This doesn’t sound good…

Global warming may be about to spiral out of control, if it gets warm enough to melt the permafrost:

500 Billion Tons of Prehistoric Organic Matter May Massively Accelerate ‘Global Warming’

From the article:

thousands of years animal waste, and other organic matter left behind on the Arctic tundra, have been sealed off from the environment by permafrost. Now climate change is melting the permafrost and freeing mass quantities of prehistoric “ooze” from its state of suspended animation…

“The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves,” Zimov said. U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tons of carbon a year.”Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tons of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases,” Zimov added. “If you don’t stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere … the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle.”

The idea is that if the permafrost melts just a little, it releases enough carbon to melt some more, and so on.

I’m not sure which is more amazing: the fact that there is 500 billion tons of carbon trapped in the permafrost, or the fact that we are already emitting 7 billion tons a year. Seven billion tons is a staggering number.

It also makes you wonder if there is any way to turn the permafrot ooze into fuel of some sort, and burn it in a powerplant that sequesters the carbon.

For more info see: How Global Warming Works