Climate Letter #1537

A troublesome new estimate of current carbon emissions from thawing permafrost (Nature Climate Change).  This study estimated the amount of carbon lost during contemporary winter seasons due to warming of northern permafrost soils, creating information which has not been made part of any existing models.  The key finding:  “We estimate a contemporary loss of 1,662 TgC per year from the permafrost region during the winter season (October–April). This loss is greater than the average growing season carbon uptake for this region estimated from process models (−1,032 TgC per year).”  (1000TgC is equal to 1 PgC, or one billion tonnes.)   That difference, about 0.6 billion tonnes of carbon, is equal to more than 10% of the annual increase of carbon added to the atmosphere in the form of CO2 each year, and nothing can prevent it from growing even higher as the Arctic climate continues to warm.  You can read the complete Abstract, and should also open the link to Author information, which is quite extraordinary in length and quality of institutions represented.  The journal of publication is considered to be one of the prestigious type.

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–Note:  I will be looking for a more complete professional commentary and interpretation, based on the full content of this study.  For example, are there implications applicable to permafrost that does its thawing in the summer?
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Peatlands, another important link in the carbon cycle, are also in trouble (Carbon Brief).  This post reviews two new studies about peatlands, one of which reveals further deep concerns about the future of the carbon sink.  “Taken together, the studies suggest that high-latitude peatlands are acting as a significant carbon sink, as they are growing in area and carbon stock – but, if they are also drying, there is potential that they could turn from net carbon sinks to sources. Given the huge store of carbon in high latitude peatlands, that is a real concern.”
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Another study sees changes in the way El Nino events unfold, in trends which are predicted to continue (University of Hawaii at Manoa).  “New research, based on 33 historical El Niño events from 1901 to 2017, show climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events since the 1970’s. Continued warming over the western Pacific warm pool, driven by anthropogenic climate change, promises conditions that will trigger more extreme events in the future.”  The consequences are described in a mostly unfavorable way.
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A more positive report offers a number of practical ways to upgrade today’s farming and dietary practices (The Guardian).  This study is based on using tools that are already in hand and setting goals that are not out of reach.  “If one in five people in richer countries went near-vegan, and threw away a third less food than they currently do, while poor countries were assisted to preserve their forests and restore degraded land, the world’s agricultural systems could be absorbing carbon dioxide by 2050 instead of adding massively to global heating as they do at present.”
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Along these same lines, a writer for Fauna and Floral International calls for a complete reversal of current practices that are destroying mangrove forests, and explains why they are so important.  In addition to storing large amounts of carbon, mangrove forests have a long list of unique benefits available to well-populated coastal regions.
Carl

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