Friday, April 25, 2008

Exploding Permafrost

link
Ah, Dude. Grist's got some news posted from NOAA about rising levels of Carbon Dioxide and Methane. Methane's one of the positive feedback loops of Climate Change -- the warmer the tundra, the more the 'perma' frost melts, and the more Methane is released. But, check this out from Sean Casten in the comments section.
A good friend of mine does GIS work in Alaska, and his colleagues up there have told him that that the melting permafrost is the gigantic problem that no one's talking about, which explodes once it starts to melt.
Exploding permafrost sounds like it would mess with oil transport -- pipelines and roads -- but they'd be hosed simply by going from being on rock to being in a bog anyway. But, it's always interesting to hear about stuff blowing up.

No comments: