Human Wrongs Watch
Massive stores of carbon trapped under the northern hemisphere’s frozen expanses risk being unleashed and significantly contributing to global warming should thawing of the region’s permafrost continue to accelerate, a United Nations report warns.
A scientist (bottom right) standing in front of an ice-rich permafrost exposure on the coast of Herschel Island in Yukon Territory, Canada. Photo: Michael Fritz
Released on 27 November 2012 on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference in the Qatari capital of Doha, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report – Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost – underlines the potential hazards facing global ecosystems as well as national infrastructures if the rigid permafrost terrain were to become unstable.
It also warns that the threat posed by carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost has only begun to enter mainstream scientific discourse in recent years and, as a result, has not been included in climate prediction modelling.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 