(Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Ponds resulting from thawing permafrost in the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia were captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 27 August 2018. In Earth’s cold regions, much of the sub-surface ground is frozen. Permafrost is frozen soil, rock, or sediment – sometimes hundreds of meters thick. When permafrost warms and thaws, it releases methane and carbon dioxide, adding these greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and making global warming even worse.
Methane Emissions from Thawing Permafrost in Siberia after 2020 Heatwave
The limestones in Siberia s two most affected permafrost regions were formed during the Paleozoic era way back 541 million years ago. Most previous studies only looked at methane emissions from dead plants and animals and did not consider limestones.