Permafrost and effects of thawing of permafrost

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 Permafrost is any ground that remains completely frozen—32°F (0°C) or colder—for at least two years straight. These permanently frozen grounds are most common in regions with high mountains and in Earth’s higher latitudes—near the North and South Poles.

Permafrost covers large regions of the Earth. Almost a quarter of the land area in the Northern Hemisphere has permafrost underneath. Although the ground is frozen, permafrost regions are not always covered in snow.

Permafrost does not have to be the first layer that is on the ground. It can be from an inch to several miles deep under the Earth's surface. It frequently occurs in ground ice, but it can also be present in non-porous bedrock. Permafrost is formed from ice holding various types of soil, sand, and rock in combination.

Permafrost contains large amounts of biomass and decomposed biomass that has been stored as methane and carbon dioxide, making tundra soil a carbon sink. As global warming heats the ecosystem and causes soil thawing, the permafrost carbon cycle accelerates and releases much of these soil-contained greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, creating a feedback cycle that increases climate change. Thawing of permafrost is one of the effects of climate change.

The amount of carbon sequestered in permafrost is four times the carbon that has been released to the atmosphere due to human activities in modern time. Thawing of thermafrost could relese this carbon into atmospere.

The number of bacteria in permafrost soil varies widely, typically from 1 to 1000 million per gram of soil. Most of these bacteria and fungi in permafrost soil cannot be cultured in the laboratory, but the identity of the microorganisms can be revealed by DNA-based techniques.

The Arctic region is one of the many natural sources of the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide.Global warming accelerates its release due to release of methane from both existing stores and methanogenesis in rotting biomass. Large quantities of methane are stored in the Arctic in natural gas deposits in permafrost. Thawing could relese this methane gas to atmosphere which could accelerate permafrost.

Permfrost do contains large number of bacteria and viruses which were frozen thousand of years ago. Thawing of permafrost could release these microbes into environment. But will they spread lethal diseases to human being in not known clearly. But day by day, due to global warming, environmental conditions became more and more favourable for survival of microbes.

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/permafrost/#:~:text=As%20Earth's%20climate%20warms%2C%20the%20permafrost%20is%20thawing.&text=When%20permafrost%20is%20frozen%2C%20plant,and%20methane%20to%20the%20atmosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-worse-will-thawing-arctic-permafrost-make-climate-change/

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/permafrost-pandemic-arctic-global-warming-7506557/

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