Artic

The Arctic is Earth's polar region around the North Pole, in the Arctic Circle.

Its region, from the IERS Reference Meridian going east, has parts of northern Norway (Nordland, Troms, Finnmark, Svalbard and Jan Mayen), northernmost Sweden (Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Lappland), northern Finland (North Ostrobothnia, Kainuu and Lappi), Russia (Murmansk, Siberia, Nenets Okrug, Novaya Zemlya), the U.S. (Alaska), Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), and northern Iceland (Grímsey and Kolbeinsey), and the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. [1]

Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost under the tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.

Climate change in the Arctic

[1.2], [2], [3]

Arctic ecologist [1.4] Sue Natali's team was installing an eddy covariance tower, a series of tool measuring greenhouse gases exchange (carbon dioxide and methane) between lands and the atmosphere. The land near them were collapsing is due to permanently frozen ground called permafrost started to thaw, which collapses the ground and alter alot the Arctic’s tundra and boreal forest expanse and threaten residents lives and the rest of Earth as it stores a huge ancient frozen carbon amount.

thaw: (of ice/snow/frozen substance like food) soften due to heat.

Thawing releases into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, causing more heat and thaw.

By the end of the century, thawing permafrost maybe world’s worst greenhouse-gas-emitting nations, perhaps above US, the second-largest greenhouse-gas-emitting country.

[1.4]

As no country is directly responsible for permafrost thaw, no nation takes responsibility to fully tracking its impact on Arctic.

As we can’t put a precise number on permafrost emissions, policymakers are almost excluding them, setting global emissions wholly insufficient targets to protect us from bad climate change.

Via an initiative called Permafrost Pathways, they've made a Arctic residents and scientists coalition, Indigenous knowledge-holders and Arctic and climate policy influencers to tackle this.

They must first measure greenhouse gas emissions across Arctic. There are only a handful of monitoring towers across it running year round, measuring both crucial greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane. They work with international experts to fill these gaps by installing new equipment across Arctic in remote locations where monitoring currently is nonexist. Just 10 new monitoring sites may improve alot our permafrost emissions estimates, removing a big barrier to their incorporation into the global climate policy. And we’re coupling this on-the-ground monitoring with high-resolution satellite observations and advanced computer modeling so that we can track the changing Arctic in near real-time and accurately project permafrost emissions into the future.

We must also ensure permafrost emissions are counted when setting global emissions targets, as each year they fail to account for permafrost is another year that we become unwittingly locked-in to more severe climate warming

Permafrost

Permafrost is ground stayed frozen at/below 0°C (32°F) for ~2 consecutive years, a vital part of Earth's cryosphere and impacts alot ecosystems, hydrological systems, and northern regions.

Its thaw has the potential for significant and widespread negative impacts, including infrastructure damage, climate change exacerbation, and health risks. As permafrost thaws, it can release stored greenhouse gases, destabilize land, and release pathogens, posing serious threats to both the environment and human populations.

References

[1] Wikipedia
- [1.1] Arctic ocean
- [1.2] Climate change in the Arctic
- [1.3] Arctic exploration
- [1.4] Susan M. Natali
- [1.5]
[2] How ancient Arctic carbon threatens everyone on the planet - Ted
[3] https://permafrost.woodwellclimate.org/
[4]

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Artic

Climate change in the Arctic

Permafrost

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