New research co-authored by NASA scientists explains how and where greenhouse gases are escaping from Earth’s permafrost regions as the Arctic warms. The findings show that a region that has stored carbon underground for millennia is now becoming a “net source of greenhouse gas emissions”. An international team of scientists led by Stockholm University researchers, after tracking emissions using ground-based instruments, aircraft and satellites, said the scenario is variable and could have serious impacts on the planet’s health.
The study, conducted as part of the Global Carbon Project’s RECCAP-2 effort, found that between 2000 and 2020, the region captured one fraction more carbon dioxide than it released. The region’s lakes and wetlands were strong sources of methane during two decades.
Overall, the region has been a net contributor to global warming, largely due to another greenhouse gas, methane, which has a half-life of 10 years but absorbs significantly more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide which remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Could stay.
Abhishek Chatterjee said, “We know that permafrost zones have sequestered and stored carbon for thousands of years. But what we are finding now is that climate-driven changes could cause permafrost to become a net source of greenhouse gas emissions. are leading to.” Co-author and scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“This is the first study where we have been able to integrate different methods and datasets to put this comprehensive greenhouse gas budget into one report,” he said.
“Unlocking a fraction of the carbon stored in permafrost could further exacerbate climate change,” the researchers said. They also cautioned that extreme wildfires and heat waves remain major sources of uncertainty when projecting the future.
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What is permafrost?
Permafrost is ground that remains permanently frozen for anywhere from two years to hundreds of thousands of years. Earth’s northern region, which ranges from Alaska to Canada to the Arctic to Siberia, stores twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.
However, temperatures in the Arctic are warming two to four times faster than the global average. Melting of permafrost is changing the region from a net sink for greenhouse gases to a net source of warming.
