Permafrost — ground that has been permanently frozen for two or more years — makes up a large part of the Earth, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere. Permafrost is important for the planet’s climate, containing large amounts of biomass stored as methane and carbon dioxide, making tundra soil a carbon sink. However, permafrost’s innate […]
Genes evolved under intense poaching pressure In regions of Africa wracked by heavy poaching, scientists have observed an increasing number of African elephants without their iconic white tusks, prized in the multibillion-dollar wildlife black market. But there has been no direct evidence indicating how this was happening or why this trait was occurring exclusively in […]
New research shines light on poorly understood processes Geoscientist Michael Rawlins of the University of Massachusetts Amherst is improving the understanding of the Arctic’s carbon cycle — the way carbon is transferred among the land, ocean and atmosphere. To better understand future trends in atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate change, a fuller picture of how carbon cycles […]
A long-feared scenario in which global warming causes Arctic permafrost to melt and release enough methane—a potent greenhouse gas–to accelerate warming and cause catastrophe probably won’t happen. That is the conclusion of a study appearing in the journal Science that began more than 20 years ago as a query posed by Jeff Severinghaus, a geoscientist at the Scripps Institution […]