Here’s how Arctic soil offsets emissions from alpine permafrost

Siberian permafrost [image credit: Julian Murton / BBC]

” data-medium-file=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=614″ src=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=614″ alt=”" width=”614″ height=”345″ class=”size-large wp-image-37925″ srcset=”https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=614 614w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=150 150w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg?w=300 300w, https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/permafrost.jpg 624w” sizes=”(max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px” />

Siberian permafrost [image credit: Julian Murton / BBC]

This post follows on from yesterday’s circular argument post about permafrost, as a result of a bit more internet digging. ‘Permafrost covers about 17% of the Earth’s surface and stores one-third of the organic carbon in world soil’, says the Re Soil Foundation (article extracts below). So what happens, or doesn’t, in such regions is significant for believers in the alleged power of trace gases to influence global climate. The climate research article discussed here says: ‘Whether greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from permafrost will trigger positive climate feedbacks under warming remains unknown’. The researchers say a lot depends on whether the local soil is wet or dry. As a result their overall view is that the two regions largely offset each other in terms of their expected, or possible, temperature effects. This goes against alarmist claims such as this assertion from Wikipedia: ‘Because carbon emissions from permafrost thaw contribute to the same warming which facilitates the thaw, it is a well-known example of a positive climate change feedback.’
– – –
Climate change reduces the absorption of greenhouse gases by alpine permafrost but, at the same time, it stimulates CO2 and methane sequestration in Arctic frozen soil, a Chinese study has found. In the first case, global warming potential increases by 13%. In the second, it decreases by 10% — by Matteo Cavallito.
* * *
Global warming alters the carbon absorption capacity of the various regions of the planet that are home to permafrost, the soil that remains frozen permanently or for long periods (at least two years).

Rising temperatures, in particular, increase the capacity to capture the element in Arctic ecosystems. However, at the same time, they reduce this capacity in alpine areas.

This is claimed in a study published in the journal Science Advances and conducted by researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
. . .
In the future, therefore, the balance between declining Alpine absorption and enhanced Arctic sequestration will depend on interactions between surface hydrology and ice melt.

“The weakened carbon uptake capacity of alpine permafrost ecosystems under warming emphasizes the importance of monitoring and predicting changes in permafrost hydrological processes for better understanding the fate of massive permafrost carbon stock under future warming,” the researchers conclude.

Full article here.
– – –
Image: Siberian permafrost [credit: Julian Murton / BBC]