Permafrost thaw might be even more potent than we thought

The trend from frozen tundra soils shifting to thermokarst erosion and thaw ponds, may in the future be exacerbated by increased rainfall and weather events. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10… and http://www.inrs.ca/english/actualites…

Correction: at ca. 9:36, it should read, the dark water surfaces of thaw ponds, rich in organic matter, absorb much more sunlight -hence decreases the landscape albedo.

NASA map of soil degradation https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOT…

Photo, Tundra Fire, Kaminak Lake Area http://www.prairie.illinois.edu/shilt…

Horn Lake thermokarst https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVKsZ…

Icicle melting by Jeffrey Beach (Beachfront Productions) https://archive.org/details/IcicleMel…

Permafrost warming Svalbard graphic https://twitter.com/Ketil_Isaksen/sta…

Further reading
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As the climate warms, the carbon balance of arctic ecosystems will respond in two opposing ways:
Plants will grow faster, leading to a carbon sink, while thawing permafrost will lead to decomposition
and loss of soil carbon.
https://www.amap.no/documents/doc/sno…

The results presented here—that large C losses are possible from the permafrost region, whose magnitude is strongly governed by the dynamics of deeper decomposition, and that large losses are unlikely to be compensated by N fertilization accompanying decomposition—underscore the importance of considering permafrost carbon dynamics in ESMs. Permafrost soils may produce a strong, albeit delayed, C response to global change,
and must therefore be included in assessments of long-term C cycle feedbacks to climate change.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/12/3752

Methanotroph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methano…

Heterotroph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterot…

Alaska Permafrost https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2…