Green summer tundra and the rolling Mulgrave Hills in northwestern Alaska’s Cape Krusenstern National Monument are seen on July 11, 2011. The Mulgrave Hills are the farthest west extension of the Brooks Range. Arctic tundra, which for thousands of years was a net sink for atmospheric carbon, is now a net emitter, adding to the greenhouse gas load that is warming the earth, according to the 2024 Arctic Report Card released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Photo provided by the National Park Service)
For millennia, the tundra regions of the Arctic drew in carbon from the atmosphere and locked it in permafrost.
That is the case no more, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…