Natural emergencies increased again this year in the Arcticwhere experts say that extreme climate change is fundamentally changing ecosystems and how they function. One recent point for the region involves its carbon footprint: Where Arctic conditions historically served to reduce global carbon emissions, they are now a major contributor to them.
This is a major change that could have consequences for human life, plants and animals far from the Earth's northern hemisphere, warned a group of scientists in their study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2024 Arctic Report Card, published on Tuesday. The report is an annual assessment of the inland region, which in recent years has become a stark warning marked by unprecedented and alarming observations all linked to rising temperatures caused by human-caused climate change.
The focus of recent Arctic research has been the effects of warmer weather and wildfires on the tundra, a far northern region known for its extreme cold, little rain and a layer of permanently frozen soil, called permafrost, that covers the earth. Those factors combined made the Arctic an important carbon sink for millennia, meaning that the area helped significantly reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by absorbing more carbon than it emitted from the atmosphere.
That is due to carbon sequestration by plants, which regulate atmospheric levels of the molecule through photosynthesis, and the storage process in permafrost, which locks carbon dioxide into the soil. But warming Arctic air temperatures are breaking the permafrost across the tundra, in some cases, significantly. The Arctic report, for example, showed Alaskan permafrost temperatures in 2024 were the second warmest on record. That causes the soil to burn and melt, its carbon stores to decompose along with it.
Including the impact of increased wildfire activity, the Arctic tundra region has changed from a sink of carbon in the soil to a source of carbon dioxide. / Credit: NOAA
Research included in NOAA's Arctic report shows that carbon stored in the tundra's permafrost is actually released into the atmosphere. In some parts of the region, it is occurring at a rate that is more than a carbon sink and instead creates an increase in greenhouse gas emissions – a major concern of climate scientists at a time when emissions from fossil fuel production are already present. reached a record high.
The same fossil fuels that are depleting the atmosphere and fueling the ongoing admonition from top climate and climate officials at the United Nations are fueling Arctic emissions, said Rich Spinrad, director of NOAA, in a statement about the findings of the new report.
“What we've seen now shows that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfires, is now releasing more carbon than it's storing, which will make climate change even more difficult,” Spinrad said. “This is yet another symptom, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inappropriately reducing fossil fuel pollution.”
Wildfires in the Arctic they have been celebrating at unprecedented rates, and that alone is increasing carbon emissions. The researchers suggest that the year 2024 will have the second highest annual volume of wildfire emissions north of the Arctic Circle in history. Along with the release of carbon dioxide and methane gas from permafrost stores, they say net emissions could continue to increase in an area where climate change is warming faster than anywhere else on earth.
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