Frozen in Arctic and northern soils are trapped some 1,700 billion gigatons of organic carbon, more than four times the amount of carbon ever released by human activity. In a stable global ecosystem, much of it might just stay there, getting pushed deeper and deeper by freezing and thawing cycles. Of course, we don’t live in a stable global ecosystem and, as the arctic warms and melts, the carbon is going to head skyward — making global warming even worse.“There’s more organic carbon in northern soils than there is in all living things combined; it’s kind of mind boggling,” says Benjamin Abbott, one of the authors of a new study in Nature, in a press blast. “In most ecosystems organic matter is concentrated only in the top meter of soils, but when arctic soils freeze and thaw the carbon can work its way many meters down.” When that organic matter decomposes, it releases carbon dioxide and methane, two powerful agents of climate change.Thawing in action:Looking at it from a we’re all doomed perspective, it might be particularly chilling to note that this release isn’t factored into any of our current climate change models, which are already suggesting that we’re all doomed. Gradual permafrost thawing from warning air is in some long-range models, but not the rapid releases that come from the more abrupt thawing — coming from, say, a collapsing ice wedge — we’re facing in the Arctic.“Permafrost carbon release is not going to overshadow fossil fuel emissions as the main driver of climate change” says Edward Schuur, a University of Florida researcher and another author. “But it is an important amplifier of climate change.” In other words, all those drastic actions we’re currently not taking to mitigate carbon emissions, well, they need to be even more drastic.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
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