Permafrost under the Arctic Ocean set to accelerate climate change
Deep in the Arctic Ocean, the seabed is frozen, but now that the permafrost is thawing, large quantities of methane gas may rise to the surface. Birgit Wild wants to find models to predict what this means for the climate.
The climate models that Birgit Wild contributes to could be decisive in addressing ongoing climate change. Photo: Magnus Bergström/KAW
When large ice sheets melted at the end of the last ice age, sea levels surged. Large swathes of the ice-covered Arctic were submerged. Now the sea temperature is rising, causing permafrost on the seabed to thaw at far faster rates than on land.
Organic material and large amounts of methane gas are frozen in the seabed. There are fears that the gas, which causes significantly more warming of the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, will rise to the surface and create a climate change tipping point.
Birgit Wild. Foto: Magnus Bergström/KAW
“We know that there is a large amount of methane gas in the climate system, but we don’t yet know where it all comes from. That’s why we need to understand whether the thawing of underwater permafrost will increase Arctic methane emissions,” says Birgit Wild, a researcher at Stockholm University.
