Climate Letter #1016

There is more information about the way permafrost carbon is converted to greenhouse gas.  Scientists are looking for better answers because so much of Earth’s climate future depends on how much of that plentiful carbon is going to be released, and under what circumstances.  A new study has been published showing the importance of sunlight’s role in the conversion process.  One conclusion is that when tests are being performed researchers who use artificial light will not get accurate results.  Another is that any increase in the amount of shading in a natural environment is likely to lower the conversion rate.  It all comes down to the preferred behavior of particular microbes, some kinds of which are more active than others.  Because bacterial communities are diverse, “there will be something out there that wants that energy and will use it.”

–The co-author of the study also makes a comment that is not often mentioned, that the carbon stored in permafrost has accumulated over “millions of years.”  That means some of it could have been put there as early as the late Miocene, enough to help start the planet’s cooling trend by causing a lasting reduction in atmospheric CO2.  The trend could be marked by a succeeding pattern of larger and larger permafrost zones, each of them storing a bit more carbon than the last after receding to a lesser extent, and thus helping keep the trend alive until eventually it became full-blown during the last million years.  I believe we are now beginning to expose carbon that has been buried for more than a million years, and it is critical to know as much as possible about how it will be treated by the microbe community.  Studies such as this one are quite helpful.

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A story describing a new study about how the planet is heating up, featuring co-author Kevin Trenberth (Inside Climate News).  There is an amazing connection between the rise in atmospheric CO2 and the rate of increase in deep ocean water temperatures, displayed within a series of very informative charts and through personal comments from Professor Trenberth.  A connection is made to the reasons behind this year’s three deadly hurricanes in the Atlantic.

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Tim Radford has comments on two recent studies that explain how emissions have been underreported.  The more important one relates to how tropical forests have been converted from a sink to a source while the other concerns the excessive release of methane from growing numbers of livestock.  Actually these two may go hand in hand, especially in Brazil.  We need to know about such things because they are capable of being quickly controlled if enough public pressure can be brought to bear.