From DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Computer sims: In climatic tug of war, carbon released from thawing permafrost wins handily
There’s a carbon showdown brewing in the Arctic as Earth’s climate changes. On one side, thawing permafrost could release enormous amounts of long-frozen carbon into the atmosphere. On the opposing side, as high-latitude regions warm, plants will grow more quickly, which means they’ll take in more carbon from the atmosphere.
Whichever side wins will have a big impact on the carbon cycle and the planet’s climate. If the balance tips in favor of permafrost-released carbon, climate change could accelerate. If the balance tips in favor of carbon-consuming plants, climate change could slow down.
Turns out the result will be lopsided. There will be a lot more carbon released from thawing permafrost than the amount taken in by more Arctic vegetation, according to new computer simulations conducted by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
The findings are from an Earth system model that is the first to represent permafrost processes as well as the dynamics of carbon and nitrogen in the soil. Simulations using the model showed that by the year 2300, if climate change continues unchecked, the net loss of carbon to the atmosphere from Arctic permafrost would range from between 21 petagrams and 164 petagrams. That’s equivalent to between two years and 16 years of human-induced CO2 emissions.
The scientists included nitrogen dynamics in the model because, as permafrost thaws, nitrogen trapped in deeper soil layers (below one meter underground) will decompose and become available to fertilize plants. At the same time, organic carbon frozen in deeper soil layers will decompose and enter the atmosphere.
“The big question has been: Which side wins? And we found the rate of permafrost thaw and its effect on the decomposition of deep carbon will have a much bigger impact on the carbon cycle than the availability of deep nitrogen and its ability to spark plant growth,” says Charles Koven of Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division.
Koven conducted the research with fellow Berkeley Lab scientist William Riley and David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They recently reported their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists believe that nitrogen’s relatively small impact on the carbon cycle is due to the fact that deeper layers of permafrost won’t thaw until the fall or even early winter, when summer’s warmth finally reaches more than one meter below ground. At that stage in the growing season, the deep nitrogen that decomposes and becomes available will have few plants to fertilize.
The model’s output also highlights uncertainties in the science. After all, the simulations found that between 21 petagrams and 164 petagrams of carbon will be released to the atmosphere, which is a big range. The scientists say that more field and lab research is needed to determine how carbon-decomposition dynamics work in deep layers of permafrost versus at the surface, including the role of microbes, minerals, and plant roots.
“These simulations allow us to identify processes that seem to have a lot of leverage on climate change, and which we need to explore further,” says Koven.
###
The terrestrial ecosystem portion of the Earth system model simulations were conducted at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab.
The research was supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
There’s a carbon showdown brewing in the Arctic as Earth’s climate changes. On one side, thawing permafrost could release enormous amounts of long-frozen carbon into the atmosphere. On the opposing side, as high-latitude regions warm, plants will grow more quickly, which means they’ll take in more carbon from the atmosphere.
Whichever side wins will have a big impact on the carbon cycle and the planet’s climate. If the balance tips in favor of permafrost-released carbon, climate change could accelerate. If the balance tips in favor of carbon-consuming plants, climate change could slow down.
Turns out the result will be lopsided. There will be a lot more carbon released from thawing permafrost than the amount taken in by more Arctic vegetation, according to new computer simulations conducted by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
The findings are from an Earth system model that is the first to represent permafrost processes as well as the dynamics of carbon and nitrogen in the soil. Simulations using the model showed that by the year 2300, if climate change continues unchecked, the net loss of carbon to the atmosphere from Arctic permafrost would range from between 21 petagrams and 164 petagrams. That’s equivalent to between two years and 16 years of human-induced CO2 emissions.
The scientists included nitrogen dynamics in the model because, as permafrost thaws, nitrogen trapped in deeper soil layers (below one meter underground) will decompose and become available to fertilize plants. At the same time, organic carbon frozen in deeper soil layers will decompose and enter the atmosphere.
“The big question has been: Which side wins? And we found the rate of permafrost thaw and its effect on the decomposition of deep carbon will have a much bigger impact on the carbon cycle than the availability of deep nitrogen and its ability to spark plant growth,” says Charles Koven of Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division.
