Duvanny Yar, Russia - For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation.

When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action.

As a by-product they emit carbon dioxide and -- even more damaging in terms of its impact on the climate -- methane gas. The microbes will start emitting these gases in enormous quantities.

Yakutia, a region in the north-eastern corner of Siberia, the belt of permafrost containing the mammoth-era soil covers an area roughly the size of France and Germany combined.

U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tonnes of carbon a year. Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases.

The methane and carbon dioxide levels will increase as a result of permafrost degradation.

Permafrost stores a lot of carbon, with upper permafrost layers estimated to contain more organic carbon than is currently contained in the atmosphere.

Places that five or 10 years ago were empty tundra are now dotted with lakes -- a result of thawing permafrost. These 'thermokarst' lakes bubble with methane, over 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
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