Global Warming: Risk of Methane Release from Frozen Tundra

Now this is scary.

... Complete entry

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/06  at  08:26 AM

Most people mistakenly focus on land-based permafrost melting methane emissions. There is an estimated 400 billion tons of methane (CH4) in land-based permafrost, but an estimated 10,000 billion tons of CH4 under the sea! There is about 5 billion tons of CH4 in the air now-10 billion tons more would be like doubling the CO2 level for 20 years!! Imagine if just a small fraction of the submarine permafrost would melt. Current climate models don't even include natural CH4 emissions in their already gloomy forecasts (because the amount is in question).

There are reports that an area off the Siberian coast about six times the size of Germany is showing dramatic signs of melting. If just that relatively small area of submarine permafrost melts, it would result in catastrophic global warming. Besides, it is estimated that about half of the surface land-based permafrost will melt by 2050.

I predict that natural CH4 emissions will overwhelm any cuts we make to our emissions. The only alternatives are geoengineering or a massive natural cull of humanity and the Earth remaining unengineered but in the "hot state" (I wonder which alternative ethicists will recommend). www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/09  at  01:36 AM

Sure, also a cosmic gamma ray burst from a supernova pointed at us could totally ruin conditions for life on this planet IF it hits. But the question is WILL IT? Do you have any way of measuring the actual probability of these methane-mediated disasters or are you just trying to scare people into paying more green taxes?

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  12/15  at  01:03 AM

Are you aware of how unlike a cosmic gamma ray burst from a supernova hitting us is? Comparing the relatively certain methane emissions from the melting of methane hydrate with an extremely unlikely gamma ray burst is obtuse:

For instance, there is an area six times the size of Germany containing about 540 billion tons of carbon off the Siberian coast. That submarine permafrost is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast the sea sediment is just below freezing. The permafrost has grown porous, there is a loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor, and the surrounding seawater is highly oversaturated with solute methane.

"If the Siberian (submarine) permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes, the methane content of the planet's atmosphere would increase twelve fold. The result would be catastrophic global warming." --"A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia," Spiegel, 17 April '08

NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen, says that the release of methane clathrates from permafrost regions and beneath the seabed will unleash powerful feedback forces that could produce runaway climate change that cannot be controlled - the so-called methane time bomb - a prediction of radical environmental transformation far worse than the worst-case scenarios theorised by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/15  at  02:02 PM

Oh, and you know exactly what the effects of releasing all that methane into the atmosphere would be because, what, you've run some "computer models"? Don't make me laugh. The computational power at our disposal right now is nowhere near enough to reliably simulate the climate (not to mention how ridiculously imprecise our measurements are when we try to obtain initial conditions with which to run the simulations...).

And BTW, did you know the average global temperature's actually been dropping in the last years? What makes you think any particular body of ice or permafrost is going anywhere, with this trend?

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  12/16  at  01:09 AM

Your dismissal of "climate models" is laughable. Perhaps you doubt that elevated greenhouse gas levels are causing the Earth to warm?

The science of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere serving as a greenhouse gas was well established by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, so there is no valid argument that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not cause global warming. It has become well established that other gases, such as methane, in the atmosphere also are greenhouse gases.

Here is what Climate Code Red says:

--Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.

--There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to "thermal inertia", or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.

--If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don't increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).

--Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assuming very optimistically that emissions don't increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, not for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.

"The pro-carbon lobby is looking for gaps in climate science the way creationists are questioning Darwinian evolution. These people are no "skeptics". Real skepticism, inherent in science, makes no prior assumptions and is evidence based. The view of the atmosphere as a legitimate open sewer for human-generated carbon gases, makes the prior assumption no anthropogenic global warming takes place, then proceeds to look for errors, real or imaginary, in climate science." --Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist, Australian National University

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/18  at  03:52 PM

Oh yeah, it had to come to this, didn't it. Every religious man, in the face of contestation, will start throwing quotes from his holy books at you. "God" forbid you mention any actual scientific journals or *gasp* provide any logical arguments of your own. (And no, that "argument by analogy" equating AGW-sceptics to creationists doesn't cut it. Analogies are an illogical device. Better luck next time.)

Here's an article by someone who believes our emissions do cause some warming and has proceeded to verify the "+2 degrees/century" hypothesis using publicly available data: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/result-of-hypothesis-tests-very-low-confidence-2ccentury-correct/
You will notice that using the 3 datasets it results that we can only have "very low confidence" (IPCC jargon for <10% probability) in that hypothesis. Furthermore, a separate analysis on just one of the datasets leads to the conclusion that the hypothesis stands falsified. So there is very little, if any, reason to believe that the climate is warming even by 2 degrees per century, much less other crazy "predictions".

