Melting permafrost's impact on climate assessed
Shown here are carbon-rich soils from the mammoth steppe-tundra along the Kolyma River in Siberia, once frozen for thousands for years. Terry Chapin of the Institute of Arctic Biology told Earth & Sky that large regions of permafrost are thawing, exposing the soil and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Click here to expand.
JB: This is Earth & Sky. Scientists are beginning to measure the potentially big impact that melting permafrost will have on global warming.
DB: Terry Chapin is a research scientist with the Institute of Arctic Biology in Fairbanks. He studies very deep soils in Arctic that contain high concentrations of carbon. As long as the soil is frozen as permafrost, the carbon is locked in the soil. But as Earth’s climate warms and the permafrost melts, the carbon in the soil is released into the atmosphere.
JB: Chapin said that if all the permafrost in central Alaska and the northern plains of Siberia were to melt, about 500 gigatons of carbon would be released. This carbon would cause even greater climate warming than before. Chapin said scientists knew melting permafrost could contribute to global warming.
Terry Chapin: But it hasn’t been put together in a quantatative way that would allow global climate change scientists and climate modelers to use this information quantitatively in projecting how climate warming as a result of fossil fuel emissions is going to change the rate at which the climate warms.
DB: We asked Dr. Chapin if the release of carbon from thawing permafrost will contribute to global warming.
Terry Chapin: Oh yeah, I feel like the permafrost is a time bomb waiting to happen, and unfortunately, as a result of fossil fuel emissions, we’re lighting the fuse.
JB: More at earthsky.org. Thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
Science Magazine article about thawing permafrost.
Press release from the Institute of Arctic Biology about the permafrost carbon assessment.
Our thanks to:
Terry Chapin
Professor of Ecology
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Institute of Arctic Biology
Marie Gilbert
Publications and Information Coordinator
Institute of Arctic Biology
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK
Additional Teacher Resources
The New York Times: Victim of Climate Change, a Town Seeks a Lifeline
The sturdy little Cessnas land whenever the fog lifts, delivering children’s bicycles, boxes of bullets, outboard motors and cans of dried oats. And then, with a rumble down a gravel strip, the planes are gone, the outside world recedes and this subarctic outpost steels itself once again to face the frontier of climate change.
U.S. Arctic Research Commission: Climate Change, Permafrost, and Impacts on Civil Infrastructure
Permafrost, or perenially frozen ground, is a critical component of the cryosphere and the Arctic system. Permafrost regions occupy approximately 24% of the terrestrial surface of the Northern Hemi-sphere; further, the distribution of subsea permafrost in the Arctic Ocean is not well known, but new occurrences continue to be found. The effects of climatic warming on permafrost and the seasonally thawed layer above it (the active layer) can severely disrupt ecosystems and human infrastructure such as roads, bridges, buildings, utilities, pipelines, and airstrips.
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