Melting ice destabilises more than just penguins ...
Warmer water and air means ice, as frozen water, begins to melt. As it melts water flows with the pull of gravity to the lowest point it can; the sea. As the sea receives an additional source of water, so it's volume increases and sea levels rise.
Where ice lays over land, permafrost, the sub-ice soil which normally cycles through seasonal changes of freeze-melt-freeze is now gradually warming and unable to refreeze. This reawakens the living land surface beneath and microbial growth begins to decompose the soil organic matter, releasing ground-stored carbon as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. The new plant growth this process supports, creates a return carbon cycle, capturing and storing released CO2 back into the soil. Released methane, which cannot be captured, adds to the atmospheric warming burden as a significant greenhouse gas with a 20x higher potency than carbon in the first ten years.
Where permafrost cannot refreeze the deep soil underneath indents or slumps, forming pools of melt water. This warmer water speeds up the melt process deep beneath, creating thermokarst lakes. This provides conditions for a super charged melt process, known as abrupt thaw, which releases ancient carbon faster than can be locked back in, and methane too.
... Melting ice destabilises more than just penguins.
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SINGLE-USE PLANET?
A voluntarily* set up and run pop up interactive space to creatively share the interconnections of climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and so much more.
8-29 Feb | Mon-Sat | 11-5pm
Old NatWest Bank, 1 Main Street, Grange over Sands, LA116DS
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