GHG Output From Slumping, Melting Arctic Permafrost "Like Adding Another Country"

[hatrack]

As we work to curb emissions, another source of greenhouse gases is coming to the surface. An international study released this fall shows that permafrost thaw could contribute as much greenhouse gases to our atmosphere as a large industrial nation by the end of the century.  In the Arctic, warming is amplified, with annual temperatures having warmed 2.3 C since 1948, more than twice the global rate, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

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Based on the study, future emissions by the end of the century range from 55 billion tonnes of carbon in CO2 equivalents under lower emission scenarios, to 232 billion tonnes of carbon under higher emissions, released as carbon dioxide and methane. To put that in perspective, if Russia, the United States and China were to continue to emit as they did in 2019, they would release 46, 144, and 277 billion tonnes by the end of the century, respectively.

Olefeldt says that in a moderate warming scenario, the greenhouse gas emissions from the permafrost region this century will be equivalent to annual emissions somewhere between that of Russia and the United States.

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Olefedt says those emissions can be carbon dioxide or, if the area is near water, methane, a more potent greenhouse gas.  When it comes to this recent study, Olefedt says that there is a level of uncertainty, but that uncertainty has narrowed over the past 10 to 15 years.  Olefeldt says that emissions from the Arctic are inevitable, and because Canada is the second-largest permafrost country after Russia, those numbers will be significant. "[Permafrost emissions] are quite likely to be larger than the fossil fuel emissions from Canada, and probably by a factor of, you know, a few times," he says

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/the-world-s-permafrost-is-rapidly-thawing-and-that-s-a-big-climate-change-problem-1.6674976

[llashram]

1. and

somewhere soon, the spill will be, it's happening faster than we thought...