Thawing Permafrost Sending Climate Alert

Name Lu Xueke Class 08215102

CLIMATE ALERT Permafrost is thawing Arctic is degrading N2O is slowly releasing

Natural calamity Rebuild the Tibetan Plateau railway? Boomed bettles destroyed the forest in Alaska

EMBRACE CHALLENGES It is never too late to take action Recommendations

What is permafrost?

soil at or below the freezing point of water for 2 or more years

located in high latitudes

accounts for 0.022% of total water

exists in 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere

Time taken for permafrost to reach depth

Time taken for permafrost to reach depth

Time (yr) Depth (m) 1 4.44 350 79.9 3500 219.3 35,000 461.4 100,000 567.8

Melting Arctic

•Temperature have risen by up to 3°C in the past 50 years.

•Temperature will rise by a further 2 - 9°C this century.

•Animals are in danger.

Penguins lose habitat.

Polar bears kill each other

Sea lion is dying under the sun.

A new greenhouse gases (N2O)

released by thawing permafrost in Greenland

298-times more powerful than CO2

rate of nitrous oxide is low

CO2 CH4

N2O

Arctic is in a Vicious cycle

GlacierCollapse

Temperature rising

Permafrost Thawing

GreenhouseGases ,

Microorganismsreleasing

Emission of greenhouse gases

In a pothole, buried air and gas from bacteria and algae bubbled to the surface, where a midnight freeze trapped them.

Emission of CH4 from the ice in North Canada.

Natural calamity

Tibetan Plateau railway Foundation deformation

Will cost another 4,000,000,000 dollars?

Trains will aggravate the thawing

Dead spruce---victim of tiny beetles

1 million acres have succumbed to the spruce bark beetle

dead trees release greenhouse gases

Embrace challenges

【 Astonishing Data 】

Green house gases covered an area of nearly 800,000 square miles of Actic

In 2009 summer season, only 10% of Arctic sea ice was more than 2 years old

Arctic Ocean will become sea-ice free in 20 to 40 years. About 1,000,000,000 tons of green house gases will emit.

Embrace challenges

【 Astonishing Data (cont.) 】

The methane density nowadays is the highest ever since the 400,000 years

The ice ratio of the permafrost is decreasing year to year.

But it is never too late to take action.

Comparison of sea ice age at the end of winter in February 2009 (right) with the 1981-2000 average (left).

back

(a)Year-to-year changes of permafrost’s Ice ratio.

(b) soil temperature, in Layer10 for six analysis regions.

It is never too late

to take actionChina

1. lowering the relative use of energy by 14.4%

2. cut energy intensity 20% by the end of 2010

It is never too late

to take action

America

1. Stream water study detects thawing permafrost 2. a new IBM supercomputer installed by NCAR for Improved Climate and Weather Research

Do you want our Arctic Ocean to be like this?

If No…

Recommendation

1. Use less water

2. Walk more, drive less

3. Energy-efficient light bulbs

4. Eat less meat

5. Use recycle bags…………….