What’s the climate tipping point for permafrost?

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Cave study offers clues on temperature threshold

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Global permafrost is a significant factor in the climate-change equation. Map courtesy United Nations Environmental Program.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Climate scientists have long been warning that a meltdown of Arctic permafrost will trigger a spike in greenhouse gas emissions as long-frozen organic soils give up their carbon to the atmosphere. What’s not yet clear is how fast and how much of the permafrost will melt, but a new study helps identify a temperature threshold that could lead to widespread melting.

A team led by Oxford University scientists studied stalactites and stalagmites in caves along Siberia’s permafrost frontier, where the ground begins to be permanently frozen in a layer tens to hundreds of meters thick.

The stalactites and stalagmites only grow when liquid rainwater and snow melt drips into the caves. The formations record 500,000 years of changing permafrost conditions, including warmer climate periods. After studying the paleoclimate clues in the caves, the researchers concluded that another 1.5 degrees of warming would be enough to cause substantial thawing of permafrost far north from its present-day southern limit. (more…)

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Climate: Study IDs new permafrost threat

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Bob Berwyn

Study suggests direct sunlight can trigger CO2 emissions from disturbed permafrost soils

USGS researchers make ground-based permafrost measurements in Alaska.

USGS researchers make ground-based permafrost measurements in Alaska.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with melting ice — one of the more obvious signs of global warming in the Arctic — the region is changing in other ways.

In some areas, long-frozen soils are melting and collapsing, forming potholes and other new landscape features, and the ancient carbon locked into those soils is extremely sensitive to sunlight. When it’s exposed, it releases heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere much faster than previously thought, according to University of Michigan ecologist and aquatic biogeochemist George Kling.

Climate scientists have long known that melting permafrost will release huge amounts of CO2, but the new findings suggest that exposure to sunlight will speed the process. (more…)

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Global warming: USGS researchers quantify potential greenhouse gas releases from melting Arctic permafrost

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Staggering amounts of nitrogen and carbon could lead to runaway warming in coming decades

Permafrost melting is expected to increase in coming decades.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey say they’ve quantified the amount of greenhouse gases that could be released into the atmosphere as Arctic permafrost starts to melt.

“This study quantifies the impact on Earth’s two most important chemical cycles, carbon and nitrogen, from thawing of permafrost under future climate warming scenarios,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “While the permafrost of the polar latitudes may seem distant and disconnected from the daily activities of most of us, its potential to alter the planet’s habitability when destabilized is very real.”

As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century. This nitrogen and carbon are likely to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, and water resources including rivers and lakes. For context, this is roughly the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere today. (more…)

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Global warming: Pinpointing permafrost methane emissions

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

USGS researchers make ground-based permafrost measurements in Alaska.

New study will generate important data on Arctic carbon cycle

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Methane emissions from Arctic landscapes remain one of the big wild cards in the global warming deck, with some dire predictions that methane from melting permafrost could significantly increase warming.

There has been relatively little sampling in the area, but a research mission led by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has recently completed airborne measurements that will help establish a baseline for methane and calculate future increases. (more…)

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Global warming: Tracking permafrost meltdown

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Satellite measurements by the European Space Agency suggest that a permafrost meltdown may be starting.

European satellite monitoring measuring changes in permafrost regions

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY —One of the biggest concerns related to global warming is that rapid permafrost melting in northern latitudes could release a massive surge of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

It’s not clear whether such a meltdown tipping point is imminent, but the satellite record suggests the process has started, according to researchers who gathered recently at a permafrost workshop at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany.

Research presented at the conference indicates that satellites are seeing changes in land surfaces in high detail at northern latitudes, suggesting thawing permafrost. Data from satellite monitoring by the European Space Agency was a key part of the conference findings.

Permafrost is ground that remains at or below 32 degrees for at least two consecutive years and usually appears in areas at high latitudes such as Alaska, Siberia and Northern Scandinavia, or at high altitudes like the Andes, Himalayas and the Alps. (more…)

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Global warming: Permafrost meltdown causing problems

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

A major rock avalanche in the Bregaglia after Christmas 2011 could be a result of temperature rise in permafrost areas. PHOTO COURTESY HELI BERNINA.

New mapping tool to help land-use planners and public safety officials locate potential trouble spots

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — While permafrost is most often associated with the Arctic north, it’s also an important component of alpine ecosystems, serving as a sort of glue that holds otherwise crumbly mountains together.

As the Earth warms rapidly due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, some alpine countries have already had first-hand experience with thawing permafrost as a result of climate change. In some mountain locations, cable-car and powerline pylons have become unstable, and f temperatures continue to rise, the problem will intensify in many places. (more…)

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Global warming: Arctic melting faster than projected

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

A NASA satellite image shows sunny skies over the Arctic in June, 2010, with Greenland visible center-left.

20 percent drop in snow cover, seasonal changes and permafrost temperature increases add up to massive impacts

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Global warming impacts in the Arctic are much more dramatic than predicted by many climate models, with summer temperatures the past few decades the highest in 2000 years, and a 20 percent decline in the amount of snow cover in May and June.

The winter season is already two weeks shorter than just a few decades ago and temperatures in the permafrost has climbed between .5 and 2 degrees, according to a team of Swedish researchers from Lund University, who compiled an extensive data set to draw a regional picture of the changes.

“The changes we see are dramatic. And they are not coincidental. The trends are unequivocal and deviate from the norm when compared with a longer term perspective,” said Margareta Johansson, one of the main authors of the new report. (more…)

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Global warming: Permafrost meltdown is coming

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

The Storflaket permafrost plateau bog near Abisko in northern Sweden shows cracks at its borders due to thawing of the permafrost. PHOTO VIA THE CREATIVE COMMONS.

Carbon surge could add up to 190 gigatons — about half of what’s been pumped into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial age

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Between 30 to 60 percent of the Earth’s permafrost will melt by 2200, releasing enormous quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, according to a study published this week by researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental SciencesNational Snow and Ice Data Center.

“The amount of carbon released is equivalent to half the amount of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age,” said Kevin Schaefer, a researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “That is a lot of carbon.” (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, Environment, global warming, Summit County Colorado, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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