So we already know the dangers of Arctic ice melting due to global warming - more storms, higher water levels, polar bears sadly treading water. But yesterday a new study was released that gives us one more reason to worry. It turns out that underneath all that ice, Arctic soil contains extremely high levels of carbon dioxide that would be released into the environment if the ice melts, thus creating a cycle of more global warming, more ice melting, and so forth and so on. And it seems that this much carbon was not taken into account when doing studies and forecasting models of the effects of global warming.

The AFP reports “that the stock of organic carbon ‘is considerably higher than previously thought’ — 60 percent more than the previously estimated.” This accounts for approximately one sixth the entire amount of carbon in the atmosphere today. It’s not a stretch to imagine that if all that carbon were unloaded on the environment all at once, or even in a steady stream, the implications to the climate would be huge. Says the article,

Commenting on the research, Christian Beer of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, pointed out that the climate change models upon which future projections are based, do not include the potential impact of the gases trapped frozen Arctic soils. ‘Releasing even a portion of this carbon into the atmosphere, in the form of methane or carbon dioxide, would have an significant impact on Earth’s climate,’ he noted in his commentary.

takepart here to learn more about global warming and the Arctic from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.