Greenhouse gases balance and climate change: role of permafrost degradation in the Arctic

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Abstract

One of the most prominent problems of modern geochemistry and climatology is the understanding of the patterns of migration of the main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). The purpose of this work is a brief review of the widely accepted concept of the dominant role of the anthropogenic factor in climate change, which is considered in the paleo-context of changes in natural climate cycling over the past hundreds of thousands of years, and in present time. It is shown that to understand the functioning of the climate system, it is necessary to take into account the geological factor – changes in the state of terrestrial and subsea permafrost: the huge reservoirs of ancient carbon, which is included in biogeochemical cycles due to permafrost degradation in warm geological epochs. This leads to imbalance in the carbon cycling, which manifests itself in massive emissions of CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere. During cold geological epochs, carbon accumulates in permafrost, which stores amounts of carbon exceeding the carbon exchange between atmosphere, biosphere, land and ocean. Considering the Arctic region as the key climate “kitchen” we state that present time is characterized by unique long-lasting warming after the Holocene optimum, which occurred in the northern hemisphere approximately 5–6 thousand years ago. It contradicts with the Milankovich’ 105-kyrs cycling: after the Holocene optimum, the geological ice-epoch should have occurred, which should have led to about 100-meters sea level lowering and the transformation of the shallow Arctic shelf into land. However, warming has continued and the level of the World Ocean continues to rise, which has already led to an extended high sea level on the Arctic shelf – unique in geological history. This caused the lasting contact of relatively warm bottom waters (~(–1) °C) and frozen sediments (~(–25) °C) of the Arctic shelf for 5–6 thousand years longer than in previous warm geological epochs, which led to the progressive degradation of subsea permafrost, formation of deep or through taliks (zones of melted permafrost) and destabilization of Arctic shallow hydrates. It is shown that the increasing runoff of Siberian rivers, mobilization, transport, and transformation of terrestrial organic matter in the Arctic land–shelf system determines the sedimentation and biogeochemistry of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf – the broadest and shallowest shelf in the World Ocean, which makes up more than 70% of the Northern Sea Route area. This review paper presents selected key results obtained by the authors and their colleagues over the past 30 years, and identifies a number of problems facing modern climatology.

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Igor P. Semiletov

V. I. Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, FEB RAS; Sakhalin State University/SakhTECH

Author for correspondence.
Email: ipsemiletov@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1741-6734

Corresponding Member of RAS, Doctor of Sciences in Geography, International Center of the Far-Eastern and Arctic Seas (named by admiral S.O. Makarov)

Russian Federation, Vladivostok; Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

Natalia E. Shakhova

V. I. Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, FEB RAS; M. A. Sadovskу Institute of Geosphere Dynamics

Email: nataliaeshakhova@gmail.com

Doctor of Sciences in Geology and Mineralogy

Russian Federation, Vladivostok; Moscow

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. Anomalies in the increase in air temperature in the first decade of the 21st century, recorded over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) water area and adjacent land (A); distribution of underwater permafrost in the Arctic (colored purple) (B). Modified based on works [16–20].

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3. Fig. 2. The “lag” between the decrease in CO2 concentrations and the decrease in temperature (T), which reached 8 thousand years during the previous interglacial period [34].

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4. Fig. 3. Interpolar concentration gradient: a – atmospheric CO2, b – atmospheric CH4.

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5. Fig. 4. The study area and location of oceanographic stations in the Arctic seas of Russia, carried out in August–September 2003–2009 (top), bottom – a map of complex stations in the MVA, where studies were conducted on the dynamics of carbon cycle components, including CO2 and CH4, and their exchange with the atmosphere (1996, 2010–2020).

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6. Fig. 5. Ice complex of Muostakh Island, Northern Cape, August 2004 (photo by I.P. Semiletov).

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7. Fig. 6. Distribution of pCO2 values ​​(A), degree of saturation with dissolved O2 (B), and the sum of nitrites and nitrates (C) in the seas of the Russian Arctic along the Northern Sea Route (along the route of the transarctic expedition on board the GS Nikolai Kolomeitsev in September 2000).

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8. Fig. 7. Position of oceanographic stations in the study area (A); distribution of dissolved CH4 concentrations in the bottom water layer (B); distribution of dissolved CH4 concentrations in the surface water layer (C); CH4 diffusion flows (D).

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9. Fig. 8. Vertical section combining profiles of the second and third types of CH4 distribution in the water column. Samples were taken under the ice in April 2007.

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10. Fig. 9. Results of processing the first seismic and hydroacoustic data (modified from [31]): a – bubbles in sediments and in the water column; b – bubble clusters in the water column, according to ship echo sounder data; c – bubbles emerging from the bottom, according to side-scan sonar data.

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11. Fig. 10. Distribution of dissolved methane concentrations in the water column in the Buor-Khaya area, measured under ice in April 2007: a – surface water layer; b – bottom water layer; c – bubbles included in the ice (modified from [20, 31]).

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12. Fig. 11. Dynamics of methane concentrations in the atmospheric surface layer: a – during the movement of a vessel along the Northern Sea Route (2005); b – during helicopter photography up to an altitude of 1800 m from the sea surface (2006).

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13. Fig. 12. Methane concentrations in the atmospheric surface layer (a) along the section shown in part b of the figure as a dashed red line; panel (b) shows methane concentrations in the surface water layer (September 2005).

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14. Fig. 13. Dynamics of dissolved methane downstream of the Lena River in the Bykovskaya channel (September 2006): a – bottom concentrations; b – surface concentrations.

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15. Fig. 14. Diagram characterizing the relationship between δС13 and δD in the isotopic formula of methane in MVA.

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16. Fig. 15. Isotopic formula of dissolved methane analyzed using the “Keeling plot” method (ratio of isotopic data and 1000/methane concentration in the gas phase): a – data on δС13 methane; b – data on δD methane [98].

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17. Fig. 16. Proposed areas of distribution of shallow Arctic gas hydrates (a) and underwater permafrost (b).

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