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I'm a little confused on this issue. How did all that carbon end up in the permafrost soils in the first place? Presumably because the climate was warmer, and

I'm a little confused on this issue. How did all that carbon end up in the permafrost soils in the first place? Presumably because the climate was warmer, and vegetation grew and locked up carbon there. So now the climate there is warming, won't vegetation growth take off again? I'm not denying there's the potential for lots of CO2 and methane to be released, but also there's the potential for more CO2 to be locked up too. At what point does the process switch over from releasing greenhouse gasses to vegetation removing them again?

taneq 7y ago
The issue isn't really that the world is going to turn into an inhospitable dustball or watery doom. It's that climate change is going to obliterate the apple cart for humanity. We like to build big complicated high-cost centers right on the coast. Rising sea water = bad for us. We like to build expensive permanent buildings. Crazy weather = bad for us. We like to farm monocultures in predictable climates. Unstable seasons = bad for us. 'Life' is going to be just fine. It's just gonna be super inconvenient for us humans.
- mhandley 7y ago
  Actually "life" isn't going to be just fine - we're going to lose a lot of biodiversity along the way too, and the less we do to prevent warming, the more we'll lose. But my question wasn't about the big picture - it was about the specifics of permafrost thawing.
  - taneq 7y ago
    We're always losing a lot of biodiversity, and we're always gaining more through evolution. That's how it works. I'm not trivialising the current mass extinction event. It's not great. But pinch points like these have a way of producing some of the best performing creatures we've ever seen.
    - sandworm101 7y ago
      We will one day gain new biodiversity, but not on human timescales. Evolution moves far far slower than climate change. We are going to loose many things.
      - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
        As has happened many times in the Earth's past. The great thing about the process of "life" is that it doesn't give a shit about humans, no matter how important we may think we are. Sadly we're in for a very big wake-up call. At least the dinosaurs had ignorance on their side.
        sandworm101 7y ago
        Life may survive as a concept, but few people want to live in a world populated by jellyfish and cockroaches. The cute, cuddly megafauna (whales, snow leopards, humans etc) certainly do care about what we do to this planet. I'm on the side of the snow leopards and really do not care a jot about the jellyfish. The argument that "life shall be OK" is a delay tactic, a reason to procrastinate the coming nightmare.
      - taneq 7y ago
        True, and that's precisely what I was talking about. We've rocked the boat. We're likely to fall out, as are a bunch of other species. Not everyone will, though.
    - honestoHeminway 7y ago
      Best performing - against humans.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
>At what point does the process switch over from releasing greenhouse gasses to vegetation removing them again? After all the methane is released from the clathrates. Presumably you are not going to have it turn into a carbon sink until it is a good site for things to grow and that is not while there is still permafrost.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
As I understand it, for much of the permafrost, there's ongoing vegetation growth, and has been for millennia, with a carbon cycle that's sequesters more carbon than most other places. The plants grow slowly, extracting CO2, die, but don't rot due to conditions, so the levels stored in the soils keep on increasing, and the land rising. Not dissimilar to peat bogs in temperate regions, though the detail is different. A thaw would release the thousands of years of stored carbon, and could promote growth that sequesters less carbon.
perfunctory 7y ago
The way I understand it is that it's about the rate of release/recapture. Permafrost will release carbon much faster than the new vegetation can keep up with. Eventually (after centuries? no idea really) it might all be recaptured back but the damage will already have been done.
gdubs 7y ago
It’s not a linear process, it’s chaotic. I’ll attempt an analogy: We ended up in a Goldilocks state where this freezer emerged to keep things cool. The freezer is beginning to malfunction; it’s starting to melt. We discover it’s because we never cleaned the coils. So we clean the coils. But now we discover that the dirty coils led to the freezer overloading. So now the coils are clean but the freezer is still busted... There are ideas out there to clean the coils (carbon sequestration). But in terms of fixing the broken engine, we’re just kind of hoping it restarts itself once we put things back into a state of normal operating conditions. But it might not [depending on how long we wake to take action; we’re hopefully still in a stage where the coils just need cleaning]. Or at least not at a time scale that matters for humans and a huge chunk of the world’s biome.
DennisP 7y ago
The planet goes through natural carbon cycles. For example, natural orbital variations cause a little initial heating, then feedback effects like permafrost melt kick in, taking the planet several degrees further. Then, over millions of years, the carbon gets absorbed again. Rock weathering removes CO2, and layer after layer of plant material gets sequestered in the ground. The warming events cause mass extinctions. Hardly anything lives at mid-latitudes, and crocodiles swim at the poles. There's a lot of geological evidence for all this, and it's the reason people are so worried. If negative feedbacks were quick then we'd see a stable climate in the geological record. We see the opposite. It doesn't take much of an initial shove to tip things into catastrophe, and millions of years to get back to a climate like our own.
- Balgair 7y ago
  PBS's Eons Youtube Channel has great videos on this topic. Really, all their videos are amazing and very binge-able. Four that may be most relevant are: The Last Time the Globe Warmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4 When the Earth Was Purple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 That Time it Rained for Two Million Years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1LdMWlNYS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1LdMWlNYS4 From the Cambrian Explosion to the Great Dying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQa0okkpf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQa0okkpf0 The few things that we learn from paleontology is the Earth is Dynamic and that any one creature's life is fragile.

