UNEP Urges IPCC To Address Permafrost Impacts, Pushes For Monitoring Network

[hatrack]

he United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a report early Tuesday morning that recommended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) address the impact of warming permafrost and the large volume of methane and carbon dioxide that will be emitted from the ground if permafrost continues to melt. The report argues that these additional emissions should be considered in any international negotiation of emissions targets and discussion of climate change policy.

The UNEP report, called “Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost,” recommended that the IPCC commission a special report to address the impact of permafrost emissions. It also urged the panel to create a separate, national permafrost-monitoring network, in order to standardize and expand the monitoring of these emissions. That network would include countries such as the United States, Russia, Canada, and China, which have some of the largest areas of permafrost.

“The infrastructure we have now is not adequate to monitor future changes in permafrost,” said lead author Kevin Schaefer, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in a press release. “We need to greatly expand our current networks to monitor permafrost, which requires direct investment of money and resources by individual countries.”

Permafrost is the soil in high latitudes that stays frozen year-round. It occupies nearly 24 percent of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. In order to qualify as permafrost, the soil temperature must remain below 32°F for at least two years, but there are thick seams of permafrost that have remained solid for thousands of years.

EDIT

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/report-says-ipcc-needs-to-address-impact-of-melting-permafrost-15291

[joshcryer]

1. Good luck with that.