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Arctic Melt May Speed Up Climate Change In 20 Years An irreversible climate “tipping point” could occur within the next 20 years as a result of one release of huge quantities of organic carbon locked away as frozen plant matter in the vast permafrost region of the Arctic, scientists have found. Billions of tons of frozen leaves and roots that have lain undisturbed for thousands of years in the permanently frozen ground of the northern hemisphere are thawing out, with potentially catastrophic implications for climate change, the researchers said. A study into the speed at which the permafrost is melting suggests that the tipping point will occur between 2020 and 2030 and will mark the point at which the Arctic turns from being a net “sink” for carbon dioxide into an overall source that will accelerate global warming. The study also found that by 2020 about two-thirds of the Earth’s permafrost will have melted, releasing an estimated 190 billion tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the air. “Our results show that as the Arctic warms up, frozen carbon will thaw out, releasing carbon into the atmosphere,” said Kevin Schaefer of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre. Fear of Warming Peaks As Co2 Emissions At Record High Paris: Worldwide carbon emissions are at their highest ever levels, stoking fears of a global temperature rise over the “dangerous” two degree Celsius threshold, the International Energy Agency announced on Monday. The world economy’s return to growth in 2010 coincided with a 1.6 gigatonne rise in carbon dioxide emissions, the highest ever recorded jump, the agency said. “This significant increase in Co2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than two degrees,” said IEA Chief Economist, Fatih Birol. “Our latest estimates are another wake-up call,” Birol said. “The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the two degrees target is to be attained,” he added. Scientists believe that a temperature rise of more than two degree Celsius would represent “dangerous climate change”. The latest figures estimate that 30.6 Gt of carbon dioxide were emitted in 2010, a 5% jump from the previous record year in 2008. (The Times of India, Tuesday, May 31, 2011, Page 21)