New Carbon Sources: 21st Century Challenges?

One of the most frustrating and potentially dangerous aspects of climate
change is how failing components of the Earth’s ecosystems can lead to an
acceleration of the warming process.  This is already being observed in
Arctic ice melt data, showing that change is accelerating even faster
than the most recent models would suggest.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the very northern parts of
Scandinavia and Siberian Russia.  In areas that had been built upon
permafrost, foundations are sinking and collapsing as this long solid
ground is now becoming a muddy swamp.  To make things worse, thousands
of years of accumulated peat is being digested by decomposition bacteria
to emit a massive “belch” of carbon dioxide that had been previously
virtually contained.

Also, as polar ice caps melt, the reflectivity of the Earth (the albedo
to meteorologists) decreases, allowing the Sun’s rays to be even more
effective.

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