Thawing permafrost: an overlooked source of seeds for Arctic cloud formation

Abstract

As the Arctic warms at twice the global rate, radiative feedbacks from clouds will lead to compounding impacts on the surface energy budget that affect both regional and global weather, and climate. In a future warmer world, the Arctic is projected to become cloudier. However, the formation and evolution of Arctic clouds remain highly uncertain in part due to a limited understanding of current and future sources of ice nucleating particles (INPs). In particular, the sources and abundance of biologically-derived INPs are poorly characterized, yet they may be pivotal for cloud ice formation, especially at temperatures in which Arctic mixed-phase clouds (AMPCs) persist (i.e. >−15 °C). Here, we show for the first time that permafrost is a remarkably rich source of biologically-derived INPs, both heat labile (probably proteinaceous) and other organic INPs of biomolecular origin (41%–100% and 99%–100% of the total INPs, respectively). INP concentrations in 1000 to 30 000 year old permafrost were comparable to the most active of other Arctic and midlatitude soil sources (up to 10 ^10 INPs per gram of soil). Thawing of permafrost—which promotes metabolic activity in microbes—and subsequent mobilization of those soils directly into the atmosphere or into lakes, rivers, and the ocean, suggests the intriguing possibility that increasing emissions of INPs from this hitherto overlooked reservoir could be widespread, and, in time, greatly impact Arctic cloud cloud glaciation and radiative properties. This discovery is timely given the rapidly-thawing permafrost in Alaska and across Earth’s high latitudes. Since permafrost covers 15% of Northern Hemisphere land, this novel and prevalent INP source may become central to predictions of aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions in AMPCs.

Keywords

• Arctic
• ice nucleating particles
• permafrost