Koven conducted the research with fellow Berkeley Lab scientist William Riley and David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They recently reported their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists believe that nitrogen’s relatively small impact on the carbon cycle is due to the fact that deeper layers of permafrost won’t thaw until the fall or even early winter, when summer’s warmth finally reaches more than one meter below ground. At that stage in the growing season, the deep nitrogen that decomposes and becomes available will have few plants to fertilize.
The model’s output also highlights uncertainties in the science. After all, the simulations found that between 21 petagrams and 164 petagrams of carbon will be released to the atmosphere, which is a big range. The scientists say that more field and lab research is needed to determine how carbon-decomposition dynamics work in deep layers of permafrost versus at the surface, including the role of microbes, minerals, and plant roots.
“These simulations allow us to identify processes that seem to have a lot of leverage on climate change, and which we need to explore further,” says Koven.
###
The terrestrial ecosystem portion of the Earth system model simulations were conducted at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab.
The research was supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
I can say unequivocally that this study is completely divorced from reality (certainty 100%). No geologist was within speaking distance of these closeted indoor investigators. No loon eggs were broken during this research. I have worked on projects in Northern Canada since as far back as 1958. I’ve mapped the geology of areas (from ~300km^2 to 2000km^2) spread from Yukon to Labrador. I’ve managed regional and local mining exploration projects in Yukon, northern BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador (the official name of the province is these three words!). Indeed, I’m still working on projects in northern Quebec. I’ve laid out drilling projects in many of these localities and sampled soil horizons into clayey, stoney subsoils. So what?
Well, the average overburden thickness (loose material overlying bedrock) is less than a few metres – say 3-4m and there is no carbon hiding in the hundreds of metres of bedrock beneath it. Moreover, Glacial till and outwash sands and gravels from the glaciers make up much more than half of this thickness and it is largely barren of organic material. Indeed most permafrost is in solid rock. The so called active layer makes up perhaps as much as 20% from which any carbon has essentially already escaped. Here is a typical look at northern Canada terrain – the Lac de Gras area in Northwest Territories (diamond mining area). Go to link and scroll to page 4 showing an overburden thickness map of the region:
http://dmec.ca/ex07-dvd/E07/pdfs/97.pdf
So now take the Livermore “data” with all its other unknown warts, take an average of permafrost thickness, 200-300m(?) and subtract 98% from their findings and we get 0.2 to 1.6t petagrams (I guess this helps me understand why these clowns choose such stupid units) CO2 from the remaining cigarette smokers on the globe. Can I conclude by saying I’m am totally pizzed off with this kind of stuff.
Interesting paper! (Modelling overburden thickness in glaciated terrain:
Lac de Gras, Northwest Territories, Canada) Quick read, tidy wrap-up, no synthetic mind-altering substances.
The overburden map around Lac de Gras is awesome.
+10
I agree that they probably over-estimated the amount of frozen soil available to thaw and emit CO2. On the other hand I don’t see where they claim a thickness of 200 – 300m.
It looks to me like they consider everything below 3.5m as a thermal mass rather than a potential source of CO2.
I once bothered to calculate the amount of biomass that would need to grow per sq m to sop up the emerging CO2/methane from melting permafrost. During that investigation I read some interesting research done on melting permafrost in estuaries on the North Slope of Alaska. LiCor now makes instruments for measuring such emissions from the ground.
Anyway, the answer was surprisingly small. I won’t bore you with it. Tundra doesn’t have much biomass on the surface. Even the lodge pole forests south of Hudson’s Bay easily have enough mass to absorb what is below the ground (that could come out) plus a lot more, and forests put Carbon underground – lots of it.
A ‘warm Arctic’ would vastly increase the area of the world’s forest cover, by millions of sq km. Freezing it solid again would drive most of the above-ground biomass into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane. That is how we got to our present conditions.
The conclusion fails conceptually. They should rather concern themselves with clathrates. Or chocolate:
http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/courses/bio621/misc/Chocolate%20consumption%20cognitive%20function%20and%20nobel%20laurates%20(NEJM).pdf
Commie Bob Ive been at this kind of work for over 50 years and I hope you didn’t move a lot of people on with your comments by your misunderstanding of their paper. Here is a link for Siberia permafrost thickness. It is known to be as deep as 1.4km.
http://www.rusnature.info/geo/06_1.htm
Kindly use references to the paper to show how I have misunderstood it. I still I don’t see where they claim a thickness of 200 – 300m.
