Permafrost @en

The price of homes is falling sharply in some northern regions of the planet. Why? Because the seemingly permanently frozen ground they were built on is now thawing. This has much more far-reaching implications for the climate, and could even spell defeat in the battle against global warming.

The main carbon store in the planet’s soil is peat, a deposit of plant origin found in water-saturated areas called peat bogs or peatlands. In total, peatlands contain over 550 gigatons of carbon in the form of partially decomposed plant matter, representing 42% of all soil carbon worldwide.