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Heat-trapping gas once frozen in Arctic ground is slowly leaking and warming the planet
Scientists say thawing permafrost could add nearly half a degree of warming by 2100 as Arctic land collapses and releases stored greenhouse gases.
The Arctic has shifted from a reliable carbon sink to a source, venting more heat-trapping gases than it absorbs as thawing permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, the Arctic is melting ground that remained frozen for millennia, allowing long-sequestered organic matter to decay into greenhouse gases.
Arctic ecologist Sue Natali co-authored a September study projecting permafrost thaw will increase warming by 20% this century, while a Woodwell Climate Research Center team identified more than 40,000 landscape slumps using satellites.
University of Alaska Fairbanks geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky warns that once-stable ground is now collapsing, destabilizing infrastructure like homes, roads, and pipelines as permafrost loses structural strength.
Scientists emphasize this is an immediate crisis, not a 100-year problem, as current U.N. warming projections of 2.6 degrees C fail to account for thawing permafrost emissions.
Methane and carbon dioxide, stored in the Arctic's permafrost for thousands of years, are being released into the atmosphere; this is projected to lead to an additional 0.25 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. Because the region is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, this process is not expected to stop.