Note that I’m not making any claims about how deep any permafrost may be. I’m only referring to what I can find in the paper.
They are talking about a vertical grid that, once they get below the active layer, they exponentially increase the layer thickness (of the grid) in the range 3.5 to 45m to allow for thermal inertia….Presumably the 45m thick layers of the GRID is the maximum starting at the depth below the incremental stuff above. They apparently don’t say how far they continue this, but inference from the graphic showing disappearance of permafrost and warming of the ground over 300 years suggests they mean it will go to the bottom.
No matter if there is confusion on this, two things are the giants here. 1) the active layer 0.5 to 3.5m has already ‘lost its carbon’ and the average depth to bedrock is 3-4m beyond which depth it is frozen inert rock. Indeed if you look at the map of the region in NWT Canada I showed, you can see that most of the area has bedrock at or above the active layer. A considerable part of the surface IS bedrock. They don’t even need the grid to go down further than ~8m and up to a third of that is the active layer.
Well, there is more overburden in Alaska and Northeastern Siberia where the lowlands have never been glaciated. However the permafrost is also much deeper, since these areas haven’t been covered by a heat-retaining (yes!) layer of ice.
Fair enough, but subtract the exposed mountains and see what averages you get. I would argue that not much organic material was accumulated in the valleys which are buried by mass wasting of the mountain slopes (plant barren talus), too.
If I recall AGW theory predicted that in response to global warming the NAO/AO would be more positive which would result in warming up the lower to mid latitudes of the N.H.
Which would happen if the NAO/AO were to be positive.
As Ulric pointed out a +AO/NAO would result in a colder Arctic, while at the same time the lower latitudes would warm in response to this type of atmospheric circulation.
As usual AGW prediction of a +AO/NAO has been wrong. Both the NAO/AO trending more negative and this can be tied into prolonged solar minimum activity which will influence the ozone distributions in the atmosphere which result in the NAO/AO being more negative.
The result being a weak and more expansive polar vortex which does allow more cold out breaks to reach the lower latitudes while the Arctic is on the warm side.
Thanks, and bravo for not getting cognitive dissonance over it. The increase in negative NAO since the mid 1990’s shifted the AMO strongly to its warm mode and has in fact accelerated the rise in global mean surface temperature from 1995 to ~2005. The negative feedback effect has a large overshoot, effectively an amplified negative feedback. It’s a far cry from the flat Earth where natural variability is internal, and mean surface temperature change is directly proportional to forcings.
Oh, so you mean less than a “hiatus”-worth of CO2…
Now that we seem to be heading for weaker solar cycles, should the study focus on what happens when permafrost comes back, and what it will be like as we head back toward an ice age?
Permafrost grows back down into the ground pretty good. It kills forests; we can age-map timber stands and detect large expanses of ‘first-growth’, following the Little Ice Age die-off.
An Ice Age, though, requires accumulation of perennial snow, becoming ice. That we can stop, by dusting unwanted snow-coverage in the early spring. Although we could see the climate cool, Canada, Russia, Scandinavia and Alaska could put a halt to the growth of perennial snow & ice. ‘Not in our house!’
At one time Earth was like Venus is now, ish. Perhaps because of our distance from the sun, we managed to get liquid water on the surface (look up graphs on triple point of water). The moment you have liquid water on the surface, Henry’s Law kicks in. You get an incredible production of carbonates. This results in a large reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere over a period of time. In other words sequestration of CO2.
All things that have ever lived, that have had an exo/endo skeleton have sequestered CO2. All in the form of a carbonate. Skeletal content from fish, mammals to turtles of carbonates ranges from 5 -12 %. Ask a chemist about how much energy you need to break up a carbonate. Don’t bother asking a chemist ask a cement plant why they need to run at over 1000 degrees C.
Another point that may be interesting. It has been proposed by some that the only reason you had those giant flying lizards 70 million years ago was that the air density was about twice what is now. That probably would mean that there was greater solubility of gases in the ocean.
From Venus like atmosphere to the atmosphere we have now. I am sure some statistician can have an orgasm. There is probably a bigger chance we will run out of air to breath before the temperature of the planet increases by 1 degree.
