The Arctic is melting faster than climate models predicted, bringing a carbon catastrophe that Europe’s climate commitments don’t yet account for. Two recent studies show thawing permafrost will add nearly half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century, on top of emissions from burning fossil fuels. That extra heat rivals the warming generated by a major industrialized country such as the United States or Europe combined.
Beside Smith Lake in Alaska, ecologist Ted Schuur watched methane bubbles rise from the muck. The sight was a stark reminder of what’s at stake. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe. As frozen ground thaws, plants and animals that have decomposed in permafrost for thousands of years break down into methane and carbon dioxide—gases that amplify warming.
“Once you start leaking this carbon out, there’s so much in the ground that it’s not going to shut off,” Schuur said. He called the process one of climate change’s “scary tipping points” and noted that “essentially every year is setting a permafrost record.” Permafrost contains three times as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.
The Missing Piece in Europe’s Climate Math
Here’s what should alarm European policymakers: the United Nations estimate that the world will warm 2.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century without policy changes leaves out the additional warming from thawing permafrost. Sue Natali of the Woodwell Climate Research Center and Gustaf Hugelius of Stockholm University both say political and scientific estimates of future warming usually exclude these extra greenhouse gases entirely.
A September study co-authored by Natali found that permafrost thaw and other warming-induced emissions from fires and changes to wetlands and lakes are likely to increase warming by 20 percent by the end of the century. That’s no marginal adjustment. It’s a significant gap between what Europe thinks it’s facing and what’s actually coming.
Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria climate scientist who first calculated the half-degree of expected permafrost warming 14 years ago, acknowledged that the amount may seem small but stressed it’s “something we’re going to have to deal with” on top of other warming. Hugelius described the permafrost system as “really like a sleeping giant.”
For thousands of years, the Arctic acted as a carbon sink. Plants in cold regions pulled heat-trapping gas from the air and stored it in frozen ground. A few years ago, that balance flipped. Thawing ground now releases more heat-trapping gases than it absorbs, according to Columbia University ecologist Duncan Menge.
Permafrost Isn’t Just a Climate Problem — It’s a Crisis for Communities
The consequences are real. Thawing permafrost destabilizes the ground, causing formerly solid land to collapse and sink. In Galbraith on Alaska’s North Slope, scientists recently documented a craterlike hole 10 feet deep. These depressions, called slumps, form when ice melts and land collapses, releasing methane. A Woodwell team has identified more than 40,000 slumps across the Arctic using satellite imagery.
In Kotzebue and Newtok, Alaska, the damage is visible: a road warped by thawing permafrost, and coastal permafrost melting into the sea. These aren’t theoretical problems. They’re destroying infrastructure Arctic communities depend on. Homes, roads, and pipelines that have stood for generations now face risk.
Vladimir Romanovsky, a geophysicist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who began studying permafrost in the 1970s, remembers when scientists believed “permafrost was very stable. People thought it was forever.” That certainty has vanished. “It took some thousands and tens of thousands of years to sequester this carbon into permafrost,” he said. “You need a new ice age to put back this ice into the ground.”
A U.S. Army research tunnel drilled beneath a Fairbanks hill makes the scale of what’s locked in frozen soil feel immediate. Its icy walls preserve bison and mammoth bones, and the Army artificially cools it for training purposes. Sue Natali described visiting: “Every time I go there, I’m reminded of the magnitude of the problem. You smell it. You see it. You feel it all around you.”
Dmitry Streletskiy, a George Washington University permafrost scientist and lead author of an August study that found significant thawing across most of the Northern Hemisphere, said weakened frozen ground was likely one of several factors in the Nepal flooding disaster that killed more than 1,000 people this summer. Berkeley Earth climate scientist Robert Rohde said the tragedy followed a heat wave that set records for the location and time of year.
Why This Matters:
Europe’s climate commitments rely on scientific projections that systematically underestimate warming. If permafrost thaw adds 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming beyond current models—and the Paris Agreement and the EU’s Green Deal targets don’t account for that warming—the continent’s decarbonization goals rest on incomplete data. This isn’t a problem 100 years from now. It’s a problem right now, as Natali emphasized. The EU’s climate and adaptation strategies must urgently include permafrost emissions in policy planning, just-transition funding, and international climate finance. Without that, Europe risks designing climate defenses against a threat smaller than the one actually approaching. That’s not just a scientific failure; it’s a democratic one. European voters deserve policies based on the full scope of what climate science shows.