Science Snippets: Thawing Permafrost Triggers Carbon Release in the Arctic

Draft script:

As I have indicated many times in this space, the Arctic is the planetary air conditioner. What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. Rather, what happens in the Arctic quickly affects the entire planet.

The headline of an article at SciTechDaily indicates recent findings in the Arctic: Thawing Permafrost Sparks Massive Carbon Release in the Arctic. The article was published 21 January 2025. Here’s the subhead: “Recent findings indicate that the Arctic’s traditional role as a planetary cooling agent is faltering, with hotspots and wildfires nearly nullifying its carbon storage capabilities.”

The first paragraph adds to the haunting outlook: “A detailed study spanning three decades reveals a shift towards a more carbon-emitting Arctic, due to longer growing seasons and increased microbial activity, especially during winters. The study maps these changes with unprecedented detail, offering a stark warning and a call to closely monitor these regions.”

Beneath the subtitle “Disturbing Trends in Northern Carbon Emissions,” three paragraphs demonstrate the accuracy of the subtitle: “For thousands of years, the Arctic’s permafrost has acted as a vast carbon storage system, helping to regulate the planet’s climate. However, a new study published … January 21 ... in Nature Climate Change reveals that rising temperatures and more frequent wildfires in the northern latitudes are significantly reducing this critical storage capacity.

Researchers from the Woodwell Climate Research Center found that 34 percent of the Arctic-boreal zone—which includes tundra, boreal forests, and wetlands across Earth’s northern regions—has now become a carbon source rather than a sink. This shift occurs because while plants absorb carbon dioxide … through photosynthesis, microbial and plant respiration release it back into the atmosphere.

When emissions from wildfires were factored in, the study found that the percentage of the region acting as a carbon source increased to 40 percent.”

The next subsection in the SciTechDaily article is titled “Comprehensive Study Reveals Carbon Flux Dynamics.” True to form, the two paragraphs in this subsection indicate that the study is comprehensive and that it reveals carbon flux dynamics: “The findings represent the most current and comprehensive assessment of carbon fluxes in the … [Arctic-boreal zone] to date. Drawing on a library of CO₂ data four times as large as earlier upscaling efforts gathered from 200 study sites from 1990-2020, the analysis captures both year-round dynamics and important recent shifts in climate and northern fire regimes that have altered the carbon balance in the north.

The lead author of the study is then quoted in the SciTechDaily article: “We wanted to develop the most current and comprehensive picture of carbon in the north, and to do that, we knew we needed to account for fire’s growing carbon footprint in this region. While we found many northern ecosystems are still acting as carbon dioxide sinks, source regions and fires are now canceling out much of that net uptake and reversing long-standing trends.”

The next subsection is titled “Mapping the Carbon Footprint.” It describes the importance and relevant details about keeping track of carbon: “The study is a robust record of how land in the northern latitudes is breathing—measuring the gasses it releases and pulls down from the atmosphere. Data are gathered at carbon flux monitoring towers and chambers, which track gas exchange between the land and the atmosphere.

These data are stored and analyzed in a comprehensive and growing library dubbed “ABC Flux…” ‘Upscaling’ refers to the process by which these individual site-level readings are knitted together with climate, soil, and vegetation records to produce living maps of Earth’s otherwise invisible exhalations and inhalations.

By tracking monthly records over three decades, the Nature Climate Change study helps illustrate the ‘why’ behind the trends: for instance, carbon uptake in the summers has increased over the 30 years, but more carbon emissions are being released from the tundra during the non-growing season months.”

The next subsection contains three paragraphs under the heading “High-Resolution Data Sheds Light on Carbon Variability”: “Another advantage this study offers is relatively high resolution—1km x 1km for 2001-2020—allowing the researchers to map the ‘where’ shaping these trendlines.

A co-author on the study and lead of Permafrost Pathways at Woodwell Climate is then quoted: “The high resolution of these data means that we can now see how variable the Arctic is when it comes to carbon. That variability isn’t surprising because the Arctic isn’t one single place—it’s a massive area with diverse ecosystems and climatic conditions. And now we have the capability to track and map carbon processes at a spatial resolution that can reveal what’s happening on the ground.”

Another co-author of the study, an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, describes the importance of longer growing seasons: “We are seeing that longer growing seasons and more microbial activity in winter are gradually shifting carbon trajectories. Highly collaborative efforts like this are critical for understanding how shifting seasonal dynamics and disturbance patterns can have regional and even global impacts.”

Of concern to most of us is the “global impacts” of phenomena occurring in the Arctic. Surprisingly, we have not yet experienced an ice-free Arctic Ocean, despite predictions to the contrary by renowned Professors from Harvard and the University of California. Unfortunately, I suspect such an event is not far off.

The final subsection in the SciTechDaily article is aptly titled “A Warming Sign for the Future.” It provides a suitable introduction to the peer-reviewed paper: “The Nature Climate Change study found that while 49 percent of the … [Arctic-boreal zone] experienced ‘greening’ – in which longer growing seasons and more vegetation means that more carbon can be photosynthesized and stored – only 12 percent of those greening pixels on the map showed an annual increasing net uptake of CO₂.”

The SciTechDaily article concludes with a warning from the lead author: “Carbon cycling in the permafrost region is really starting to change. Our study may act as a warning sign of bigger changes ahead, and offers a map of places we’ll need to better monitor in the coming decades.”

The optimism is impressive. It is also unwarranted. I doubt we’ll be doing much monitoring in the coming decades.

I now turn, briefly, to the peer-reviewed, open-access paper. Published in Nature Climate Change on 21 January 2025, the paper was created by 62 scholars and titled Wildfires offset the increasing but spatially heterogeneous Arctic–boreal CO₂ uptake. The short Abstract includes this information: “The Arctic–Boreal Zone is rapidly warming, impacting its large soil carbon stocks. Here we use a new compilation of terrestrial ecosystem CO₂ fluxes, geospatial datasets and random forest models to show that although the Arctic–Boreal Zone was overall an increasing terrestrial CO₂ sink from 2001 to 2020 …, more than 30% of the region was a net CO₂ source. Tundra regions may have already started to function on average as CO₂ sources, demonstrating a shift in carbon dynamics. When fire emissions are factored in, the increasing Arctic–Boreal Zone sink is no longer statistically significant …, and the permafrost region becomes CO₂ neutral …, underscoring the importance of fire in this region.”

The outlook from the Arctic is not promising. I’m pleasantly surprised we have not experienced an ice-free Arctic Ocean. However, the information I have presented in this video indicates that our time is short. Again, I recommend living accordingly.