To what extent is permafrost likely to melt, releasing CO2 and methane into the atmosphere in the next 20 yrs?

Question

Much permafrost is at -20 F, so can this really be a significant threat?

Answer 1

Permafrost is already melting. The biggest current concern is the vast peat bog in Western Siberia. This covers an area of about one million square kilometers, roughly 4 times the size of the UK.

Since the last ice age, 11,000 years ago, it had been permafrost but in the last 4 or 5 years years has been melting and today is a landscape of small lakes, ice and mud. There are an estimated 70 billion tons of methane trapped within and below the ice which is being released as the ice melts. This single peat bog holds about a quarter of all ice bound methane on the planet and Siberia is warming faster than anywhere else - some 3 degrees Centigrade in the last 40 years.

The most detailed research was conducted by Sergei Kirpotin of Tomsk University (Siberia) and Judith Marquand of Oxford University (England) and was reported in New Scientist magazine.

Answer 2

In addition to what's been said, MUCH permafrost is at low temperatures, but the stuff at the edge will melt. Also, the poles are forecast to warm much more than the equator. Global temperature could increase by 10 degrees F, but the poles could increase by 20F. Check out a map of the temperature anomaly for this past winter; in the northern hemisphere it was nearly 20 degrees above normal in December.

Answer 3

Maybe I'm just plain ignorant, but I can see no reason whatever for the production of CO2 and CH4 when permafrost melts! Accordingly I do not see this as a significant threat (in this respect) nor indeed, any threat at all!

Answer 4

fantastic question.
the point may be lost on some here tho, methinks!!

erm... i would like to see some figures here as the rate will almost certainly have changed since i studied environmental climatology/geomorphology at uni.

it was alarming, even in those days. as was the threat of global warming. this was sadly 20 odd years ago.
what concerns me more than global warming is the Ozone depletion rate. it concerns me greatly. next item on the panic agenda?? the cfc's and hydrocarbons have done the damage and is it now too little too late. i note the president has taken my humble advice re petrol consumption!!!

er... come on and quite a few thousand others!!!

Answer 5

Because of all this global warming we're screwed!!!! Well we would be if it wasn't for the global cooling that's raw dogging us!!!!!