Warning: Speed Bump. The deep freeze holding thousands-year carbon is thawing faster. The Arctic tosses gigatons of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. The newest permafrost science with Christina Schädel, Senior Research Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. Strangely, the third worst warming gas may become less serious as the world heats up. Atmosphere scientist Michael Prather with sort of good news on nitrous oxide. Satellites reveal global algae is expanding, in new places. It that good or bad? We ask Dr. Brian Barnes from the University of South Florida about the latest science.
Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. You get three interviews, no time to waste, let’s go.
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PERMAFROST THAW ADDS CLIMATE GASES
CHRISTINA SCHÄDEL
To stay below a dangerous two degrees hotter climate, or at least to have half a chance at it, we can’t emit much more greenhouse gas. Here is just one big reason why: previous estimates did not count growing carbon dioxide and methane leaking out of the Arctic. The deep freeze holding thousands of years of carbon is thawing.
Permafrost has several pathways into the sky. Extreme northern wildfires in recent years made it worse. Christina Schädel is Lead Author of the new paper published January 24, 2026. She was trained as a biogeochemist and plant ecophysiologist at the University of Basel. Christina is now Senior Research Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Listen to or download this 23 minute interview with Christina Schädel in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
How much carbon is in permafrost? This new paper says: “Northern permafrost-affected soils are estimated to contain around 1460-1600 Pg carbon (C), of which 1035 ± 150 Pg C is found in the near-surface (uppermost 3 m) portion of those soils.”
Pg stands for Petagrams. The numbers are confusing. Some scientists talk of petagrams and other gigatons of carbon. I looked it up, and 1 petragram is about the same weight as 166,000 Great Pyramids.
One petragram is the same as one gigaton. One petagram is one quadrillion grams. The best we can do is realize carbon in permafrost involves huge numbers, and it twice the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. Some have called the frozen and now thawing North a “carbon bomb”.
In 2019, permafrost expert Merritt Turetsky told us large climate models used to advise governments did not include carbon dioxide and methane coming out of thawing Arctic lands. Merritt added another twist. We expect the Arctic thaw to be a slow process, taking at least hundreds and likely thousands of years. But some patches of permafrost thaw quickly. We need to recognize emissions from abrupt thaw. See Turetsky, M. R. et al. (2020), “Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw,” Nature.
Christina and I discuss three factors adding greenhouse gases in the far north: gradual thaw, abrupt thaw and wildfire changes. They interact and may have feed-back loops. Wildfires now increasing in the Arctic have much more impact on the permafrost than we thought. The paper says:
“The impact of including abrupt thaw, high-latitude fire, and post-fire thaw on total estimated permafrost emissions is possibly very substantial, more than doubling total cumulative emissions from permafrost-affected soils this century.”
In 2020, another of Christina’s co-authors – Susan Natali – told us permafrost doesn’t just add greenhouse gases in the Arctic summer. Winter emissions are real and increasing.
Disaster in the Making: Cascading Tipping Points & Permafrost
Experts expect gradual thaw to release anywhere from “24% to 69% of near-surface permafrost by 2100”. That is a lot of new carbon from the far north, some of it high warming methane.
This new paper shows models and estimates for permafrost thaw seriously underestimate emissions. That changes promises countries made to avoid 2 degrees of warming, and lowers the amount of carbon humans could safely burn, if you believe there is any margin left.
In my opinion, possible methane seeping from the Arctic seabed gets more attention than actual greenhouse gases escaping from permafrost. Why isn’t this getting enough attention? Is there a “save the permafrost”, or maybe “watch-out-for-the-permafrost” activism?
Dr. Christina Schädel is Lead Author of the new study “Permafrost and wildfire carbon emissions indicate need for additional action to keep Paris Agreement temperature goals within reach.”
This article (without illustrations) is also available here as a .pdf.
See also this earlier paper with Schaedel as co-author: “Dependence of the evolution of carbon dynamics in the northern permafrost region on the trajectory of climate change” March 2018.
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BETTER NEWS ON NITROUS OXIDE
MICHAEL PRATHER
You know about carbon dioxide and methane heating up the planet. Can you name the number three worst greenhouse gas? It is potent, long-lived, and a significant ozone-killer. The global warming potential of nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times greater than carbon dioxide over 100 years. But for once, new science is not “worse than we thought”. Can you handle a little good news?
When estimates for this gas were uncertain, scientist Michael Prather worked to nail down warming from nitrous oxide. Dr. Prather is Professor of Earth System Science at University California Irvine. He specializes in atmospheric chemistry and published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and articles. His latest paper is “Projecting nitrous oxide over the 21st century, uncertainty related to stratospheric loss”. That was just published in the top journal PNAS on February 2nd, 2026.
Listen to or download this 18 minute interview with Michael Prather in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
WHAT IS NITROUS OXIDE?
Commonly known as “laughing gas,” is a colorless gas, meaning it cannot be seen under normal conditions. The primary human source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions is agriculture, accounting for roughly 74–80% of anthropogenic emissions. This is driven by the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and manure management, which stimulate microbes to release N2O from soil. Other significant sources include industrial processes (e.g., nitric acid production), fossil fuel combustion, and wastewater treatment.
The consensus view is nitrous oxide creates around 6 to 10 percent of human-induced global warming. This new paper suggests that could go down by 2100. Why? Because as the lower atmosphere (Troposphere) gets warmer the upper air (Stratosphere) gets colder. Michael Prather explains that in the interview.
