Chris Hepler

The situation is actually far worse than you are reporting here. Firstly, we have found NO Arctic permafrost older than about 800,000 years old. Before that, it appears that there was no "permanent" permafrost. Which means that the Earth didn't get COLD enough for permanent permafrost to form until the CO2 level dropped below, 360ppmCO2 or +2°C over our 1850 baseline. Since then, about 750,000 years of organic matter has accumulated in the Arctic permafrost. As you mention this is estimated to hold 1,600Gts of carbon rich organic material. For comparison we put out about 42Gts CO2 emissions in 2023 and 2024. 85% of Alaska is permafrost, 65% of Russia is permafrost, 50% of Canada is permafrost, overall 24% of the land area in the NH is permafrost. It holds an estimated 1/2 of all the organic carbon stored in the Earth's soil. In 2020 the Arctic Institute warned that a 3 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures could melt 30 to 85 percent of the top permafrost layers that exist across the Arctic region. The Arctic has ALREADY WARMED +4°C on AVERAGE. Parts of it in Siberia have warmed +8°C. The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979 nature.com/articles/s43247-0… Communications Earth & Environment volume 3, Article number: 168 (Aug 2022) Our mainstream climate models reflect how badly we misunderstood the role of permafrost in our ICEHOUSE climate state. 1st - we underestimated by 100% how much organic matter there was in the permafrost. It wasn't until 2008 that an "on the ground" survey was done to actually measure the amount of material in the permafrost. It DOUBLED the estimate Climate Science had been using. 2nd - in order to keep the models working the response to this new information was to say (without evidence) that ALMOST ALL of this material would stay "locked up" in the permafrost and would be released SLOWLY in small increments. This ASSUMPTION is also proving to be WRONG. sciencealert.com/study-revea… Iron mineral dissolution releases iron and associated organic carbon during permafrost thaw Nature Communications volume 11, Article number: 6329 (2020) nature.com/articles/s41467-0… There may be greater CO2 emissions associated with thawing Arctic permafrost than ever imagined. An international team of researchers, including one from the University of Copenhagen, has discovered that soil bacteria release CO2 previously thought to be trapped by iron. The finding presents a large new carbon footprint that is unaccounted for in current climate models. Iron doesn't bind organic carbon after all. It was believed that the mineral iron would bind carbon even as permafrost thawed. The new field study demonstrates that bacteria incapacitate iron's carbon trapping ability, resulting in the release of vast amounts of CO2. This is an entirely new discovery. 3rd - we also ASSUMED that melted permafrost would be "wet and swampy". It turns out that due to Arctic Amplification the High Arctic is prone now to HEATWAVES that DRY OUT the permafrost so that it can BURN. This burning of what is essentially "peat" releases HUGE amounts of sequestered CO2 "all at once" instead of in a "slow trickle". As the Arctic RAPIDLY heats up, first the Boreal Forests are going to COMPLETELY burn away, releasing enough CO2 to rapidly raise the CO2 level by +100ppm-+150ppm. This will happen over the next 20 to 30 years at most. While this is happening, the permafrost will be drying and burning or wet and rotting. Releasing MASSIVE quantities of both CO2 and CH4. Complete loss of the permafrost could add ANOTHER +280pp-+350ppm to the CO2 level. Worst case scenario is all of this happening by 2100. CO2 levels could climb by as much as +380ppm-+500ppm. Putting us in the 800ppm to 1000ppm range BY 2100. The permafrost was the CARBON BOMB that we just set off. The rest of this century will be finding out just how BADLY we FUCKED UP. Via Sarah Connor collapse2050.substack.com/p/…