It isn’t official yet, but 2014 appears to have been the hottest year on the world temperature record. In December, during the U.N. climate talks in Lima, Peru (COP20), the … [Read full article]
Tag: permafrost
Report Today Details Abrupt Climate Change Surprises
The White House released a report this morning from the Council of Economic Advisers that shows the consequences of not doing something about climate change NOW. Our sister publication, CleanTechnica, has … [Read full article]
Alps Study: Climate Change May Worsen Landslides
March 22, 2014, killer landslide near Seattle (photo: Kings County Sheriff’s Office). Last Saturday’s horrific mudslide 55 miles northeast of Seattle may unfortunately herald the shape of landmass movements to … [Read full article]
Siberian Caves Point To Devastating Future Thawing And CO2 Release
A team of scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia, and Switzerland have released a report which finds that evidence obtained from Siberian caves suggest that a global temperature rise of 1.5 … [Read full article]
Thawing Permafrost Bad News for Global Warming
Permafrost covers almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere, and according to recent calculations contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – that’s an amount twice what is currently in our atmosphere. A … [Read full article]
Thawing Permafrost Could Set World on Runaway Warming
To be honest, this is not a surprise to me — I’ve read many hints of this for years, and most climate science predictions, in general, seem to be too … [Read full article]
Unprecedented 2007 Arctic Fire Released a Year's Worth of Stored Carbon
in 2007, the largest fire ever recorded in the Arctic swept across the Alaskan Northern Slope region, releasing an estimated 2.1 teragrams (2.3 million tons) of carbon into the atmosphere. Researchers estimate that the release of carbon was equivalent to a year’s worth of carbon storage for the entire Arctic tundra biome. Climate warming in the Arctic may lead to a greater frequency of such large fires, putting permafrost at risk of thawing and releasing more CO2.
Arctic Affected by Climate Change More than Expected
• The last five years have been the warmest since 1880 when monitoring began
• Tree ring data suggest that the summer temperatures over the past few decades have been the highest in 2000 years
• Snow cover in May and June has decrease by close to 20%
• The winter season in the Arctic has been shortened by almost two weeks
• There is worry about the decrease in snow and ice cover in the Arctic that will decrease the amount of solar radiation reflected back out into the atmosphere
• Warming is only expected to continue
• Sea level rise by 2100 is expected to be between 0.9 and 1.6 metres, approximately twice what was predicted by the UN panel on climate change
Fires Turn Alaskan Forests Into Carbon Producers
Forests are supposed to reduce carbon dioxide levels, but new research shows that the increase in fires and their tendency to burn larger areas of forest are converting forests into … [Read full article]
Melting Permafrost in Siberia, from an International and Local Perspective [VIDEOS]
Here’s a great video from Greenpeace on this important topic. As it notes: “the melting permafrost not only affects the way of life of the indigenous nomadic Nenets people, but … [Read full article]
Global Warming Causing Western Arctic & Yukon Permafrost to Melt [VIDEO]
From the YouTube page: “Christopher Burn, a canadian geographer, tells us that global warming is causing the permafrost in western arctic and Yukon to melt.” h/t Climate Denial Crock of … [Read full article]
Hunting for Methane (+ Fun Explosions) [VIDEO]
The release of methane from underneath Arctic ice is expected to be a major issue in coming years as permafrost melts (if we don’t act to stop climate change soon). Methane … [Read full article]
Methane: The 'Sleeper' Agent of Climate Change
Methane (CH4) is the main constituent of natural gas, and is the result of natural decomposition processes. Although its lifetime in the atmosphere as a free gas is much shorter … [Read full article]