PNAS: Permafrost Melt Could Release Far More Nitrous Oxide Than Thought (300X Carbon Impact)

[hatrack]

“Until recently, nitrous oxide emissions from Arctic soils were believed to be negligible,” Carolina Voigt, a PhD student looking at Arctic soil chemistry at University of Eastern Finland, said. But new research that Voigt and her colleagues published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that understanding might be wrong.

The scientists extracted cores from frozen peatlands that reflected a variety of conditions found in the Arctic. They then thawed them out in the lab and monitored nitrous oxide emissions, one of the first times researchers have used the technique to study those types of emissions.

While nitrous oxide emissions from wet and vegetation-covered permafrost didn’t change much as they thawed, bare permafrost released up to five times more nitrous oxide when warmed. The results are the latest surprising twist in a rapidly changing Arctic.

“Because permafrost ecosystems have such low levels of nutrients, we've always expected them to hold onto whatever nutrients are available,” Ben Abbott, a postdoctoral studying permafrost at Michigan State, said. “We are learning that as permafrost thaws, it becomes leaky to nutrients, which can flow into streams and lakes or, in this case escape to the atmosphere.”

EDIT

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nitrous-oxide-permafrost-melt-21491

[greymattermom]

1. So we'll die

laughing?