{"id":43073,"date":"2019-01-22T06:46:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T11:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43073"},"modified":"2019-01-22T06:46:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T11:46:35","slug":"the-most-dangerous-climate-feedback-loop-is-speeding-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43073","title":{"rendered":"The most dangerous climate feedback loop is speeding up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/dangerous-permafrost-climate-feedback-loop\/\">The most dangerous climate feedback loop is speeding up<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In Siberia, the carbon-rich permafrost warmed by 1.6\u00b0F in just the last decade.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The carbon-rich permafrost warmed \u201cin all permafrost zones on Earth\u201d&nbsp;from 2007 to 2016, according to a new study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most ominously, Siberian permafrost at depths of up to 30 feet warmed a remarkable 1.6\u00b0F (0.9\u00b0C) in those 10 years, the researchers found. The permafrost, or tundra, is soil that stays below freezing (32\u00b0F) for at least two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Permafrost warming can \u201camplify global climate change, because when frozen sediments thaw it unlocks soil organic carbon,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-018-08240-4#ref-CR1\">warns the study<\/a>, which was released Wednesday by the journal&nbsp;<em>Nature Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thawing releases not only carbon dioxide but also methane (CH4) \u2014 a far more potent greenhouse gas \u2014 thereby further warming the planet. And as the planet continues to warm, more permafrost will melt, releasing even more greenhouse gases in a continuous feedback loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thawing permafrost is an especially dangerous amplifying feedback loop because\u00a0the global permafrost contains\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/ngeo\/journal\/v5\/n10\/abs\/ngeo1573.html\" target=\"_blank\">twice as much carbon as the atmosphere<\/a>does today\u200a.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Normally, plants capture CO2 from the air during photosynthesis and slowly release that carbon back into the atmosphere after they die. But the Arctic permafrost acts like a very large carbon freezer\u200a\u2014\u200aand the decomposition rate is very low. Or, rather, it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Humanity is leaving the freezer door wide open. As a result, the tundra is being transformed from a long-term carbon locker to a short-term carbon un-locker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/114\/21\/5361\">2017 study<\/a>\u00a0found the Alaskan tundra is warming so quickly it had become a net emitter of CO2 ahead of schedule. That study was\u00a0the first to report\u00a0a major portion of the Arctic had already become a net source of heat-trapping emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most dangerous climate feedback loop is speeding up In Siberia, the carbon-rich permafrost warmed by 1.6\u00b0F in just the last decade. The carbon-rich permafrost warmed \u201cin all permafrost zones on Earth\u201d&nbsp;from 2007 to 2016, according to a new study. Most ominously, Siberian permafrost at depths of up to 30 feet warmed a remarkable 1.6\u00b0F [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,15783,23837,16192],"class_list":["post-43073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-joe-romm","tag-permafrost","tag-think-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43075,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43073\/revisions\/43075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}