Harbinger of environmental milestones present again in abundance in the Arctic this yearwhere experts say dramatic climate shifts are fundamentally changing the ecosystem and the way it works. A recent turning point for the region concerns its ecological footprint: where conditions in the Arctic have historically helped reduce global emissions, they are now actively contributing.
That’s a major transition that could impact human, plant and animal life far beyond Earth’s northernmost arena, warned a group of scientists whose research appears in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card 2024. which was published on Tuesday. The report is an annual assessment of the Arctic environment, which has become a stark warning sign in recent years, marked by unprecedented and ominous observations all linked to rising temperatures due to human-induced climate change.
A focus of the latest Arctic assessment was the effects of warmer weather and wildfires on the tundra, a far northern biome typically known for its extreme cold, low precipitation and a layer of permanently frozen ground called permafrost that covers the land. These properties have made the Arctic a major carbon sink for millennia, meaning the region has essentially helped reduce CO2 emissions globally by absorbing more carbon than it emitted into the atmosphere.
That’s mainly due to the uptake of carbon by plants, which regulate atmospheric levels of the molecule through photosynthesis, and a storage process in the permafrost, which traps carbon dioxide in the soil. But warming air temperatures in the Arctic are seriously degrading permafrost on the tundra in some cases. For example, the Arctic report found that permafrost temperatures in Alaska in 2024 were the second warmest on record. This causes the soil to warm and thaw, and the carbon stores decompose along with it.
NOAA
Research included in NOAA’s Arctic report shows that carbon once stored in the tundra’s permafrost is actually being released into the atmosphere. In parts of the region, this is happening at a rate that is outpacing carbon storage and instead causing a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions – something of particular interest to climate scientists at a time when pollution from fossil fuel production is already has disappeared. reached a record high.
The same fossil fuels that are overwhelming the atmosphere and prompting continued warnings from top weather and climate officials at the United Nations are fueling emissions in the Arctic, NOAA administrator Rich Spinrad said in a statement about the new report’s findings.
“Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, facing warming and increasing wildfires, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen the effects of climate change,” Spinrad said. “This is yet another sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of not sufficiently reducing fossil fuel pollution.”
Wildfires in the Arctic are racing at unprecedented speeds, and that alone is driving up CO2 emissions. Researchers suggest that 2024 had the second-highest annual volume of wildfires north of the Arctic Circle on record. Combined with emissions of carbon dioxide and methane gas from permafrost sinks, they say net emissions could continue to rise where climate change is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet.
