaw. But the non-winter we’ve been experiencing has left me little choice but to face facts.As Arctic temperatures rise and ice cover in the northern hemisphere continues to shrink, permafrost soils are increasingly likely to release unprecedented amounts of carbon into the earth’s already polluted atmosphere. What does this mean? A study published in Nature last year predicted that thawing permafrost will release nearly the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as worldwide deforestation does now. However, since much of the carbon released from permafrost soils will be methane, which has a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide, the warming effects will be 2.5 times stronger.The New York Times reported evidence from Alaska that methane is already being vented into the atmosphere by thawing permafrost, and noted that Northern Hemisphere permafrost could contain as much as twice the amount of carbon that is already in the atmosphere. In Siberia, Russian scientists were shocked to find vast plumes of methane gushing into the air at a scale and density never seen before….” -- source link
#environment#climate change#permafrost#science