ABSTRACT The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average1. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at current rates, this warming will lead to the widespread

thawing of permafrost and the release of hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 and billions of tonnes of CH4 into the atmosphere2. So far there have been no estimates of the possible extra

economic impacts from permafrost emissions of CO2 and CH4. Here we use the default PAGE09 integrated assessment model3 to show the range of possible global economic impacts if this CO2 and

CH4 is released into the atmosphere on top of the anthropogenic emissions from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenario A1B (ref. 4) and three other scenarios. Under the A1B

scale of the release. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution

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Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS A DECLINE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 LEVELS UNDER NEGATIVE EMISSIONS MAY ENHANCE CARBON RETENTION IN THE TERRESTRIAL BIOSPHERE Article

Open access 19 November 2022 DIVERSE CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL APPROACHES COULD REDUCE IMPACTS ON THE ENERGY–WATER–LAND SYSTEM Article 09 March 2023 GEOLOGICAL NET ZERO AND THE NEED FOR

DISAGGREGATED ACCOUNTING FOR CARBON SINKS Article 18 November 2024 REFERENCES * Schaefer, K., Lantuit, H., Romanovsky, V. E. & Schuur, E. A. G. _United Nations Environment Programme

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(International Institute for Environment and Development and Grantham Institute for Climate Change, 2009). Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by

NASA grant NNX10AR63G and NOAA grant NA09OAR4310063. N. Arnell provided SSP2 and SSP3 data aggregated to the regions in PAGE09 under the UK’s AVOID2 research programme. AUTHOR INFORMATION

AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Judge Business School, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 1AG, UK Chris Hope * National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in

Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0449, USA Kevin Schaefer Authors * Chris Hope View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Kevin Schaefer View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS C.H. and K.S. contributed equally to the work.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Chris Hope. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY

INFORMATION (PDF 1017 KB) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Hope, C., Schaefer, K. Economic impacts of carbon dioxide and methane released

from thawing permafrost. _Nature Clim Change_ 6, 56–59 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2807 Download citation * Received: 20 February 2015 * Accepted: 21 August 2015 * Published: 21

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