Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 03:53
Forums
Microbial Activity in Thawing Arctic Permafrost

Dear Mr. Miller; Hi! My name is Anna and I am from St. Mark School in Florida. I am doing a project over the summer and we have to ask a scientist a question. I was wondering this question... If you don't solve this problem with the thawing, could it speed up global warming? Thank you for your time to read and answer this question.

From, Anna

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 14:30

Jim Miller

Hi Anna, sorry it took me a few days to respond to your question; it took awhile to get settled up here in Barrow. Methane is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it has heat-trapping capabilities. The more Methane in the atmosphere, the more heat that will be trapped by Earth and not released back into space. The other bad part about methane is that once it is released into the atmosphere it will stay there for many, many years. So the affects of the methane released into the atmosphere today will affect our atmosphere for hundreds of years. Also, methane is much worse than carbon dioxide. If you have one unit of carbon dioxide and one unit of methane, the methane will hold 21 times more heat than the carbon dioxide. So now into the nitty gritty.... the problem is we do not know and that is the focus of a lot of the research being done up here now. My understanding is that because the more heat trapping gases you put up into the atmosphere, the warmer the planet will get. The warmer the planet will get, the more the permafrost will thaw. The more permafrost that thaws, the more greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere. It seems like it will lead to a feedback loop/cycle that will be hard to for use to stop. I hope that helps answer your question. If you have any further questions, feel free to post any time!
Thanks!
-Jim