Moss and Mammoths (Part 1)

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Methane released during thawing of permafrost.

tl; dr

• A new (“permafrost”) carbon cycle model was proposed instead of the old (“oceanic”) cycle.
• Carbon for 30 trillion dollars (at the rates of the Paris Agreement) is in the frozen ground.
• Permafrost is melting.
• Permafrost is melting fast, we have 20-30 years left.
• More than 20 years in Yakutia, harsh men create the “Park of the Pleistocene Period” .
• Russia can control the composition of the global atmosphere.

Under the cut - the first video lecture by Sergey Zimov and a brief summary.

The Pleistocene Park is a wildlife reserve in the north-east of Yakutia in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River, 30 kilometers south of the village Chersky, 150 km south of the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The creator and supervisor of the reserve is a Russian ecologist Sergey Afanasyevich Zimov.

In the reserve, an experiment is being conducted to recreate the Pleistocene “mammoth tundra-steppe” ecosystem that existed over large areas of the Northern Hemisphere during the last glaciation.
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The mammoth tundra-steppes were supposedly ten times more productive than the forest-tundra and marshy-tundra biota that are now in their place. As a result of the extinction of large herbivores about 10,000–12,000 years ago (mammoth, woolly rhino, large-horned deer, etc.), the system degraded to its present state. According to many scientists, the Upper Paleolithic hunters played a significant or even decisive role in this extinction.

The idea of ​​the Pleistocene Park is to introduce preserved species of megafauna in order to recreate the soil and landscapes characteristic of the mammoth tundra-steppe, which should lead to the re-creation of highly productive grass cover. Yakut horses, reindeer, moose, sheep, musk oxen, yaks, bison and marals live in the park.
- Wikipedia

A place

Lower river Kolyma. Near the ocean, seaport, runway. Convenient logistics.

Context

Permafrost

One lane - land, one lane - ice. Up to 90 meters.

It is getting warmer and the frost has begun to melt.



In summer it can be up to +35

If permafrost begins to melt, erosion begins.







17 years ago we drove a bulldozer and simulated a forest fire. Moss cover was removed (it burned out), somewhere it was pulled deeper.



In June, we scraped off, and in September the grid of polygonal ice, a ditch system, had already opened.

And rushed ...

Global problem

Edom strata contain a lot of organics.



Previously, there was a highly productive steppe with millions of mammoths, horses and bison. Manure and grass.



Permafrost is full of roots.



Rich soils of mammoth ecosystem.

“Microbes” sleep in permafrost, and today they “wake up” hungry, 30,000 years have not eaten anything. They begin to eat what they did not eat then. And the food is full. Almost no humus. When the stratum thaws, it emits carbon dioxide, if it is dry, if it is too wet, methane.



Location of thick sequences.

What is the difference from "other permafrost"?



Carbon content up to 10%, as in rich soils. But if all over the world rich soil is half a meter, then we have tens of meters.



Due to the fact that many microbes and organic labile, tasty, there is a powerful production of carbon dioxide.



Compared to modern soils (rich at the surface), Pleistocene soils are rich in depth, in carbon dioxide and methane.



There is so much organic matter that thawing does not require climate warming . Two large piles - modern soil (4m) and highly productive soil (3m).



On the mat. models we calculated. From the 10th year melting of permafrost began in a stable climate.



And with a high organic content, the soil almost immediately "lights up."



"A piece of bottom has surfaced."

Carbon dioxide is considered “main”, but methane is 20 times more powerful in terms of greenhouse effects. There are many places where permafrost thaws in anaerobic conditions - in all thermokarst lakes , where permafrost melts under water.

Earlier, 25 years ago, there were no lakes as sources of methane. In our lakes to any place tkni stick - a powerful seething. Up to 60 liters of methane per square meter.

Methane is pressure sensitive. The thickness oversaturated with methane looks like cheese. To provoke the release of methane - just stomp your foot or stick a stick.

If we watch for such weather that there is low water and no waves, then on the Arctic seas you can see a good methane release.

In rivers it is everywhere - as soon as the level falls - bubbles from all places. And in the lake level is stable. In them, methanogenesis is tied to atmospheric pressure. as low pressure - methane emissions. And low pressure is usually wind, rain, cyclone, storm, i.e. low visibility.



