permafrost

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    Rapid Melting of Arctic Permafrost Shocks Scientists

    Rapid Melting of Arctic Permafrost Shocks Scientists

    The Canadian Arctic is raising alarm bells for climate scientists. The permafrost there is thawing 70 years earlier than expected, a research team discovered, according to Reuters. It is the latest indication that the global climate crisis is ramping up faster than expected. The surface, which was frozen is now sinking and sprinkled with melt […]

    Arctic’s Melting Permafrost Will Cost Nearly $70 Trillion, Study Finds

    Arctic’s Melting Permafrost Will Cost Nearly $70 Trillion, Study Finds

    By Jake Johnson An alarming study released Tuesday found that melting Arctic permafrost could add nearly $70 trillion to the global cost of climate change unless immediate action is taken to slash carbon emissions. According to the new research, published in the journal Nature Communications, melting permafrost caused by accelerating Arctic warming would add close […]

    Fast-Melting Lakes Could Increase Permafrost Emissions 118 Percent

    Fast-Melting Lakes Could Increase Permafrost Emissions 118 Percent

    Scientists may need to more than double their assessment of how much carbon dioxide and methane thawing Arctic permafrost will release into the atmosphere this century, according to a study published this month. The paper, published in Nature Communications Aug. 15, said that previous estimates for how greenhouse gasses released by thawing permafrost would contribute […]

    Scientists Warn We May Be on Track for ‘Hothouse Earth’

    Scientists Warn We May Be on Track for ‘Hothouse Earth’

    In two recent studies, scientists have looked into the future and into the past to see what might happen to the global climate if we fail to curb greenhouse gas emissions in time. The results are frightening. A study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined how, once a certain threshold […]

    Permafrost and Wetland Emissions Could Cut 1.5°C Carbon Budget ‘by Five Years’

    Permafrost and Wetland Emissions Could Cut 1.5°C Carbon Budget ‘by Five Years’

    By Robert McSweeney Emissions of CO2 and methane from wetlands and thawing permafrost as the climate warms could cut the “carbon budget” for the Paris agreement temperature limits by around five years, a new study says. These natural processes are “positive feedbacks”—so called because they release more greenhouse gases as global temperatures rise, thus reinforcing […]

    Oil Companies in Alaska Refreeze Melting Permafrost to Keep Drilling

    Oil Companies in Alaska Refreeze Melting Permafrost to Keep Drilling

    A new industry is taking off in Alaska, as innovators help oil companies compensate for the irony that climate change is making oil exploration harder on the increasingly less frozen permafrost, NPR reported Monday. Ed Yarmak, for example, heads a company called Arctic Foundations that makes metal tubes filled with a refrigerant called thermosyphons. These […]

    Melting Permafrost Emits More Methane Than Scientists Thought

    Melting Permafrost Emits More Methane Than Scientists Thought

    By Alex Kirby Methane emissions are the source of the greenhouse gas which, after carbon dioxide, probably causes climatologists more sleepless nights than any of the other gases. And now it appears they have quite a lot more to bother them than they had realized. Methane is reckoned to be at least 30 times more […]

    Methane Meltdown: Thawing Permafrost Could Release More Potent Greenhouse Gas Than Expected

    Methane Meltdown: Thawing Permafrost Could Release More Potent Greenhouse Gas Than Expected

    A study published in Nature Climate Change Monday shows that thawing permafrost in the Arctic might produce more methane than previously thought. Methane has 28 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of carbon dioxide, so the findings indicate scientists might have to reassess how thawing permafrost will contribute to climate change. The research contradicts previous […]