Three things you should know about permafrost
Permafrost, the frozen soil layer covering 15% of the Northern Hemisphere, is thawing due to rising global temperatures. This process releases trapped greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide, creating a dangerous feedback loop that is often missing from climate models.
Why it matters
The degradation of permafrost represents a significant, under-accounted-for risk in climate change projections that could accelerate global warming.
A primer on this crucial and frankly mysterious piece of climate science.
Maybe, like me, you’ve been aware that this layer of frozen soil is thawing, that it’s important in the global puzzle of climate change … and that’s about the extent of it.
The great news for both of us is that my colleague James Temple just published two in-depth stories about permafrost. His reporting took him to the boreal forests of Alaska, where he helicoptered into the wilderness to learn more about how this material could affect our climate both now and in the future.
I’d recommend you give both of James’s stories a read. There’s this feature about efforts to tackle the intensifying fires that are threatening permafrost, as well as this look at how researchers are trying to understand the complicated tangle of potential climate effects. Here are three things I took away.
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