{"id":67436,"date":"2024-04-20T19:06:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T00:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67436"},"modified":"2024-04-20T19:06:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T00:06:22","slug":"northern-permafrost-region-emits-more-greenhouse-gases-than-it-captures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67436","title":{"rendered":"Northern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Northern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures<\/a><\/h3>\n
Permafrost underlies a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. A comprehensive analysis shows that the area may have shifted from a sink to a source of greenhouse gases, bringing a longtime prediction to fruition.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\"Permafrost
Credit: Justine Ramage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Permafrost underlies about\u00a014 million square kilometers<\/a>\u00a0of land in and around the Arctic. The top 3 meters contain an estimated 1 trillion metric tons of carbon and 55 billion metric tons of nitrogen. Historically, the northern permafrost region has been a sink for carbon, as frozen soils inhibit microbial decomposition. But rising temperatures contribute to thawing permafrost and enhance the biogeochemical activities that\u00a0exacerbate climate change<\/a>\u00a0by releasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>), methane (CH4<\/sub>), and nitrous oxide (N2<\/sub>O).<\/p>\n

Data on how much this region will\u2014or already has\u2014affected the course of climate change are difficult to gather due to the complexity of the landscape.\u00a0Ramage et al.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>synthesized greenhouse gas measurements of the northern permafrost region between 2000 and 2020 to provide a carbon balance for the region, as well as the first comprehensive assessment of the quantities of greenhouse gases the area takes up and emits. The researchers\u2019 work, done as part of the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP2<\/a>) project, used a bottom-up approach, focusing on estimating emissions based on specific source categories. Their results suggest that the area has\u00a0already shifted<\/a>\u00a0from a sink to a small source of carbon.<\/p>\n

The researchers compiled many past estimates of greenhouse gas flux in various sections of the northern permafrost region to reveal how the entire area is responding to climate change. They found that the study area was a net source of CH4<\/sub>\u00a0and N2<\/sub>O between 2000 and 2020.\u00a0Wetlands<\/a>\u00a0were some of the largest methane emitters, and lakes contributed substantially as well. Dry tundra was the biggest driver of N2<\/sub>O release, and permafrost bogs were a close second.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures Permafrost underlies a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. A comprehensive analysis shows that the area may have shifted from a sink to a source of greenhouse gases, bringing a longtime prediction to fruition. Credit: Justine Ramage Permafrost underlies about\u00a014 million square kilometers\u00a0of land in and […]<\/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":[1018,386,23837,34295],"class_list":["post-67436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-arctic","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-permafrost","tag-saima-may-sidik"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67436","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=67436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67437,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67436\/revisions\/67437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}