Here's another recent thorn in the side of your "consensus" religious movement: over 650 scientists (some of them former or current members of the IPCC) have rejected the conclusions of the IPCC at the UN conference in Poland, i.e. more than 12 times the number of scientists who authored the 2007 "summary for policymakers" (which is 57): http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  12/22  at  01:36 AM

It is so depressing that a small determined minority chooses to push an unlikely global warming denialist ideology:

"Long-time greens are painfully aware that the arguments of global warming skeptics are like zombies in a '70s B movie. They get shot, stabbed, and crushed, over and over again, but they just keep lurching to their feet and staggering forward. That's because -- news flash! -- climate skepticism is an ideological, not a scientific, position, and as such it bears only a tenuous relationship to scientific rules of evidence and inference." --David Roberts, The Nation, 24 February 2008

Here is a reality check:

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming is happening. Their three key conclusions are:

* It is "unequivocal" that global warming is occurring.

* The probability this is caused by natural climatic processes is less than 5%.

* The probability this is caused by human emissions is over 90%.

In case you are still wavering, here are just two articles stating scientific facts that strongly imply global warming:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5io8-mhR216BbP-65r8IrK1C6y8ZQD953NST00

More than 2T tons of ice melted in artic since '03

(AP) "More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3794475/Last-decade-is-the-warmest-on-record-scientists-say.html

Last decade is the warmest on record, scientists say

"The last decade has been the warmest on record because of man-made climate change, according to scientists. Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 1.26F (0.7C), said the Met Office, as they unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect human influence has had on the Earth's climate. They predict that this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 58F (14.3C). This would have been "exceptionally unusual" just a few years ago, but is now "quite normal," say climate scientists."

Father forgive them for they know not what they do" --Luke 23:34-35

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/23  at  01:37 PM

OK, so another fallacious argument by analogy plus quotes from Google News and the Telegraph (i.e. 'argumentum ad verecundiam' fallacies) are the best you can do. I see. You really haven't the faintest clue about concepts like "argumentation" or "scientific journal". It seems I have no-one to debate here.

Hey, tell you what: if you love those unscientific conclusions so dearly, I hope they come true for you, for your personal enjoyment. May you experience all the catastrophes you're trying to scare the world with, in direct proportion to the probabilities you're assigning to each.

Oh, and Happy HumanLight! (23.12)

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  12/25  at  12:39 AM

It is ironic that you would accuse me of "unscientific conclusions," when you reject an obvious scientific principle like global warming and facts like the volume of ice melt and the average temperature of the last decade. Frankly, argumentation should be based upon reality based premises and facts, so I don't have the faintest clue how to debate a person who rejects them as "argumentum ad verecundiam" fallacies.

I am in the strange position of hoping you are correct about the likehood of the catastrophies I predict. It is about 10 below zero F here (not counting wind chill), so maybe I can just shut off my frontal lobe for Christmas eve and pretend you are correct for my own temporary peace of mind. Ignorance is bless ateologu (by the way, your Latin phrase is-ironically-misapplied because I wasn't appealing to authority outside their field, but citing scientific facts as stated by authority within their field of expertise).

Mark Twain famously said: “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/29  at  03:44 PM

Brad, I agree with Ramez's tone in this piece. It is not true "science" in any field to claim to "know" anything "unequivocally". True science is always asking questions, always testing, always digging for new knowledge. Science is never "settled". Therefore, I am always skeptical of the "scientist" who claims to "know" anything for sure. Rather, we should listen to those who state with referenced experimentation that "based on current knowledge, this is what we believe", and "here is the model that we used and why it makes sense to us"...

I believe that models based on our existing knowledge are limited in their ability to predict future climate change based on current knowledge.

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  01/05  at  07:34 AM

Many people confuse certainty with knowledge. Science was indicating that tobacco caused cancer, but some very rich companies spent a lot of money fooling the public into believing there was reasonable doubt. There is a great deal more money at stake convincing the public that there is reasonable doubt wheither mankind's greenhouse gas emissions are warming the Earth.

Frankly, it is a matter of good judgment. I judge the IPCC to be a credible source:

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming is happening. Their three key conclusions are:

* It is "unequivocal" that global warming is occurring.

* The probability this is caused by natural climatic processes is less than 5%.

* The probability this is caused by human emissions is over 90%.

Furthermore, I understand the physics of greenhouse gas, and finally, I understand that soon (around 2040) record high temperatures will make non-irrigated plants die. On the other hand, there are some who don't understand or believe it. I understand if you were to remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere, the surface temperature of the Earth would lower to about 0 F, and if you double the pre-industrial level of CO2 the surface temperature will rise about 3C. On the other hand, there are some who don't understand or believe it.