The whiskey, paracetamol after the root canal treatment on 2 teeth has kicked in . I bid all you good folk a goodnight.
The greenhouse gas effect is a product of the climate, forestation ,biological and geological processes.
It does not govern but is the result of the those items.
Lazy clowns. They’ll be the end of us all.
Agriculture with grazing animals is already releasing 10kg+ per square metre per year. Arable using nitrogen fertiliser probably 3 or 4 times that much.
Anyone with a cheap CO2 meter, a dustbin and a stopwatch can go out and measure that.
Have these people done that? I ain’t holding my breath for the answer.
This entry shows the CO2 and temperature record going back several hundred thousand years
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/
The temperature spikes seem to cause CO2 increases. But once the temperature reaches the typical interglacial increase (similar to today´s temperature), an additional spike or increase of 2 to 3 degrees C doesn´t increase CO2 levels more than 10 ppm, This means the highest increase we should see is from say 500 ppm to 510 ppm (or from 600 ppm to 610 ppm if you wish to use a higher range. This is hardly earth shaking, because the CO2 effect is supposed to be the natural logarithm of the CO2 ratio.
I’m still waiting for conclusive evidence that any serious wide spread thawing is even occurring. Most of the claims I’ve examined have ended up being red herrings such as road cuts, foundation excavations, disruptions due to oil / gas / mining, local UHI effects, etc.
Yeah, my permafrost coiffure is retreating too. Can I expect to produce more GHGs?
I see. As Hydrogen in permafrost melts at −259.16°C, the temperature quickly reaches 3642°C, the sublimation point of Carbon, at which stage it is released to the atmosphere. Horrendous, is it?
Reading the paper they use scenario RCP 8.5 in their models. That is the IPCC scenario that incorporates the highest radiative forcing and hence has the greatest discrepancy with observed temperatures. Looking at their outputs the Mean result turns from carbon negative (storage) to carbon positive right around where RCP 8.5 starts to get aggressively geometric in its projection. It would be interesting to see what their outcomes would have been had they used RCP 2.5 which is closer to observations. My guess is it would strongly favor carbon storage. Just guessing of course
So they modeled the output of another model. What could be wrong with that? /sarc
OMG they just proved the first law of thermodynamics wrong with their model!
The source of all the frozen methane hydrate in the Arctic is from thermogenic gas from decaying plants in peat bogs while the climate was warmer, such as 1000 years ago. So it’s a very safe assumption that during these climate optimums there is net sequestration of carbon into the soil, otherwise the soil would have net carbon emissions during these warm periods and the organic matter wouldn’t be there for the thermogenic gas in the first place.
To the contrary they are saying that during a climate optimum there will be a net carbon output from these soils and therefore the soil will loose organic matter. We know that carbon isn’t being sequestered during climate minimums because the soil is permanently frozen and little photosynthesis takes place, so how do they suppose the carbon was sequestered in the first place? The only explanation is that they believe that organic matter is spontaneously generating within Arctic soils or they are blinded by bias.
Perhaps they should have run these broken models for the past 12,000 years. Maybe someone on the team would have realized that if warm climates periods had a net subtraction of carbon from the soils off and on for the past 12,000 years then the carbon wouldn’t be frozen in the soil as observed today.
I like how this image shows ALL of the permafrost melting, right through the North Slope of AK. Is there no point at which the “scientist” says “wait a minute, that can’t be right” and adjusts the damn model?
?w=720
Because it is too much fun to do a cool graphic!
20 year study warming tundra soils found no expected loss of soil carbon. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/warming-may-not-release-arctic-carbon
Darn , so all that lovely carbon is still locked out of the shorter term carbon cycle.. 🙁
“Turns out the result will be lopsided. There will be a lot more carbon released from thawing permafrost than the amount taken in by more Arctic vegetation, according to new computer simulations conducted by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).”
What rubbish!!
Where do they think the ‘carbon’ came from in the first place?! How did it get there? Giants? Goblins?
This is so stupid I don’t know where to begin. Look to the southern edge of the permafrost and what do you see? Forests! Duh! What do forests do? They pull CO2 out of the air and push it underground where it accumulates until the next ice age whereupon it is frozen into the ground. There it awaits the next global warming alarmist modeller who insists that underground biomass could not possibly have got there by natural means so thawing it will never lead to enough forest growth to replace or maintain it.
