Crossing the threshold ...

Permafrost, seen at the top of the cliff, melts into the Kolyma River outside Zyryanka, Russia, on July 4. Melting permafrost is altering Siberia's landscape and economy. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

BRT, as my loyal readers know, has talked often about the danger of methane, the greenhouse gas of green houses gases, an entity beginning to issue forth at ever increasing levels as the permafrost melts, thus releasing this most powerful of planet warming agents in biblical proportions.

The findings are contained in the 2019 Arctic Report Card, a major federal assessment of climate change trends and impacts throughout the region. The study paints an ominous picture of a region lurching to an entirely new and unfamiliar environment.

The Arctic may have crossed key threshold, emitting billions of tons of carbon into the air, in a long-dreaded climate feedback

Scientists are alarmed that this earth, frozen for millennia, is now thawing. And the pace of the thaw is picking up.

Especially noteworthy is the report’s conclusion that the Arctic already may have become a net emitter of planet-warming carbon emissions due to thawing permafrost, which would only accelerate global warming. Permafrost is the carbon-rich frozen soil that covers 24 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s land mass, encompassing vast stretches of territory across Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Greenland.

Channeling Thelma & Louise without question.