It boggles my mind that people can be so complacent and just go on with their daily lives like nothing is wrong — while the world as we know it is literally vanishing beneath our feet.
A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests, and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north. More than 30% of the region is a net source of CO2 now, according to the analysis, rising to 40% when emissions from wildfires are included.
For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet’s carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO2 into the atmosphere with rising temperatures.
The study comes amid growing concern from scientists about the natural processes that regulate Earth’s climate, which are being affected by rising temperatures. Together, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils, and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions, but there are signs that these sinks are under strain.
FULL STORY -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/21/third-of-arctic-carbon-sink-now-a-source-of-emissions-study
[#]Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis
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@breadandcircuses I recall a news item in the 80s talking about this specifically. The report was all about the arctic tundra being a carbon sink and if it melts we will see runaway CO2 levels. And, here's the kicker, they had seen signs of melting already.
It really limits our options for fixing the problem. When oil lobbies talk about a transition period the rebuttal is we are way past that period.
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