Permafrost Is Already Thawing. Will It Tip the Scales in the Climate Crisis?

We need to know and understand the facts related to our warming planet and not turn away as we come to recognize the dire emergency we’re in. And as one person accurately commented, “It's not just the carbon that's the worry. There is an unfathomable amount of methane gas trapped within that permafrost along with deadly millions year old microbes....all of which can wipe out the planet.”

This is the truth of what we’re facing and why Greta Thunberg, the Sunrise Movement, the Extinction Rebellion, young people worldwide, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Dahr Jamail, Bernie Sanders, the world’s climate scientists, and countless others like myself are relentlessly saying that we must educate ourselves and act NOW. It’s estimated that 70% of Americans are propagandized into not knowing about this greatest crisis that humankind has ever faced. This is unacceptable!

Yes, we’ve squandered decades on ignorance and inaction and believing the toxic propaganda of the mainstream media and the poisonous wealthy interests that fund them. Yes, it may already be too late to stop irreversible catastrophic climate disruption. AND NO MATTER WHAT, WE MUST DO THE RIGHT THING NOW!

This means so many different things — to educate ourselves through independent non-corporate funded resources, speak the truth and share what we are learning, support and vote for Bernie Sanders and those who back and will implement the Green New Deal rather than support the deadly interests of the fossil fuel industry and other wealthy donor friends, march and rally in the streets, join those who are doing acts of civil disobedience, donate and phone bank and knock on doors for those seeking election who stand in integrity and accept no funding from wealthy special interests, and the list goes on and on of how we can help. No action is too small. Especially when the lives of our children and grandchildren and all species everywhere are at risk.

Truly , everything that we love and cherish is stake. Regardless of outcome, we must all take responsibility for doing our part, whatever that is for each of us, to at a minimum work to mitigate the climate and ecological crises. There is no excuse to sit back and do nothing. There is no excuse to collude and be complicit with the patriarchal neoliberal predatory capitalist system that has brought us to the brink of civilization collapse and extinction. None. — Molly

 

Thermokarst lakes, which result from water released by thawing permafrost, dot the land around Omulyakhskaya and Khromskaya Bays, Northern Siberia, pictured on June 15, 2009.

By Christina Schädel

Across vast swaths of the northern hemisphere’s higher reaches, frozen ground holds billions of tonnes of carbon.

As global temperatures rise, this “permafrost” land is at increasing risk of thawing out, potentially releasing its long-held carbon into the atmosphere.

Abrupt permafrost thaw is one of the most frequently discussed “tipping points” that could be crossed in a warming world. However, research suggests that, while this thawing is already underway, it can be slowed with climate change mitigation.

Yet, what is irreversible is the escape of the carbon that has been — and is being — emitted. The carbon released from permafrost goes into the atmosphere and stays there, exacerbating global warming.

In short, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

Permafrost and the Global Climate

Permafrost is ground that has been frozen for at least two consecutive years. Its thickness ranges from less than one metre to more than a kilometre. Typically, it sits beneath an “active layer” that thaws and refreezes every year.   

A warming climate puts this perennially frozen ground at risk. When temperatures rise, permafrost thaws — it does not melt.

There is a simple analogy: compare what happens to an ice cube and a frozen chicken when they are taken out of the freezer. At room temperature, the former will have melted, leaving a small pool of water, but the chicken will have thawed, leaving a raw chicken. Eventually, that chicken will start to decompose.

This is exactly what happens to permafrost when temperatures increase. One quarter of the landmass of the northern hemisphere is underlain by permafrost, which acts like Earth’s gigantic freezer and keeps enormous amounts of organic matter frozen.

This organic material includes the remnants of dead plants, animals and microbes that accumulated in the soil and were frozen into permafrost thousands of years ago.

Arctic temperatures have been increasing more than twice as fast as the global average. This has caused permafrost thaw in many locations and triggered newly awakened microbes to decompose the organic material thereby releasing CO2 or methane into the atmosphere.

Both gases are greenhouse gases, but methane is 28-36 times more potent than CO2 over a century. However, there is more CO2 than methane in the atmosphere and methane is oxidised to CO2 on timescales of about a decade. So, it is the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration that really matters for long-term climate change.

Please continue this article here: https://truthout.org/articles/permafrost-is-already-thawing-will-it-tip-the-scales-in-the-climate-crisis/