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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (887092)	9/12/2015 10:52:43 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575709

I'm worried about frozen methane thawing. Killer viruses are an interesting, but unneeded, wrinkle. If they wipe us out, it's just nature's way of saving other species. They say God works in mysterious ways, and that would prolly qualify as mysterious.. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Permafrost stores an immense amount of carbon and methane (twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere). In a warming environment, permafrost is expected to degrade, and these gases which have been in storage will be released. This process has already begun in some parts of the world, including western Siberia, and is expected to increase in earnest by the year 2020. Furthermore, as of 2011, no climate model incorporates the effects of methane released from melting permafrost, suggesting that even the most extreme climate scenarios in the models might not be extreme enough. Carbon A third of the Earth's soil carbon is found in the Arctic tundra soil, stored in frozen organic matter. If the high northern latitudes warm significantly (as they are expected to; see Figure 3), permafrost will thaw, allowing the organic matter within the permafrost to decompose. The decomposition will release carbon into the atmosphere. This already happens within the active layer each summer. As the active layer thaws, some organic matter decomposes. Under normal climate conditions (i.e. a cold arctic region), the ground remains cold enough to keep the decomposition very slow. But as air temperature increases and the ground warms, this process will speed up, and scientists think this could begin very soon. Some suggest the arctic tundra could go from being a carbon sink to a carbon source by the mid-2020s. Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center estimate that by 2200, 60% of the Northern Hemisphere's permafrost will probably be melted, which could release around 190 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This amount is about half of all the carbon released in the industrial age. The affect this will have on the rate of atmospheric warming could be irreversible. At the very least, these estimates mean fossil fuel emissions will have to be reduced more than currently suggested to account for the amount of carbon expected to discharge from melting permafrost. wunderground.com