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Economic losses of carbon emissions from circum-Arctic permafrost regions under RCP-SSP scenarios

  • Yating Chen
    ,
  • Aobo Liu
    ,
  • Zhihua Zhang
    ,
  • Chris Hope
    ,
  • James Crabbe
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Under rapid Arctic warming, the vast amount of labile organic carbon stored in Arctic permafrost soils poses a potentially huge threat. Thawing permafrost will release hundreds of billion tons of soil carbon into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and CH4 that would further intensify global warming and bring more challenges to human society. In this study, we use the PInc-PanTher model to estimate carbon emissions from thawing permafrost in the circum-Arctic during 2010-2100 followed by the PAGE09 integrated assessment model to evaluate the net economic losses caused by these permafrost carbon emissions. Our results show that in terms of net present value (NPV), the release of CO2 and CH4 from circum-Arctic permafrost will generate estimated net economic losses of US$2.5 trillion (5-95% range: 0.3-11.2 US$ trillion) under the RCP4.5-SPP1 scenario and US$12.7 trillion (5-95% range: 1.6-41.8 US$ trillion) under the RCP8.5-SPP3 scenario between 2010-2100, which contribute ~4.9% and ~6.4% respectively of net economic losses of global carbon emissions.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 1064-1068

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Science of the Total Environment (Volume 658)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 20/12/2018

Publication status

Published - 20/12/2018

ISSN

0048-9697

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/623052
  • Scopus: 85058778568

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