Climate change, Arctic warming will cost the world $ 70 trillion: Study- Technology News, Firstpost

tech2 News StaffApr 25, 2019 10:02:22 IST

A recent study, published in Nature CommunicationsThe climate change and the melting of the permafrost in the Arctics is going to be an expensive issue for us. It concluded that it will, globally, cost us $ 70 trillion.

Of the global warming, carbon is released into the atmosphere due to the increasing loss of Arctic permafrost which occurs in the Earth. It is going to be an expensive consequence if we do not find a way to rectify the changes.

A lonely penguin standing atop a melting block of ice in the Arctic. Representational image.

This study also mentions that if we do follow the proposed by the Paris Agreement, to keep the world in this temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius, there will still be a cost. However, it will be much less than this estimate.

This study has revealed that the permafrost thawing in Alaskan lakes have been releasing 12 times more. Nitrous oxide is another global warming gas but is nearly 300 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. It also dissolves the ozone layer.

"With climate change, we're conducting a high-risk experiment where we do not know what is coming," says co-author of the study Kevin Schaefer said. "The most important thing to remember about our study is the greater warming, the stronger the feedbacks and the higher costs to society," he added.

Schaefer says we are already experiencing the impacts and the costs of climate change.

Permafrost and loss of albedo (reflectivity of a surface) are the only two feedbacks through which we can estimate the cost, at this point.

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