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Thawing permafrost can release old soil carbon as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), adding to the warming that caused the thaw. But methane is not the only gas involved, and the Arctic is not one uniform source: the balance depends on location, time period, wildfire, vegetation and whether carbon escapes to the air or moves through water.
How frozen ground becomes a source of greenhouse gases
Permafrost is ground that stays frozen year-round for at least two consecutive years. Frozen soils contain organic material whose decomposition is slowed while it remains frozen. When warming thaws that ground, microbes can break the material down and release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
This creates a feedback: warming promotes thaw, and emissions from thawed carbon can contribute to further warming. The process is not simply a steady leak of methane. Carbon can also be released as CO2, carried into rivers by meltwater, or taken up by vegetation as plants expand or grow more productively. The pathway that dominates varies with the landscape and conditions.
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What recent Arctic assessments show
NOAA’s 2024 assessment of tundra
NOAA’s 2024 Arctic Report Card says that the Arctic tundra region has shifted to a CO2 source when wildfire emissions are included, and remains a consistent methane source. This is a regional finding, not a claim that every Arctic location emits more carbon than it absorbs.
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The report also found that permafrost temperatures in 2024 were the highest on record at nearly half of Alaska’s long-term monitoring stations. Averaged across Alaska, 2024 had the second-warmest permafrost temperatures on record. These observations describe Alaska’s monitored permafrost; they are not a direct measure of greenhouse-gas emissions from thawing ground.
A broader northern-region study covering 2000–2020
NASA’s summary of a study covering 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers) of northern permafrost terrain during 2000–2020 describes a mixed carbon balance. Forests took up slightly more CO2 than they released, but that uptake was largely offset by emissions from lakes, rivers and fires. Lakes and wetlands were methane sources. Across the study period, the net greenhouse-gas change contributed to warming.
This is an assessment of a defined region and historical period, not a direct measurement of conditions in the current year. Its framing and dates differ from NOAA’s 2024 tundra assessment, so the two findings should not be treated as conflicting measurements of the same place, period and set of emissions.
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Wildfires can release carbon stored in vegetation and soils, adding to the emissions counted in regional assessments. NOAA’s 2024 Arctic Report Card gives average circumpolar wildfire emissions of 207 teragrams of carbon per year since 2003; 2024 was the second-highest year for wildfire emissions north of the Arctic Circle. That figure is for wildfire carbon, not emissions from thawing permafrost alone.
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As NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad put it in connection with the 2024 report: “Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts.” The statement refers to NOAA’s regional findings, including wildfire emissions.
Gradual thaw and abrupt thaw are different pathways
Gradual thaw
Each year, the surface layer above permafrost thaws seasonally and refreezes. As temperatures rise, this active layer can deepen, exposing more previously frozen material to decomposition.
Abrupt thaw and thermokarst
In ice-rich ground, thaw can cause the land to collapse rather than simply deepen the active layer. This abrupt thaw can form depressions and thermokarst lakes. In waterlogged, low-oxygen soils, microbes can produce methane as they decompose organic material.
NASA’s account of a 2018 study reports that abrupt thaw increased estimated permafrost-derived greenhouse warming by 125 to 190 percent compared with gradual thaw alone. That is a study estimate, not a universal percentage for all Arctic terrain or a forecast of total planetary warming.
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What the evidence does—and does not—say about methane
Methane matters, particularly in some wet, low-oxygen settings, but focusing on methane alone misses CO2, wildfire and other pathways in the carbon balance. A historical NOAA summary of methane measurements at Barrow reported no long-term increase in the record it examined, though it noted spikes associated with short-term temperature variation. NOAA cautioned that this did not mean thawing permafrost released no carbon: carbon could be appearing as CO2 or following other pathways.
That Barrow finding dates to 2016 and concerns a particular measurement record. It should not be read as a current, Arctic-wide methane trend.
Why there is no single permafrost-warming forecast here
The evidence describes regional observations and studies with specific locations, gases and time periods; it does not establish one precise global forecast for future warming from permafrost. The contribution depends on the gas released, landscape, thaw mechanism, wildfire, vegetation response and the timescale used to compare warming. The available findings support concern about a climate feedback, but not a claim that a catastrophic methane release is imminent.
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- Thaw can expose old soil carbon to microbial decomposition, releasing CO2 and methane.
- Regional carbon accounting depends on what is included, especially wildfire, and on the geography and years assessed.
- A historic methane record from one location cannot establish today’s Arctic-wide trend.
- Abrupt thaw can create thermokarst lakes and alter how quickly old carbon is exposed.
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