Context: Recently, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the Arctic Report Card with interesting facts about the Arctic Tundra ecosystem.
Relevance of the topic: Prelims: Scope of question on reports, their findings and changes in ecosystem.
Major Highlights:
- The Arctic tundra ecosystem holds 1.6 Trillion metric tonnes of carbon. This carbon is in the form of non-decomposed biomass that is frozen in permafrost.
- In recent findings, scientists observed that the Arctic region is emitting more carbon than it absorbs.
Reasons for this inverted trend
- Global Warming: The rising temperature is leading to the thawing of the permafrost in the region. This is activating the decomposers and microbes.
- Due to microbial action the carbon dioxide and methane is synthesised from biological form to gaseous form leading to emissions.
- Wildfires: Another major reason for rising emissions is the high frequency of wildfires in the year 2024.
Both these reasons contributed to a hike in emissions from the Arctic region.
Way Forward: The prime way forward suggested is to reduce carbon emission. This can be achieved by moving towards green technology like hydrogen fuel cells, and renewable energy sources.