Thread by @INSTAAR

Hi, I’m Sara Sayedi @Sara_Sayedi, a PhD student @Byu at @thermokarst lab. I use expert knowledge/ judgment to see how different Earth systems will interact with #climatechange and provide policy-relevant information. #gueSTAAR

Before coming to the States for graduate school, I lived in Iran where I studied environmental science and management. During my MSc studies, the question that became most interesting for me was, how can we include the latest Earth science in decision making processes?

For my PhD, I work with different scientific communities (e.g. @PermafrostCN and @PaleofireWG) to answer questions that are interesting to the public and policy makers about different Earth systems.
#GueSTAAR @Sara_Sayedi

Before I joined my PhD program, the International Arctic workshop hosted by @INSTAAR was the first conference I attended in the US. It made me so excited to start on Arctic related research for my PhD--subsea permafrost carbon feedback!

Subsea permafrost carbon feedback is one of the topics that we hear about every now and then from the media. Often mixed messages have come across about the rate and amount of greenhouse gas emissions from this region.

The subsea permafrost carbon feedback is acknowledged as an unknown in formal climate change reports. The main reason for this is that studying this Earth system and collecting data is extremely difficult, also data synthesis activities have not been a huge success in the past.

I worked with 25 permafrost researchers starting from there. We wanted to understand, based on the best available knowledge, how this system is contributing to climate change and how that will shift in the future because of anthropogenic climate change.
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…

While expert assessment methods don’t give us a definite answer, it helps to 1. know on what aspects the scientific community has agreement on; 2. identify/quantify the uncertainty level of different aspects of the system so it becomes more clear to people outside the community

Agreements: 1. The subsea permafrost has been degrading ever since it became submerged and it continues to degrade; 2. The carbon feedback of this system is relatively slow, and it seems unlikely that there will be any abrupt changes at least until the next few decades; and...

Agreements, cont: 3. More human emissions in the future can lead to more greenhouse gas release from this region.

Main uncertainties: 1. Limited data + patchy observations might not be representative of entire region. 2. New conditions that can be created due to climate change (e.g., sea ice loss, Arctic runoff, sediment balance), will be different from any time in the history of this system

Uncertainty in predicting Earth systems climate feedback is inevitable. We can decrease it by improving our understanding of the system, but we will never be 100% certain.

The inherent uncertainty of permafrost climate feedback seems to be overemphasized and exaggerated in policy discussions and media. This sort of misinformation has led to distraction from the fact that human emissions are the main reason for the climate crisis.

Subsea permafrost carbon feedback is one example of Earth systems that have not been included in climate change projections. What we know now shows that there is a good chance we are overestimating the remaining carbon budget we have if we want to meet our climate goals.

And - that there is a great need to constantly update our climate targets based on new findings.
@Sara_Sayedi #gueSTAAR

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