nuclear-news

GR: Here’s your daily dose of bad news for climate change. This study doesn’t consider the effect of the increased permafrost thaw. However, we know that thawed permafrost releases methane and other gasses. Expect new global-warming projections soon. (Link to recent post concerned with extent of permafrost thaw.)

Thawing permafrost has communities like Newtok, Alaska literally losing the ground under their feet. Credit: Getty Images

“More than 40 percent of the world’s permafrost—landscape covered in frozen soil—is at risk of thawing even if the world succeeds in limiting global warming to the international goal of 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new study.

“Currently, permafrost covers about nearly 5.8 million square miles, and scientists found as much as 2.5 million square miles of that could thaw—about twice the area of Alaska, California and Texas combined—in a 2 degree Celsius scenario. Thawing would be more limited if warming can be held…