Can grass-eating animals in Siberia slow global warming? by Zuzana Zelenakova

"Some people have a small garden. I have an ice age park. It's my hobby," says Russian scientist Sergey Zimov about his Pleistocene Park in Northeastern Siberia. Zimov is the director of the Northeast Science Station in Cherskii in the Russian Republic of Sakha. Alongside other scientists he is trying to re-establish the northern steppe grassland ecosystem that existed there during the last ice age. Zimov hopes this will back his hypothesis that hunting in first place, not climate change, destroyed the wildlife. He says that the animals maintained the ecosystem, temperature not so much. 160 km² scientific nature reserve Pleistocene Park is already inhabited by Yakutia! n horses, that were introduced back in 1988, alongside those species that survived Pleistocene and remained in the area such as reindeer, snow, sheep, elk and moose. There is also Grey Wolf, Wood Bison, Eurasian Brown Bear and others. Animals considered for the reintroduction are for example Siberian Tiger, Asiatic Lion, that is on the verge of extinction, Guanaco, Llama, Yak, Muskox and so on. If sufficient amount of herbivores inhabits the area they could recreate the Pleistocene terrain and thus slow global warming. They could turn this wasteland into a grassland. And it is the grass with its root systems that would stabilize the soil which has begun thawing very rapidly releasing bigger and bigger amounts of dangerous methane. "In my view, methane is a serious sleeper out there that can pull us over the hump," said US climate change reasearcher Robert Corell about greenhouse gas that is much more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is estimated there is about 1.5 trillio! n tons of carbon beneath the frozen surface. "If permafrost we! re to th aw suddenly, in a flash, it would put a tremendous amount of carbon in the atmosphere. We would feel temperatures warming across the globe. And that would be a big deal," said Katey Walter Anthony of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

related story (sgx18693): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101128/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_ic...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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