«These lakes are being fertilized by thawing
yedoma permafrost,» explained co-author Miriam Jones, research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Have yet to hit the motherload
of yedoma — and precipitation will be increasing in the subpolar as time goes on.
In fact, as Robert Scribbler reports, a significant methane pulse has already been detected
from yedoma soils in Siberia.
Zhu D, Peng S, Ciais P, Zech R, Krinner G, Zimov S, Grosse G (2016) Simulating soil organic carbon
in yedoma deposits during the Last Glacial Maximum in a land surface model.
One type of permafrost
called yedoma is full of grass roots, bones, and other biological material.
Scientists
assumed yedoma was already degraded, but instead found it contains a lot of carbon.
Scientists are studying how carbon - rich permafrost known
as yedoma acts much like frozen vegetables to hungry microbes — and is becoming an additional source of heat - trapping gases.
These stocks across large areas of Siberia comprise
mainly yedoma (an ice - rich, loess - like deposit averaging ~ 25 m deep [Zimov et al., 2006b]-RRB-, peatlands (i.e., histels and gelisols), and river delta deposits.
That machine is being developed in the exposing
of yedoma (organic detritus) trapped in melting Siberian permafrost.
The study looked at a type of Arctic soil called ««
yedoma» — formed about 35,000 years ago and kept in the deep freeze ever since.
In a San Francisco Chronicle article on the report, it was indicated that the authors estimated that over time GHGs emissions from
the yedoma could equal 100 years of present day fossil fuel emissions.
A report in Science on June 16, 2006 indicated that scientists checking on
the yedoma found some exposed areas were emitting carbon dioxide and methane.
This task is made easier by not quantifying the likely magnitude of CH4 deposits in the Arctic, not specifying CH4 sources (hydrates, sedimentary gas,
yedoma and resumption of biota decay), and not examining the differing vulnerability of those deposits to global warming in general and Arctic amplification in particular.