Additionally, an AWI group led by Moritz Langer has created an interactive map of the past and future of permafrost. Both publications come to the same conclusion: to end dangerous trends in these regions, greenhouse gas emissions will have to be drastically reduced in the coming years . Permafrost underlies no less than ten percent of the Earth’s surface. Especially in the northern hemisphere, there are huge expanses where only the top centimeters of the ground thaw in summer; the rest remains frozen throughout the year, at depths of several hundred meters . At least, that’s the case so far. “Climate change represents a serious threat to these permafrost regions ,” says Jens Strauss of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). There, land surface temperatures have risen two to four times faster than the global average. As a result, conditions on land and at sea are changing much faster than expected .
This can have a series of dangerous consequences
For the climate, for biodiversity and for human beings. For example, these natural freezes contain the remains of countless long-dead plants and animals. When the material thaws, microorganisms begin to decompose it . In the process, they convert carbon UAE WhatsApp Number List compounds into greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH), which can further worsen global warming. However, predicting when and on what scale this will happen is no small feat. “There are widely divergent views among the public ,” says Strauss. For some people, permafrost regions are a climate time bomb that will soon explode in the face of humanity. But others assume that only negligible amounts of greenhouse gases will be released in the High North in the foreseeable future.
However the situation should not be
After all, today permafrost regions are already releasing almost the same amount of greenhouse gases as Germany’s annual emissions.” And according to scientific estimates. Over the course of the next two centuries, these soils could release amounts of gas into the atmosphere that. Would have the same effect as several hundred billion metric tons Nigeria WhatsApp Number List of CO Furthermore. As the ice and snow cover decreases, the surface of permafrost regions Becomes increasingly darker, and therefore warms more by the sun than in the past. When the landscape was pure white . According to the current state of research. Taken together, these two factors are among the most important influences that could change the Earth’s climate . Permafrost soil loss is threatening habitats: the time to act is now Permafrost regions are also home to more than half of Earth’s remaining deserts.