Frozen Arctic soils hold billions of tons of trapped carbon

To The Daily Sun,

Understanding climate feedback loops is essential to understanding climate change science. A good definition from the Climate Reality Project is "climate feedback loops are processes that can either amplify or diminish the effects of climate forcings. Forcings are the initial drivers of our climate — things like solar irradiance, GHG emissions, and airborne particles like dust, smoke and soot that come from both human and natural sources and impact our climate".

For example, when the atmosphere warms up, more water evaporates from the oceans, rivers, lakes, and land and enters the atmosphere. Since water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, the atmosphere continues to warm up, amplifying the initial warming. This new level of warming then causes more evaporation and the cycle continues.

A rapidly warming planet is not such a cool idea for present-day agricultural regions. One example is that after 9,000 years of growing corn, many Mexican farmers are switching to growing crops that need less water. Climate change has also riddled crops, including coffee, in Central America. Corn. Beans. This is contributing to the surge in northward immigration.

In the northern latitudes of this hemisphere, a powerful positive feedback loop is emerging. Permafrost and peat bogs are thawing. Even wildfires. Frozen Arctic soils hold an estimated 1,460 to 1,600 billion tons of trapped carbon. That is almost twice the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. Thawing the Arctic permafrost will release more CO2 and Methane (CH4) which then will lead to more warming which then releases more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, and the cycle continues.

At the same time, the loss of sea ice in the Arctic, especially during summers, contributes to global warming because of the diminished overall yearly albedo effect (reflectivity). Sea ice far outperforms water, forests, deserts, savannas, farmlands, and even clouds in reflecting incoming high solar radiation. That means polar regions are crucial in balancing Earth's energy budget; incoming energy vs outgoing energy. According to NOAA. “Since 1979, ice extent has shrunk by 40 percent and the loss is transforming Alaska’s climate, accelerating coastal erosion, reducing walrus and other marine mammal habitat, changing the timing and location of blooms of the food web’s microscopic plant life, and lowering survival rates for young walleye pollock—the nation’s largest commercial fishery.”

With melting ice caps, glaciers, and permafrost also comes the emergence of ancient, unknown, possibly deadly pathogens. In ice cores dating back up to 15,000 years from the Guliya ice cap in Tibet, scientists found four known virus genera and 28 that had never been seen before. We could go from the canary in the mine to Pandora's box. It is certainly within humanity's ability to mess this up.

James Veverka

Tilton