Thawing permafrost in Norway could release unexpected quantities of methane

A major carbon sink, permafrost is the term used to describe the ice-covered layer of land that extends over around 20% of the planet’s surface in the northern hemisphere, mainly around the Arctic region between Canada and Siberia. Photo: AFP

On the Norwegian archipelago of Svabard, located east of Greenland in the heart of the Arctic Ocean, methane emissions from the land are accumulating under the permafrost in worrying quantities.

This was the finding of a study published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science.