The Arctic became so warm in February, the land of Swagard was « like a soft ice cream »

The Arctic Island of Swapard is so reliable frigid that humanity has set its future in place. Since 2008, the world’s Svalbard seed vault – a set deep in frozen soil, known as Permafrost – has accepted nearly 1.4 million samples of over 6,000 species of critical crops. But the island warms up six to seven times faster than the rest of the planet, which makes even winters strangely hot, at least by Arctic standards. In fact, in 2017, the vault tunnel flooded as eternal freezing melted, although the seeds were not affected.

This February team of scientists worked on Swagard when irony got caught. By piercing the soil, they collected samples of bacteria that multiply when the Earth thawed. These germs are stuck in organic matter and burning MethaneExtremely powerful greenhouse gas and a significant engine of global warming. These emissions potentially nourish the outline for feedback in the Arct: as more soil thaws are released more methane, leading to more thawing and more methane and on and on.

Scientists can now dig with silver vessels in the winter of Swapard because the Arctic has descended into a reflection crisis. Until recently, the distant north had a healthy amount of sea ice, which bounced much of the energy of the sun back into space, keeping the region cool. But as the planet warms up, this ice disappears, exposing sharper water that absorbs the sunlight and raises temperatures. This is another feedback cycle in the Arctic, in which more marine ice melts, leading to more local warming and onwards.

It worsens as temperatures rise in the far north, more moisture enters the atmosphere. On the one hand, the larger seawater evaporates easily, adding water vapor to the air. And two, a smoother atmosphere can accommodate more moisture. This leads to the formation of a lower level of clouds that capture heat such as blankets-especially through the dark Arctic winter-dismissing warming. This, combined with the loss of sea ice, is why the Arctic warms up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, with Swagard warming even faster than that.

In the winter, the soils of Swapard are historically frozen hard, and scientists have suggested that it is digestible microbial activity. The ride could run through the snow to graze vegetation. But the heat and the rain in February melted the snow, forming huge pools with water, which froze after the temperatures dropped again. This created a layer of ice through which the deer could not break through. « What we encountered was just so powerful to be in the middle of this event, » says James Bradley, a geomicrobiologist at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography and London University of London by Queen Mary and the author of the real-leading author of the newspaper. « Indeed, almost everyone melted over large, large, large areas of the earth. This earth remained frozen, so the water did not have too many places to drain, so what we also saw was a huge unification of liquid water over the tundra. »

This new climate regime can deeply change the soil microbiome. Scientists have suggested that the bacteria producing methane, known as methanogens, stopped spreading when Svalbard’s soils froze in the winter, just as the food in your freezer maintains months because it is in a hostile germ environment. But with warm spells like this, thawing can awaken methanogens, which can still produce this greenhouse gas, even if it is then raining and a layer of ice is formed on the surface. In addition, this solid soil cap will stop the exchange of atmospheric gases in the ground, creating anaerobic or oxygen -poor conditions that methanogens love. « In some areas, the deeper layers can never freeze completely, which means that metanogens and germs at depth remain active, » Gonelli said. « There is no real winter period. »

Vegetation also changes there, a phenomenon known as Arctic green. As temperatures rise, trees and shrubs crawl to the north to conquer a new territory. The good news is that these plants capture carbon as they grow, mitigating global warming to some extent. But the bad news is that a dark -colored vegetation absorbs more than the energy of the sun and raises temperatures, just as the open ocean does. And the bushes capture a layer of snow against the landscape, preventing the cooling of the winter from penetrating the soil and holding it frozen.

The speed of transformation in the Arctic is shocking, even for stoic scientists. And as nations continue to drink Greenhouse gasesFar North feedback contours threaten to load the atmosphere with even more methane. « We call this the new Arctic-this is not something that is one-off, » Gonelli said. « And on the other hand, we were probably a little too cautious with our climate warnings. It’s not something for the next generation. It’s something for our generation. »

This article originally appeared at the GRIST at https://grist.org/climate/troubling-scenes-from-an-arctic-in-full-lilt-crisis/. GRIST is a non -profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories about climate decisions and a just future. Learn more at grist.org.