We know a lot about climate change. As the IPCC says (for instance) in the just-released fifth assessment, we have "high confidence" that not only is the climate changing, but that our species has caused this change.
But on a key question — how much methane and CO2 will be released by the vanishing of permafrost in the Arctic — the IPCC has "low confidence."
That's what Stan Wullschleger, who helps lead a 100-scientist team investigating this question for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, pointed out when I asked him about the crazy range of uncertainty re: the loss of the permafrost in the Arctic range (from a slide he put up).
Estimates he cited stretch from a low of 7%… to a high of 90%.
Jeez. That's not a "range of uncertainty." That's just not knowing.
[Here's an EPA image that shows the basic idea of this on the Seward Peninsula]
Troubling. Both that the situation looks dire, and that we really don't know.
Kit Stolz 