The Big Thaw

The world's largest peat bog is melting for the first time since, oh, 11 thousand years ago. Once it's gone, it's gone.

"When you start messing around with these natural systems you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."

—from a New Scientist report on an unprecedented melting of the Siberian permafrost that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming.

Guardian story
New Scientist story