Permafrost is often given the disturbing nickname of “
climate time bomb
”.
This constantly frozen ground covers a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, from Siberia to Canada.
Under the effect of global warming, it thaws little by little, giving way to marshy mires from which escape greenhouse gases hitherto trapped.
Once released into the atmosphere, methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) will accentuate the greenhouse effect, amplify warming, which will therefore accelerate the melting of the frozen ground… and so on.
While the average temperature in the Arctic has already increased by 3.1°C in half a century, this infernal cycle is being closely monitored.
Because permafrost (its French name) alone contains 1,700 billion tonnes of organic carbon… almost twice the amount of carbon already present in the atmosphere.
Read alsoThe elimination of CO2, a key lever against global warming
Permafrost thaw is a process called a “
climate feedback loop
”: a phenomenon, caused by…
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