Permafrost: Millions of Sq Km Already Doomed to Thaw, Expert Warns
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- Permafrost stores 1,500 gigatons of carbon across 20 million sq km — three times more than all living vegetation on Earth and five times the size of the EU.
- Gustaf Hugelius of Stockholm University's Bolin Centre says 200–300 gigatons of CO2 equivalents could be released this century under 1.8°C–3.6°C warming scenarios — multiples of current EU emissions.
- Several million square kilometres of permafrost along the southern fringes of its range are already doomed to disappear even if the climate were stabilized today, having crossed their thresholds over a decade ago.
- Methane releases are about 30 times more potent than CO2 in the short term but break down within 10–15 years; whether thawing landscapes get wetter or drier determines which gas dominates.
- Russia will be hit hardest economically: half of its oil and gas comes from permafrost areas that will become unstable, and expanding agriculture into former permafrost zones is not viable for generations.
- For every degree of global warming avoided, roughly 4 million square kilometres of permafrost is preserved from thawing and releasing greenhouse gases.
- Arctic warming is up to four times faster than the global mean, and there are no feasible broad-scale geoengineering solutions to limit permafrost loss beyond rapid emissions cuts.
Why it matters: Hugelius's framing — that millions of square kilometres are already committed to thaw regardless of action — reframes permafrost from a future risk into a locked-in feedback that accelerates every climate target. Russia, the country with the most to lose economically, is also the country whose Siberia is warming fastest, making permafrost a direct geopolitical liability tied to fossil fuel infrastructure.
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