Melting Antarctica releases even more greenhouse gases

The thawing of the permafrost of the Antarcticaa type of soil that until now remained permanently frozen, is releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. greenhouse effect trapped for centuries, thus contributing to the climate changeaccording to a study coordinated by the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

The phenomenon, which is affecting some of the near-coastal Antarctic regions left free of ice due to extreme weather, could spread along the continent’s 24,000 km of coastline and release thousands of tons of buried carbon dioxide, the INGV alerted this Thursday.

Only in the 21.6 km2 area of ​​permafrost analyzed by the study, located in the largest ice-free zone on the continent, the McMurdo Dry Valleys region, some 15 tons of carbon dioxide were released per day, 448.5 throughout the austral summer period.

“These preliminary data suggest the presence of elevated amounts of dissolved gases in the overpressurized subsurface brine system beneath the permafrost”explained the researcher from the Italian Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering (IGAG) Giancarlo Ciotoli.

The McMurdo Dry Valleys account for about 10% of the ice-free ground on the entire continent and, like the North Pole, tend to warm due to global rises in temperatures caused by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. .

In this region, located about 100 kilometers from the US McMurdo Research Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base, “The very low humidity, the freezing temperatures (between -14 °C and -30 °C) and winds of up to 320 km/h generate one of the most extreme environments on the planet” that until now managed to keep the permafrost frozen, explained the INGV researcher Alessandra Sciarra.

Several recent studies carried out in the polar regions of the northern hemisphere also revealed that the stability of permafrost “it plays an important role in the current carbon cycle, as it can trap considerable amounts of greenhouse gases”recalled the INGV in a statement.

The GNS Science center and the University of Otago in New Zealand, the University of Oslo in Norway, as well as the Italian universities of Sapienza and Padua and IGAG collaborated on the research.

(With information from EFE)