Permafrost is ground below the freezing point of water 0°C (32°F) containing massive amounts of carbon.
Permafrost can be located at high latitude (around Arctic and Antarctic regions), however at lower latitudes, alpine permafrost occurs at higher elevation. Permafrost accounts for 0.022% total water on earth and exists in 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere. Source:en.wikipedia.org What will happen if permafrost melts too much? Firstly the street, house and nuclear power generator will break down. A more serious thing is that it will speed up global warming, because permafrost ice contains massive amounts of carbon, however while ice is melting, massive amounts of carbon are simultaneously produced. Global warming is the situation that earth’s temperature is getting higher. If earth’s temperature increased 4°C 10% of permafrost will melt down (2070-2090). Source:blogs.ei.columbia.edu How to prevent melting of permafrost? The most simple way is use less fossil fuels (use alternative energy instead of fossil fuels). Such as solar wind power, however alternative energy also have problem one problem is alternative energy cannot product energy regularly and another problem is they cannot produce massive energy at once like uranium .If we use less fossil fuels than now, we can decrease 45% of melting permafrost. Another method is to (Not commercialized yet) store carbon in other objects (e.g wood) instead of permafrost. Source: sciencetrends.com |