Thawing permafrost's climate bomb. CO2 emissions soar, study warns
Permafrost is thawing, a phenomenon scientists link to alarming increases in carbon dioxide emissions. This forms a peculiar loop: climate warming from CO2 emissions triggers changes that further augment CO2 emissions.
A Chinese Academy of Sciences team conducted complex research, shedding light on how carbon stored in permafrost affects climate change, especially considering future warming scenarios.
The researchers estimate that global warming's effect on all Northern Hemisphere high-altitude thermokarst regions could increase carbon emission from the soil by roughly 0.4 petagrams (882 billion pounds) annually. This represents about a fourth of the projected carbon losses from permafrost by the century's end, indicating that thawing permafrost could lead to much higher atmospheric carbon emissions than previously thought.
Permafrost spans about a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere's land surface, covering half of Canada and 80% of Alaska, and represents one-sixth of Earth's terrestrial area. Frozen for millennia and in places reaching depths of a mile, these substrates hold carbon that, upon thawing, decomposes and releases methane and CO2.
That same year, University of Leeds researchers warned of permafrost in peatlands across Europe and western Siberia nearing a thawing threshold, storing 39 billion tons of carbon—double that of all European forests. Despite efforts to curb carbon emissions, climate models predict that, by 2040, the climate in northern Europe could be too warm to sustain permafrost. However, timely climate action might preserve it in northwestern Siberia, home to 13.9 billion tons of carbon.
Permafrost thawing impacts infrastructure across the Arctic, with studies indicating significant risks to buildings, roads, pipelines, and airports essential to local communities. With climate warming, over 120,000 buildings, 25,000 miles of roads, and 5900 miles of pipelines and runways are increasingly threatened, necessitating greater maintenance efforts and financial investments to safeguard these structures. By 2050, up to 70% of Arctic buildings and 30-50% of critical infrastructure could face destruction.
