Thawing Permafrost Will Likely Speed up Global Warming by 2200
21.02.2011 - Atmosphere & Space, Land & Geology, Bi-polar
According to a new study recently published in Tellus B, the Earth could lose two-thirds of its permafrost by 2200, releasing incredible quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Not only will this release have a significant impact on the climate, scientists say, but it will influence international climate change mitigation efforts. Scientists believe that when setting target emissions, the additional amount of greenhouse gasses should be taken into account if we do not want to “end up with a warmer Earth than we want.”
The carbon stored in the Earth’s permafrost comes from plant material frozen in soil during the ice age during the Pleistocene, where the biomass has remained preserved for thousands of years. However, as the permafrost thaws, this biomass will decay and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To predict how much carbon will enter the atmosphere and when, the researchers modeled the thaw and decay of organic matter currently frozen in permafrost under potential future warming conditions as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
What they found was that 29 to 59% of permafrost will disappear by 2200. This particular type of soil, which took several millennia to form, could melt in less than 200 years, scientists warn. According to their estimates, an approximate 190 gigatonnes of carbon - about one-fifth the total amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere – could enter the atmosphere by 2200.
