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OKIsItJustMe

(19,933 posts)
4. Those antarctic microbes are not unique
Tue Aug 1, 2017, 02:57 PM
Aug 2017
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/frozenground/methane.html

Methane and Frozen Ground



What will happen to the frozen carbon if permafrost thaws?

When permafrost thaws, the frozen organic matter inside it will thaw out, too, and begin to decay. It's like taking a bag of frozen broccoli out of the freezer and putting it into the refrigerator. Once it thaws, it will eventually decay and break down.

As organic matter decays, it gets eaten up and digested by microbes. The bacteria that eat it produce either carbon dioxide or methane as waste. If there is oxygen available, the microbes make carbon dioxide. But if there is no oxygen available, they make methane. Most of the places where methane would form are the swamps and wetlands. And there are many miles of wetlands in the Arctic. When you walk around in the Arctic tundra, it's like sloshing through a giant sponge.

When permafrost carbon turns into methane, it bubbles up through soil and water. On the way, other microorganisms eat some of it. But some methane makes it to the surface and escapes into the air.



The big questions are: How much carbon is currently frozen in permafrost? How much will thaw out in the future and when will it be released into the atmosphere? We also want to know how much carbon could be released as methane, and how much could be released as carbon dioxide. That's related to how much of the land is wetlands, since ponds and lakes and swamps are the main places that will produce methane.





http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/en/media-communication/news/details/article/tauender-permafrost-setzt-altes-treibhausgas-frei/

Thawing permafrost releases old greenhouse gas

Study in the Mackenzie Delta in Canada shows large emissions of geological methane

The thawing permafrost soils in the Arctic regions might contribute to the greenhouse effect in two ways: On the one hand rising temperatures lead to higher microbial methane production close to the surface. On the other hand deeper thawing opens new pathways for old, geologic methane. This is shown in a study in the Mackenzie Delta (Canada), conducted by scientists from the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and partners in the US. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Arctic permafrost acts like a gigantic cap of frozen material over mineral resources and fossil fuels. Scientists apprehend that thawing permafrost could lead to rising methane emissions. “We wanted to find out how much methane is released on a regional scale and were looking for spatial patterns in gas emissions”, says lead author Katrin Kohnert from GFZ´s section for Remote Sensing. In order to do so a team led by GFZ scientist Torsten Sachs performed a study in a 10,000 square kilometre area in Northern Canada. Using the research aircraft Polar 5 of AWI the scientists conducted airborne measurements of atmospheric gas concentrations and meteorological variables during two extensive flight campaigns in the summers of 2012 and 2013.

The result was a high-resolution (100 m x 100 m) methane flux map of the Mackenzie Delta. “We found strong emissions solely where the permafrost is discontinuous, that is where the landscape contains areas that are thawed permanently”, says Katrin Kohnert. “We think that the methane comes predominantly from deeper geologic sources and not from recent microbial activity close to the surface.” Even though the hotspots only occur on about 1 percent of the area, they contribute 17 percent to the annual methane emission estimate of the study area.

The conclusion of the authors: The warming climate triggers not only the natural production of biogenic methane, it can also lead to stronger emissions of fossil gas. This could contribute significantly to the permafrost-carbon-climate feedback. Kohnert: “Therefore permafrost areas vulnerable to thawing warrant much more attention.”







http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05783-2
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