Community | March 15, 2010 | 9 comments

Scientific stunner: VAST Arctic Shelf methane stores are destabilizing and venting

source: http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/04/science-nsf-tundra-permafrost-methane-east-siberian-ar...

Image
WakeUpPeople
NSF issues world a wake-up call: "Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”

Methane release from the not-so-perma-frost is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle. Research published in Friday’s journal Science finds a key “lid” on “the large sub-sea permafrost carbon reservoir” near Eastern Siberia “is clearly perforated, and sedimentary CH4 [methane] is escaping to the atmosphere.”

Scientists learned last year that the "permamelt" contains a staggering “1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere,” much of which would be released as methane. Methane is is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 times as potent over 20 years!

The carbon is locked in a freezer in the part of the planet warming up the fastest (see “Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss“). Half the land-based permafrost would vanish by mid-century on our current emissions path (see “Tundra, Part 2: The point of no return” and below). No climate model currently incorporates the amplifying feedback from methane released by a defrosting tundra.

It is increasingly clear that if the world strays significantly above 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for any length of time, we will find it unimaginably difficult to stop short of 800 to 1000 ppm.

much more at link...
  1. groups:
    Community,   News and Politics,   Green,   Progressive America,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Climate Change,  Methane,  permafrost
  3. recommended by:
    WakeUpPeople
  4.     
    |

9 comments // Scientific stunner: VAST Arctic Shelf methane stores are destabilizing and venting

more from Community:
from the community

top videos