Alaska’s tundra is filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide

Even as the Trump administration weighs withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a new scientific paper has documented growing fluxes of greenhouse gases streaming into the air from the Alaskan tundra, a long-feared occurrence that could worsen climate change.

Frozen northern soils are unleashing an increasing amount of carbon dioxide. 

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that frozen northern soils – often called permafrost – are unleashing an increasing amount of carbon dioxide into the air as they thaw in summer or subsequently fail to refreeze as they once did, particularly in late fall and early winter.

Read Chris Mooney’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Alaska’s tundra is filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.”