If permafrost soils
thaw under climate warming they will release carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.
Not exact matches
Whereas it would take about 20 years for the
warm permafrost regions to
thaw under present
climate change conditions, the paper says it could take just five years for that permafrost underneath the disturbed land to reach the melting point.
The study examines permafrost carbon emissions in various
climate models and
under different scenarios, finding that the extra boost to
warming from
thawing permafrost could be 0.2 - 12 % of the change in global mean temperature.
The team also have a separate project, called
Climate feedbacks from wetlands and permafrost
thaw in a
warming world (CLIFFTOP), which aims to quantity the amount of methane likely to be released from
thawing permafrost methane emissions
under 1.5 C and 2C scenarios.