Do you know how many trees there are in Canada south of the permafrost line?
Oh wait! There are lots of trees growing ON the permafrost right now. Go to Inuvik. There are 40 ft trees growing on top of permafrost that is no more than 2 feet down. Go east 20 km. There are no trees. It is too cold there and the permafrost grips everything all year.
Oh wait! Most of those plants growing on the tundra are stunted trees trying to reach the sky. If that darn permafrost would just melt they would grow into the giants that exist upriver at Arctic Red. Now they will regrow 30% faster because of CO2 fertilisation. Cool fires create charcoal that is not released into the atmosphere. Lots of it. The fundamental claim of the article is unbelievable.
What burns hotter than tundra?
A forest fire.
What burns hotter than a forest fire?
An alarmist model of the future on this planet.
What burns hotter than an alarmist model of the future on this planet?
The stupid that ignores the fundamentals of the biome.
When I saw this post, I figured it would get Crispin going.
Ah give them a break Crispin. Its possible they have never been outside of a lab in California. I did sewer and water work in Inuvik and Fort McPherson. My company built runways and services for the forward operating bases for the CF18’s up north. Huge variety of vegetation, overburden, rock, and muskeg; and a LOT of water from Alaska to Labrador. Inuvik and Fort McPherson are on the Mackenzie Delta. Anyone can use Google Earth and Panoramio to see the trees and other vegetation. Maybe they accounted for that, but is sure doesn’t look like it when they actually show expansion of permafrost in the forested areas south east of Churchill. On the other hand, their models do reflect some of the river systems in Russia and the Mackenzie river in the NWT. Lots of barren land in the eastern arctic, but also lots of trees around the lakes. Great sources of tree expansion should the climate warm.
From an old paper: http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic20-1-21.pdf (This paper says Fort McPherson is Tundra – but the when I worked there over 25 years ago there were lots of trees as current photos show.)
“Barring a climatic change, a channel shift, or lake formation to provide a heat source, computations using Neumann’s solu- tion for formationof ice (Ingersoll, et al. I 954, pp. I 90-4) modified for soils show that permafrost should continue to aggrade downwards for hundreds of years.”
The permafrost in this study was said to be -4C to -6C generally. Now if we assume a 4 degrees C increase in temperature in the arctic, there will be an impact on the active layer depth, but is mid winter whether it is 36 below zero, or 32 below zero isn’t going to change the fact that the active layer will re-freeze. If I remember correctly, The Northern Utilities Manual that was developed in cooperation with several countries in the late 70’s/early 80’s had some excellent formulae for calculated the active zone and expected annual temperature/depth temperature profiles.
It would take a huge change to melt the permafrost. I suspect you would have to use a number of “worst case scenarios” to create the change shown in the Berkley model.
Basically what I said in my post above. I know what you mean by “This is so stupid I don’t know where to begin.” I suspect that the team did not include a pedologist.
Yes RWturner. Yes to Crispin. Yes to others that may have said the same general stuff but I didn’t read it.
When it is warm the northern realms turn into a sink … it is not an efficient carbon sink but it a sink. Anyone can convince me that I am wrong by explaining how, otherwise, all that scary sequestered carbon got there before it froze. I am waiting….
… if anyone can come up with anything better than the Giants or Goblins (and their remnant on site sewer systems) as an alternative, please let me know.
Anymore, published climate research based on models is more like “Let’s Make A Deal!” Except what we get behind each of the 3 doors has already been revealed as a truck load of frozen Mellorine behind door #1, 100 years worth of Cheese Product Wiz behind door #2, and 50 years worth of cough cough gag Avacado Dip behind door #3. All fake, and none of it even smells good, let alone tastes good.
Some proposals for WUWT reader consideration:
Here’s in the Earth’s Carbon respiration cycle:
http://i61.tinypic.com/x3flns.jpg
Note: NH sinks and sources are far from saturated.
– The Earth’s Carbon Year begins on annually on 21 September (equinox).
Why you ask?
(Red vertical lines are approx 21 September)
http://i58.tinypic.com/6poprp.png
It will only take about 21 days (10 days or so in spring & 10 days in fall) of increasing Northern Hemisphere (NH) CO2 absorption (CO2 sink activity related to NH growing season) to offset the elevated CO2 source that operates now.
