90% Of Arctic Permafrost Will Go By 2100 - New Scientist

[hatrack]

EDIT

A quarter of the land surface of the northern hemisphere stays frozen all year round. David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, modelled changes to the permafrost using a global climate model. He found that as atmospheric warming penetrates the soil, most of the permafrost across northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia and northern Scandinavia will melt to a depth of at least 3 metres, leaving a trail of buckled highways, toppled buildings, broken pipelines and bemused animals.

In some places the melt will create huge lakes and bogs, like those already forming in western Siberia (New Scientist, 13 August 2005, p 12). Elsewhere, the water will swell northward-flowing rivers like the Ob in Siberia and the Mackenzie in Canada, increasing freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean. The resulting drop in salinity will weaken the vertical movement of water that drives ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2005GL025080).

What's more, the thaw could release much of the estimated 400 billion tonnes of methane trapped in the frozen soil, accelerating global warming. There is an "alarming potential for positive feedbacks to climate from methane", says Torben Christensen of Lund University, Sweden.

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http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18925374.500

[applegrove]

1. Thanks for posting.

[hatrack]

2. De nada!

:toast: