2024-01-31 12:43:36
Greenland absorbs more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates global warming, than it emits, according to a study by the University of Copenhagen published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
“On average since 2000, the dry areas of ice-free Greenland have consumed more than 65,000 tonnes of methane per year from the atmosphere, while 9,000 tonnes of methane have been released each year from its wetlands,” the university noted in a statement Wednesday.
Methane, the second largest contributor to global warming following CO2, is particularly harmful to the environment. It is responsible for around 30% of the rise in temperatures since the industrial revolution, according to the United Nations.
For the researchers, the Greenland phenomenon “is partly explained by the extent of the dry areas of Greenland, where methane from the atmosphere is consumed in the upper layers of the soil, and partly by the fact that areas without ice of Greenland have only been so since the last ice age.
“This means that they have never stored much carbon, which might lead to significant methane emissions, as can be measured elsewhere in the Arctic,” explained geologist Bo Elberling, who led the study.
In Greenland, methane absorption is made possible by a unique group of microorganisms in the upper layer of Arctic soil, which ingest methane that enters the ground from the atmosphere and transform it into carbon dioxide, the effect is less harmful for the climate, it is specified.
Methane lasts 12 years in the atmosphere, compared to centuries for carbon dioxide, but it has a greenhouse effect 25 times more powerful than CO2.
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