Arctic Tundra Becoming Source of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

By noaa.gov.

2024 Arctic Report Card tracks rapid, complex Arctic change.

After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution.

The transition of the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source is one of the dramatic changes in the Arctic that are documented in NOAA’s 2024 Arctic Report Card. Climatic shifts are forcing plants, wildlife and the people that depend on them to rapidly adapt to a warmer, wetter and less certain world.

Image showing how with wildfires and warming the tundra is now a carbon source. When including the impact of increased wildfire activity, the Arctic tundra region has shifted from storing carbon in the soil to becoming a carbon dioxide source. Circumpolar wildfire emissions have averaged 207 million tons of carbon per year since 2003. The Arctic remains a consistent methane source as well. Credit: NOAA Climate.gov“Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution.”

New research in the 2024 Arctic Report Card, contributed by 97 scientists from 11 countries, reveals record-setting observations that underlie ongoing changes emerging in the Arctic, which covers the lands and seas of the north polar region. They include:

  • Continuing high air temperatures and wildfires.
  • Declines of large inland caribou herds.
  • Increasing precipitation, including rain-on-snow events that coat the landscape in an icy shell, making travel difficult for people and foraging challenging for wildlife.
Image showing how populations of migratory Arctic tundra caribou have declined by 65% over the last 2-3 decades. Warmer temperatures, changes in winter snowfall, and an increasing human footprint stress Arctic caribou, altering their distribution, movements, survival and productivity. Credit: NOAA Climate.gov

Observations also reveal stark regional differences that make local and regional environmental shifts highly unpredictable for people, plants and animals.

“This year’s report demonstrates the urgent need for adaptation as climate conditions quickly change,” said Twila Moon, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card and deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Indigenous Knowledge and community-led research programs can inform successful responses to rapid Arctic changes.”

Photo showing a tundra eroding into the Beaufort Sea near Pitt Point, exposing permafrost ice, in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. BLM photo by Craig McCaa.

read more at noaa.gov.