Abrupt Permafrost Thaw w/ Merritt Turetsky—Collapse & carbon release—Radio Ecoshock 2019-06-05

A faster permafrost thaw means even the worst scenarios underestimated the pace and severity of climate change. Scientists have issued a new warning that greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost in the North could be twice what we thought, as the world warms. Scientist Merritt Turetsky is lead author of the article in the journal Nature “Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release“, published April 30, 2019. Merritt is Associate Professor & Canada Research Chair, Tier 2 at Canada’s Guelph University and head of the Turetsky Lab. Studying Arctic carbon cycles, northern fires, soils, and peatlands, she is author or co-author of almost 200 peer-reviewed papers. Merritt’s Twitter handle is: “Queenofpeat“. Show by Radio Ecoshock, reposted under CC License. Episode details at https://www.ecoshock.org/2019/06/abrupt-permafrost-thaw-repetitive-heat-waves.html Stop Fossil Fuels researches and disseminates effective strategies and tactics to halt fossil fuel combustion as fast as possible. Learn more at https://stopfossilfuels.org SHOW DETAILS Scientists on Merritt’s team warn that greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost could be twice what current models expect. Formerly all estimates on the amount of carbon dioxide and methane coming out of thawing vegetative matter in the far north were based on a slow general warming. However, there are large areas which contain a lot of frozen water with that soil. These regions can thaw abruptly—and may result in the formation of millions of small ponds and lakes. When vegetation rots below water, the more powerful greenhouse gas methane rises up into the atmosphere. About one-quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere is frozen—that is a vast area that we ignore at our peril! As Merritt’s team write in Nature: “Current models of greenhouse-gas release and climate assume that permafrost thaws gradually from the surface downwards. Deeper layers of organic matter are exposed over decades or even centuries, and some models are beginning to track these slow changes. But models are ignoring an even more troubling problem. Frozen soil doesn’t just lock up carbon—it physically holds the landscape together. Across the Arctic and Boreal regions, permafrost is collapsing suddenly as pockets of ice within it melt. Instead of a few centimeters of soil thawing each year, several meters of soil can become destabilized within days or weeks. The land can sink and be inundated by swelling lakes and wetlands.” A graphic with that paper says: “One-fifth of frozen soils at high latitudes are thawing rapidly and becoming unstable, leading to landslides and floods that release carbon into the atmosphere.” Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to advise governments, did not include this abrupt thaw and formation of gases. Keep in mind, in total there is twice as much carbon locked up in the Arctic than in the atmosphere now. If it was all released, o