taneq 7y ago

The issue isn't really that the world is going to turn into an inhospitable dustball or watery doom. It's that climate change is going to obliterate the apple cart for humanity. We like to build big complicated high-cost centers right on the coast. Rising sea water = bad for us. We like to build expensive permanent buildings. Crazy weather = bad for us. We like to farm monocultures in predictable climates. Unstable seasons = bad for us. 'Life' is going to be just fine. It's just gonna be super inconvenient for us humans.

mhandley 7y ago
Actually "life" isn't going to be just fine - we're going to lose a lot of biodiversity along the way too, and the less we do to prevent warming, the more we'll lose. But my question wasn't about the big picture - it was about the specifics of permafrost thawing.
- taneq 7y ago
  We're always losing a lot of biodiversity, and we're always gaining more through evolution. That's how it works. I'm not trivialising the current mass extinction event. It's not great. But pinch points like these have a way of producing some of the best performing creatures we've ever seen.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    We will one day gain new biodiversity, but not on human timescales. Evolution moves far far slower than climate change. We are going to loose many things.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      As has happened many times in the Earth's past. The great thing about the process of "life" is that it doesn't give a shit about humans, no matter how important we may think we are. Sadly we're in for a very big wake-up call. At least the dinosaurs had ignorance on their side.
      - sandworm101 7y ago
        Life may survive as a concept, but few people want to live in a world populated by jellyfish and cockroaches. The cute, cuddly megafauna (whales, snow leopards, humans etc) certainly do care about what we do to this planet. I'm on the side of the snow leopards and really do not care a jot about the jellyfish. The argument that "life shall be OK" is a delay tactic, a reason to procrastinate the coming nightmare.
    - taneq 7y ago
      True, and that's precisely what I was talking about. We've rocked the boat. We're likely to fall out, as are a bunch of other species. Not everyone will, though.
  - honestoHeminway 7y ago
    Best performing - against humans.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

>At what point does the process switch over from releasing greenhouse gasses to vegetation removing them again? After all the methane is released from the clathrates. Presumably you are not going to have it turn into a carbon sink until it is a good site for things to grow and that is not while there is still permafrost.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

As I understand it, for much of the permafrost, there's ongoing vegetation growth, and has been for millennia, with a carbon cycle that's sequesters more carbon than most other places. The plants grow slowly, extracting CO2, die, but don't rot due to conditions, so the levels stored in the soils keep on increasing, and the land rising. Not dissimilar to peat bogs in temperate regions, though the detail is different. A thaw would release the thousands of years of stored carbon, and could promote growth that sequesters less carbon.

perfunctory 7y ago

The way I understand it is that it's about the rate of release/recapture. Permafrost will release carbon much faster than the new vegetation can keep up with. Eventually (after centuries? no idea really) it might all be recaptured back but the damage will already have been done.

gdubs 7y ago

It’s not a linear process, it’s chaotic. I’ll attempt an analogy: We ended up in a Goldilocks state where this freezer emerged to keep things cool. The freezer is beginning to malfunction; it’s starting to melt. We discover it’s because we never cleaned the coils. So we clean the coils. But now we discover that the dirty coils led to the freezer overloading. So now the coils are clean but the freezer is still busted... There are ideas out there to clean the coils (carbon sequestration). But in terms of fixing the broken engine, we’re just kind of hoping it restarts itself once we put things back into a state of normal operating conditions. But it might not [depending on how long we wake to take action; we’re hopefully still in a stage where the coils just need cleaning]. Or at least not at a time scale that matters for humans and a huge chunk of the world’s biome.

DennisP 7y ago

The planet goes through natural carbon cycles. For example, natural orbital variations cause a little initial heating, then feedback effects like permafrost melt kick in, taking the planet several degrees further. Then, over millions of years, the carbon gets absorbed again. Rock weathering removes CO2, and layer after layer of plant material gets sequestered in the ground. The warming events cause mass extinctions. Hardly anything lives at mid-latitudes, and crocodiles swim at the poles. There's a lot of geological evidence for all this, and it's the reason people are so worried. If negative feedbacks were quick then we'd see a stable climate in the geological record. We see the opposite. It doesn't take much of an initial shove to tip things into catastrophe, and millions of years to get back to a climate like our own.

Balgair 7y ago
PBS's Eons Youtube Channel has great videos on this topic. Really, all their videos are amazing and very binge-able. Four that may be most relevant are: The Last Time the Globe Warmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4 When the Earth Was Purple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIA-k_bBcL0 That Time it Rained for Two Million Years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1LdMWlNYS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1LdMWlNYS4 From the Cambrian Explosion to the Great Dying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQa0okkpf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQa0okkpf0 The few things that we learn from paleontology is the Earth is Dynamic and that any one creature's life is fragile.