If “successful” autumn, and the first frost without wind, the lakes freeze like this.



These are polynyas, bubbles are raging here. "Hot spot". Continuous jet of gas, pulling for a warm water.





But in the bitter cold it can freeze.



Some do not freeze even in severe frost.



"Kitten", "cat", "cat", "hotspot" - a classification of gas.



In the autumn tundra from the air is easy to find all the gas.



Graduate students first cleared the snow, and then 30 cm of ice ... All for the sake of a detailed map of gas emission.





It happens that accumulates 200-300 liters of methane.







There are many lakes, but the most powerful gas release goes where mammoth soils are washed away, where fresh organic matter falls into the thawing zone.



Permafrost is melting. It is necessary to evaluate which part will be released by carbon dioxide, and which part by methane. We fill pipes with edomoy.



The carbon dioxide content rises to 20% (in the soil), then the growth stops. Microbes consume oxygen so intensively that oxygen does not penetrate deeper than a meter.



Content of carbon dioxide and methane. In dry soil goes methanogenesis.





Third of the permafrost - "surface", which began to melt. In the next 20-30 years, emissions of hundreds of gigatons of carbon are likely.

There are a lot of questions.



It was difficult to publish these studies. We measured the area on which the unit lies, measured its thickness, measured the carbon content and got huge gigatons. But 10 years I could not publish it. Reviewers write devastating reviews. And so every year for 10 years in a row, until Science published an article without a review.



We made a model of soil sedimentation. Black is humus, gray is labile organic.

Photosynthesis does not require temperature, but the decomposition is very sensitive to temperature. In the north, there is a frequent situation when there is more organic matter in depth than on the surface. In Europe, too, there was permafrost, which means that when it thawed out, greenhouse gases were also emitted.



And why for a long time I could not publish anything about permafrost, because after measurements I wrote that before there was more permafrost and when it thawed out, greenhouse gases were also released in such and such quantities. And this is a cardinal change in the carbon cycle scheme.

Methane from our lakes is very peculiar in its isotopic composition - there are no heavy isotopes.



Methane emission from permafrost has a unique isotopic composition.



What happened at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene. The reason for the abrupt change in the amount of methane has long been discussed (expansion of wetlands, emissions from gas hydrates).



Isotope field. The content of deuterium in methane and carbon-13.



Restored the dynamics of the main sources of methane in the atmosphere.

During the glacial epoch, the main source of methane in the atmosphere were herbivores: cows, deer, goats. In horses, pigs, mammoths, emission is 4 times less.

And then began to melt frost.

Methane released, and then what happens to it in the atmosphere? It is oxidized to carbon dioxide for 10 years, due to photochemical reactions.



If to integrate the graph, it turns out that at the turn of the Pleistocene-Holocene, about 300 gigatons of carbon entered the atmosphere only in the form of methane during the melting of (European) permafrost.

If in the methane emission the permafrost was the main component, then we can say that it was also the main one in the carbon dioxide emission.



The people began to restore the carbon budget in the Pleistocene. In the Holocene, the forest area increased by 10 times. Before that there were few forests, the largest biome was the mammoth steppe. Many believe that the mammoth steppe looked like a polar desert and suggested that its carbon content is 100 grams per square meter (in polar deserts even more!). And since the largest biome contained 100g / m2, the land ecosystems in the past had 500 gigatons of less carbon. Those. the atmosphere was 100 gigatons less, on land 500 gigatons less. Only the ocean was the "answer." So in the era of glaciers, the ocean absorbed about 600 gigatons of carbon. And the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was less, and the ocean is always in equilibrium with the atmosphere.



The community of oceanologists for 20 years was looking for a black cat in a dark room. Touched all the options - do not work.



The ocean did not take, and gave carbon!

And how we understand the carbon cycle depends on what to spend money on combating climate change.



To be continued…

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• House for the mammoth
• A good fence is the main condition for the restoration of mammoth steppes.
• Ice Age Park
• A unique scientific experiment, started in Yakutia more than 30 years ago, continues
• Welcome to the Pleastocene Park in Siberia
• Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth's Ecosystem

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