Thawing permafrost may have led to extreme global warming events
April 6, 2012 Scientists analysing prehistoric global warming say thawing permafrost released massive amounts of carbon stored in frozen soil of Polar Regions exacerbating climate change through increasing global temperatures and oceanacidification.
Although the amounts of carbon involved in the ancient soil-thaw scenarios was likely much greater than today, the implications of this ground-breaking study are that the long-term future of carbon deposits locked into frozen permafrost of Polar Regions are vulnerable to climatewarming caused as humans emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels for energy generation.
Researchers in centres across America, Italy and the University of Sheffield, analysed a series of sudden, and extreme, global warming events - called hyperthermals - that occurred about 55 million years ago, linked to rising greenhouse gas concentrations and changes in Earth's orbit, which led to a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere, ocean acidification, and a five degrees.
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