@ur momisugly joelobryan March 19, 2015 at 9:49 pm
“NO”, …. the Earth’s Carbon Year begins 5 to 10 days AFTER the annual 20/21 September (equinox) ….. and has been doing said “steady and consistently” for the past 57 years..
So, “YUP”, the Red vertical lines on your cited graph are approximately 21 September.
“NO”, …. the Northern Hemisphere (NH) CO2 absorption-sink activity associated with the NH growing season …. has very little to no effect on the bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 as portrayed on your included graph of “3 years of Carbon Cycle”.
And the primary reason is, …. the CO2 minimum yearly ppm as portrayed on your included graph always occurs 5 to 10 days AFTER the Autumnal equinox ….. and the CO2 maximum yearly ppm as portrayed on your included graph …. always occurs 60 days after the Vernal equinox, at + or – 5 or 6 days of mid-May of each calendar year ….. and both the min/max in CO2 ppm have been doing said “steady and consistently bi-yearly cycling” for the past 57 years as attested to by the Mauna Loa CO2 data.
Also, the NH growing season always begins around the 1st of February ….. and progressively moves erratically northward thru the higher latitudes until mid to late June of each calendar year.
And secondly, the increase in springtime temperatures that initiates the “start” of the growing season in the NH ….. also initiates the “start” of the outgassing of CO2 as a result of the rotting and/or decaying of the dead plant biomass …. which always begins prior to the “greening” of the live plant biomass …… as the aforesaid “growing season progressively moves erratically northward thru the higher latitudes”, …. thus outgassing as much or more CO2 than said “greening” is ingassing.
To do otherwise would be in direct violation of my claimed ….. Refrigerator-Freezer Law that governs the microbial decomposition of dead biomass.
Cheers
Refrigerator-Freezer Law…. do tell. Laws in Climate Science are always fun to debunk… like CAGW.
@ur momisugly Joel O’Bryan March 20, 2015 at 9:39 pm
I agree with you about CAGW, …. but you had better not try “debunking” my afore stated Refrigerator-Freezer Law ….. because you will be biting off more than you want to chew on.
But iffen you are intent on debunking my stated Law, ….. I suggest that you first talk it over with your wife or mother about the virtues of owning a refrigerator ….. and theen try your skills at “debunking” the following, to wit:
The above excerpted from, to wit:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/934c2c81-2a3d-4d59-b6ce-c238fdd45582/Refrigeration_and_Food_Safety.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
Joel O’Bryan, most species of bacteria are members of …. the Dead Biomass Decomposers Union …. and all of them refuse to work iffen the dead biomass is dried out, no moisture. You know, ….. like dried apples, dried fish, dried jerky, pemmican … and leaves n’ twigs and other ground clutter.
And an overwhelming majority of said bacteria either slow-down or refuse to work whenever the temperature decreases below 60 F. And that slow-down continues to get “slower” as the temperature decreases to that magic number of “40 °F or below” and virtually stops @ur momisugly 32 °F or below.
Now Joel, please tell me, what is the terrestrial moisture conditions in the NH during the months of August thru October? They are pretty dry, most of the time, ….. right.. And that is what necessitates a “NO BURN – fire season”.
And what is the average surface temperatures in the NH during the months of September thru October.
Joel, do you truly think that the “temperature and moisture” conditions of the environment, following the Fall equinox of September 21, … are utterly fantastic “working conditions” for all those unionized bacterial “decomposing” laborers?
I DON’T THINK SO, ….. and that is one reason that the “Fall time” hunters, trappers and vacationers “dig” themselves a “refrigerator” pit in the ground to preserve their food stuff ….. whenever they are out n’ about lolly-gagging around in the back woods or the wilderness.
Cheers
It’s an odd thing, but the paper appears to limit the consideration of CO2 absorption to the land covered by the permafrost. As a gas, CO2 will spread to all the corners of the globe and therefore be absorbed by all the plants. I was once told that it would only take one hundredth of an inch of extra topsoil to absorb all the extra CO2 humans had released in all of history.
It is interesting to note that this model starts out with a large area of permafrost in Northern Scandinavia in 1900 that is all gone by 2040. It is actually much worse than that, because all that permafrost was already gone in 1900, and didn’t even leave any trace behind!