Can thawing permafrost cause another pandemic?

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Context: The latest IPCC report has warned that increasing global warming will result in reductions in Arctic permafrost and the thawing of the ground is expected to release greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide.

About Permafrost.

• Defined as ground (soil, rock and any included ice or organic material) that remains at or below zero degree Celsius for at least two consecutive years.
• Permafrost is spread across an area of over 23 million square kilometers, covering about 15% of the land area of the globe.
• These permanently frozen grounds are most common in regions with high mountains and in Earth’s higher latitudes near the North and South Poles.

The immediate effects as permafrost melts due to increasing global temperatures

• The first impacts that are very rapid will affect countries where roads or buildings were constructed on permafrost. 
  • The Russian railways are an example. In the northwest of Canada, now we have a short section of the road where it has been necessary to chill the ground to make the foundation of the road colder than it is, in order to preserve the permafrost.
  • And for the 500 metres of road, the expense was $4 million. Now, this is a large amount of money for a short length of road.
• The potential for organic material, which is now entombed and frozen in the ground. 
  • If the ground begins to thaw, this material will become available for microbiota to break down.
  • In some environments, the biota will release carbon dioxide, and in others release methane which is about 25 to 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
  • So there is a considerable concern.
  • The total quantity of carbon that is now buried in the permafrost is estimated at about 1500 billion tonnes and the top three meters of the ground has about 1000 billion tonnes.
  • The world currently emits into the atmosphere, approximately 10 billion tonnes of carbon a year.
  • So, if the permafrost thaws and releases even only one per cent of the frozen carbon in any one year, it can nullify anything that we do about industrial emissions.
• Potential of spreading new pandemic
  • Recently found mammoths in the permafrost in Russia.
  • And some of these mammoth carcasses when they begin to degrade again may reveal bacteria that were frozen thousands of years ago.
  • The permafrost was formed thousands of years ago, there weren’t many humans who lived in that region which was necessarily very cold.
  • The number of diseases that you can find in India is much greater than the number of diseases you find in Greenland.
  • The environment now is so much more suitable than during the Ice Age for not just human life, but also the evolution or development of viruses and bacteria.

The Indian Express Link:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/permafrost-pandemic-arctic-global-warming-7506557/