Because of its stability and continued anthropogenic emissions, N2O is now the largest remaining anthropogenic threat to the stratospheric ozone layer and is projected to remain the dominant ozone-depleting emission through the 21st century. As stratospheric chlorine declines, the relative importance of N2O-derived NOx for ozone depletion increases.
Basically adding more CO2 to the atmosphere cools the stratosphere because increased greenhouse gases trap more outgoing infrared heat in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), preventing it from reaching higher layers. Simultaneously, the higher concentration of CO2 in the thin upper atmosphere efficiently radiates heat away to space, causing a net loss of energy.
It turns out destruction or break-down of nitrous oxide is a complex chain of chemical reactions. One of those is temperature-dependent. When the stratosphere cools, nitrous oxide breaks down sooner. Earlier there were attempts to calculate the “lifetime” of Nitrous oxide in the atmosphere, but now we find that depends on temperature in the upper atmosphere.
The paper says:
“Extending the N2O lifetime derived from Microwave Limb Sounder satellite observations, we find a mean value of 117 y and a likely decrease of –1.4 ± 0.9% per decade over the period 2004 to 2024.”
The bottom line: as the Troposphere warms, and the Stratosphere cools, nitrous oxide breaks down sooner leading to less warming from that source.
OZONE KILLER
Nitrous oxide also plays a role in the chemical reactions leading to ozone depletion. If Nitrous oxide becomes less available, less ozone will be damaged. That has benefits of reducing skin cancer and other damage to living things here on the ground. This new paper contains some good news on the health front as well.
This new paper could be very good news: the warming impacts of nitrous oxide could go down by 11% by year 2100 due to changes in the stratosphere reducing the lifetime of this warming gas.
SEE: Global Nitrous Oxide Budget 2024
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ALGAE EXPANDING IN WARMER SEAS – GOOD OR BAD?
BRIAN BARNES
Worried about climate tipping points? According to new science, “the tipping points for macroalgae blooms occurred around 2010.” What happens to seaweed and plankton as we heat up the ocean? Should we care?
Our first big look at the state of world algae was published in Nature Communications in December 2025. The title kind of gives away the plot: “Global floating algae blooms are expanding”. Our guest Dr. Brian Barnes is a co-author and Assistant Research Professor at the College of Marine Science, University of South Florida.
The new paper on global algae is led by Dr. Lin Qui from the NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research. The title is “Global floating algae blooms are expanding”. It was published in Nature Communications December 7, 2025.
Listen to or download this 17 minute interview with Brian Barnes in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
The word “seaweed” includes a lot of plants, including kelp, nori, laver, dulse, wrack, spirulina, sea moss, sea lettuce, and more. there is not just one algae operating in similar ways around the world. Different regions develop different dominant plants for different reasons.
For Florida, Mexico and much of the Caribbean the growing challenge is Sargassum. A large patch of macro algae has been known for centuries – the Sargasso sea. It seems to have escaped. Since 2010, Sargassum seaweed invaded popular Mexican beaches in 2015, 2018, 2022, and 2025. The stink of rotting algae chases away tourists and is costly to remove.
THE TIME SEAWEED CHANGED THE WORLD
In the “why should we worry?” department, big blooms of plants on the sea surface can dramatically change the whole climate. For example, we discuss the “Azolla event” 49 million years ago.
Runaway production by that aquatic fern Azolla transformed the Eocene “hothouse” (where palm trees and alligators lived in the Arctic) – into a cooler “icehouse” state. In theory, a sea plant started the Ice Age. Could today’s expanding marine algae change the planet, and if so, in what ways? We are only beginning to find out.
If interested, check out this YouTube video “When a Single Plant Froze the Entire Planet (The Azolla Event)”. Some researchers wonder if Azolla could be used to “reverse the global warming effects of burning fossil fuels.” But keep in mind, the Azolla event almost 50 million years ago partly depended on a different distribution of continents, particularly an almost enclosed Polar sea at that time. Things are different now.
CLIMATE KICKER
Here is the kicker for climate. The Barnes et al paper says:
“…we believe that a regime shift in oceanographic conditions has already occurred to favor macroalgae, which will have profound impacts on radiative forcing in the atmosphere and light availability in the ocean, as well as on carbon sequestration, ocean biogeochemistry, and upper ocean stability“.
The December 2025 Nature Communications paper “Global floating algae blooms are expanding” does not quantify changes in global carbon uptake by algae; it mainly documents distribution and trend patterns and then infers likely implications for carbon cycling.
You can read the press release “Scientists harness AI to discover a rise in floating algae across the global ocean”. It says:
“The tipping points for macroalgae blooms occurred around 2010. The first major bloom of the green seaweed known as Ulva happened in the Yellow Sea in 2008. A significant bloom of the brown seaweed Sargassum took place in the tropical Atlantic in 2011. Another Sargassum bloom occurred in the East China Sea in 2012.
‘Before 2008, there were no major blooms of macroalgae reported except for sargassum in the Sargasso Sea,’ Hu said. ‘On a global scale, we appear to be witnessing a regime shift from a macroalgae-poor ocean to an macroalgae-rich ocean.’”
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We are out of time. I’m Alex Smith.
Thank you for listening, and caring about our world.