As the north warms, four to seven times faster than the global average, the carbon trapped in the permafrost is released in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, reinforcing the climate warming that is already causing increased thaw. This phenomenon is called the permafrost carbon feedback.
This heating is disrupting vast ecosystems across the Arctic and threatening the lives, livelihoods, and cultures of Northerners. It is also changing things below the surface, in ways that will accelerate, and may imperil, our efforts to limit further heating.
The Permafrost Carbon program aims to raise awareness of the climate threat posed by the permafrost carbon feedback and build the political will and incentives to develop technologies and strategies to slow the rate of permafrost thaw.
Working in collaboration with the Woodwell Climate Research Center and the Arctic Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, the program advances research in two key areas and provides guidance to policymakers, community leaders, and researchers:
- Strategies, technologies, and policies for mitigating permafrost thaw
- Links between permafrost thaw and wildfires
There is an urgent need for both enhanced collaboration between researchers and policymakers, and immediate mitigative measures targeting permafrost thaw.
The Permafrost Carbon Feedback Project is endorsed by the Canadian Permafrost Association (CPA).
Arctic Carbon Conservation Public-Private-People Partnership (ACC-P4)
As permafrost thaws, bacterial activity actively converts organic carbon into greenhouse gases (Permafrost Carbon Feedback, or “PCF”) in volumes which threaten to overwhelm human efforts to decarbonize. ACC-P4, initiated by Michael Brown, a co-founder and Director of Rethink, is in the earliest stages of determining if a partnership of government, the private sector, and the people of the north can collaborate to keep that carbon in situ. Topics include permafrost behaviour, the use of carbon credits, ways in which governments could catalyze action, examination of applicable technology, the engagement of the Indigenous residents of the North, and private sector investors. It’s an extremely ambitious and complicated plan that might not succeed.
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
Protecting Permafrost: Addressing the climate threat of Arctic thaw
Permafrost carbon program
Ian Graham
A report assessing the climate threat of Arctic permafrost thaw, potential interventions to address it, and related policy recommendations.
Protecting Permafrost: Addressing the climate threat of Arctic thaw
Permafrost carbon program
Ian Graham
A report assessing the climate threat of Arctic permafrost thaw, potential interventions to address it, and related policy recommendations.
Canada’s thawing permafrost should be raising alarm bells in the battle against climate change
Thomas Homer-Dixon and Duane Froese
The Globe and Mail
Canada has an opportunity to set up monitoring and remote sensing technologies to measure permafrost thaw.
Climate change and Permafrost carbon feedback demand urgent action – and much more research
Permafrost carbon feedback is reducing the opportunity to avoid global climate crisis
Permafrost carbon feedback: Experts share their reading recommendations
Climate geoengineering options: Practical, powerful, and to be avoided if possible
Permafrost carbon feedback requires urgent, collaborative attention
Permafrost carbon feedback could be the disaster that saves us all
Thawing permafrost is a northern crisis and a global threat
Michael Brown and Duane Froese
The Vancouver Sun
Unconstrained, Canada’s permafrost could be releasing more carbon than is currently being generated by all human activities across the country. This raises three stark concerns and a pressing opportunity.
Announcing the Permafrost Carbon Feedback Dialogues
Canada’s thawing permafrost should be raising alarm bells in the battle against climate change
Thomas Homer-Dixon and Duane Froese
The Globe and Mail
Canada has an opportunity to set up monitoring and remote sensing technologies to measure permafrost thaw.
Climate change and Permafrost carbon feedback demand urgent action – and much more research
Permafrost carbon feedback is reducing the opportunity to avoid global climate crisis
Permafrost carbon feedback: Experts share their reading recommendations
Climate geoengineering options: Practical, powerful, and to be avoided if possible
Permafrost carbon feedback requires urgent, collaborative attention
Permafrost carbon feedback could be the disaster that saves us all
Thawing permafrost is a northern crisis and a global threat
Michael Brown and Duane Froese
The Vancouver Sun
Unconstrained, Canada’s permafrost could be releasing more carbon than is currently being generated by all human activities across the country. This raises three stark concerns and a pressing opportunity.
