The great boreal forests of the northern hemisphere, known as Taiga, are the world's largest and make up 29% of the total world forest cover. (Wikipedia). As the climate changes and the Polar region warms faster than the lower latitudes these forests become susceptible to fire.
Jason Box has been working in Greenland for many years and has become concerned about the deteriorating quality of the snow and the associated speed of melting. He has mounted a Dark Snow project aimed at researching and quantifying how soot from a variety of sources is lying on the snow is making it more absorbent to heat from the sun which increases the melt rate. You can follow his work on http://climatecrocks.com/
Illustration from http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/
This northern summer there are huge fires burning in Canada and Siberia that are carrying soot around the globe and depositing it on the snow. This will be happening all round the permafrost region of the Taiga forests causing the snow to have a darker, less reflective surface. In Siberia a total of 4,929 fires have burnt 834,100 hectares of woodlands since the season begun. (http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/735659) and in Canada 4330 fires on 3,858,947 hectares.
This causes two problems. One is that it speeds up the melt rate of the massive ice store in the Greenland ice sheet which will raise the sea levels, and the second is that the melting snow increases the warmth of the Arctic permafrost, thereby releasing huge quantities of methane from the unfrozen subsoil.
Greenland contains enough ice, which if melted, could raise sea levels seven meters and while nobody is saying that this will happen quickly, just half a meter added to other melts would have extremely serious economic consequences and therefore of considerable concern.
The Tundra region needs to remain frozen because it is estimated that not less than 1,400 Gt of Carbon (Shakhova et al.2008) is presently locked up in the permafrost as methane and as methane is 72 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas over 20 years it can have a powerful effect on the climate.
A lot is happening in remote areas that can affect our lives and much of it goes unreported.
This causes two problems. One is that it speeds up the melt rate of the massive ice store in the Greenland ice sheet which will raise the sea levels, and the second is that the melting snow increases the warmth of the Arctic permafrost, thereby releasing huge quantities of methane from the unfrozen subsoil.
Greenland contains enough ice, which if melted, could raise sea levels seven meters and while nobody is saying that this will happen quickly, just half a meter added to other melts would have extremely serious economic consequences and therefore of considerable concern.
The Tundra region needs to remain frozen because it is estimated that not less than 1,400 Gt of Carbon (Shakhova et al.2008) is presently locked up in the permafrost as methane and as methane is 72 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas over 20 years it can have a powerful effect on the climate.
A lot is happening in remote areas that can affect our lives and much of it goes unreported.
RSS Feed