Press Release: New atlas underlines significant role of northern soils in climate change

Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, on 4 May 2010 at the European Parliament, launched a Soil Atlas of the world's northernmost regions, where more than half the carbon present in the Earth's soils is stored. She simultaneously inaugurated an exhibition on the work of the Commission's Joint Research Centre, which produced the Atlas. It covers regions above the latitude of 50° N, which represent 16% of global land surface.

So far, public perception focuses on the melting of arctic ice as one of the indicators for climate change. However, 1700 billion tons of organic carbon are kept in the soils of the northern permafrost region and their thawing could lead to substantial release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and would further increase global warming. The Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region is the first compilation providing all the available information on this carbon pool as well as other important data on northern soils. The Atlas will therefore provide a valuable scientific input to climate change and sustainable development models.