No respite from permafrost-thaw impacts in the absence of a global tipping point

Arctic permafrost, the largest non-seasonal component of Earth’s cryosphere, contains a substantial climate-sensitive carbon pool. The existence of a global tipping point, a warming threshold beyond which permafrost thaw would accelerate and become self-perpetuating, remains debated. Here we provide...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Climate Change
Main Authors: Nitzbon, Jan, Schneider von Deimling, Thomas, Aliyeva, Mehriban, Chadburn, Sarah E, Grosse, Guido, Laboor, Sebastian, Lee, Hanna, Lohmann, Gerrit, Steinert, Norman J, Stuenzi, Simone M, Werner, Martin, Westermann, Sebastian, Langer, Moritz
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Springer Nature 2024
Subjects:
Arctic
Global warming
Ice
permafrost
Online Access:https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/59186/
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/59186/1/Nitzbon_et_al_NatClim_2024.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02011-4
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.a3ae7330-fcdb-49b9-89fd-cdf15be3a524
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Summary:Arctic permafrost, the largest non-seasonal component of Earth’s cryosphere, contains a substantial climate-sensitive carbon pool. The existence of a global tipping point, a warming threshold beyond which permafrost thaw would accelerate and become self-perpetuating, remains debated. Here we provide an integrative Perspective on this question, suggesting that despite several permafrost-thaw feedbacks driving rapid thaw and irreversible ground-ice loss at local to regional scales, the accumulated response of Arctic permafrost to climate warming remains quasilinear. We argue that in the absence of a global tipping point there is no safety margin within which permafrost loss would be acceptable. Instead, each increment of global warming subjects more land areas underlain by permafrost to thaw, causing detrimental local impacts and global feedbacks.

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