My response to those who don't believe or understand global warming is wait, soon the record high temperatures will remove all doubt. Too bad it will be too late then. Oh well, it is an evolutionary test: if we were punished immediately almost everyone's brain would percieve the relationship between emissions and temperature. Instead, because it takes 50 years for the CO2 we put into the air to fully warm the surface of the Earth, so we have to use our judgement and understanding to make the abstract relationship between our greenhouse gas emissions and future temperature rise.

"A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."" --Bill McKibben, Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2008

I've got over a hundred such quotations, but you can always use the excuse that it isn't 100% certain, so we can't know if it is true. Yeah, and what do you think about tobacco now?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/06  at  12:45 PM

OK, first of all, your entire "scientific" field of "climatology", with its papers and all, lacks credibility because it is too young and too quick to dismiss well-known facts of older and "harder" sciences like chemistry and physics (anyone who takes the time to compare the radiation absorption spectra of CO_2 vs. good-old H_2O - of which there is vastly more in the atmosphere - will immediately see what I'm talking about, i.e. what a barefaced lie it is that CO_2 must have the greatest impact on heat exchange; the same will be noticed by those who check the large-timescale historical graphs of temperatures vs. CO_2 levels, seeing as the variations of the latter have always replicated those of the former, but only After A Certain Time Interval, much the same way an Effect comes about Later than its Cause).

Secondly, those who really do understand physics (and don't just stop at claiming it repeatedly, but actually demonstrate it by the quality of their every argument) would never have called the heat-trapping effect of atmospheric gases a "greenhouse effect" because that's simply Not How a Greenhouse Works! A greenhouse traps heat inside by stopping Convection, Not Radiation. The Earth-scale equivalent would be Gravity, which keeps our warm atmoshpere from diffusing away and mixing with the freezing-cold outer space. So even the name you're using for the problem is wrong! )

Thirdly and finally, you and other religious people may be all too happy to confuse "arguments from the future" with actual logic or science (i.e. "something will happen in the future that will prove us right", like personal death or the Apocalypse in the case of standard religions and climatic/environmental collapse in the case of the AGW religion), but please don't assume that the rest of us are too.

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  01/08  at  12:42 AM

First ateologu, you repeat the same mistaken arguement about H2O vs CO2. H20 is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas, but it only stays in the air a short time, whereas CO2 stays in a long time. With more or less CO2 the H2O level would rise or fall.

Second ateologu, those who claim to understand physics should understand mathematics used to calculate the contribution of CO2 to the surface temperature of the Earth. Without any CO2 in the air, the temperature would drop to about 0 F (not a lot of water vapor would stay in the air at that temperature, huh). Furthermore, if you were to double the CO2 from today's level, the surface temperature of the Earth would increase about 3C (with long-term feedbacks probably raising it another 3C).

Finally ateolgu, I am not particularly religious (again you are wrong), but I am a believer that scientific theories (like the "Greenhouse effect," not the convection or radiation effect) can be verified by future observations. When record high temperatures and heatwaves in a couple of decades start really causing trouble, I bet "skeptics" like you will change their mind about the forecasts of climatologists who predicted it with their models.

By the way, the reason they call it the "Greenhouse effect" is that, like a greenhouse glass pane, greenhouse gases let through sunlight, but tend to reflect infrared light, keeping the greenhouse warm. Man you really got to stop overthinking things ateologu.

I've got to ask you this ateologu: how do you explain that "The last decade has been the warmest on record" and that "this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 58F (14.3C). This would have been "exceptionally unusual" just a few years ago, but is now "quite normal." Furthermore, "More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003."

Are you just going to deny these facts ateolou? Now who is being illogical and unscientific? Man, you are a piece of work. Funny thing happens when ideology meets reality ateolou: reality hits you like a hot slap in the face.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/09  at  01:44 AM

That "it only stays in the air a short time" is a misleading statement. You really expect anyone to believe that most of the time, most of the sky is clear, with cloud formation an event so rare as to be negligible? Ha!

"those who claim to understand physics should understand mathematics used to calculate the contribution of CO2"
Err... yeah, they should understand it well enough to know it's hugely complicated and Still not good enough, seeing as we're dealing with a Chaotic System here. You know chaotic systems? The ones that, although based on deterministic components, still remain essentially unpredictable because of our incapacity to make precise measurements? Yeah, Those chaotic systems. And the climate is one.
(It's almost like you're claiming there's some special math that only a few initiates understand, which allows them to predict the next lottery numbers. :o)) Nice try, but I'm not that gullible. A computer powerful enough - and properly set up - to really make such accurate predictions doesn't yet exist on the face of this planet.)

"how do you explain that «The last decade has been the warmest on record»"
*Shrugs* Personally, I'd blame the primary source of all the energy showering us every day: the Sun. It's really irrelevant, because your question is a Red Herring (and one of the main AGW propaganda tricks, leading people down the wrong path and away from the real issue): our record-keeping history has no influence whatsoever on the climate or on our capacity to survive in given climatic conditions. The beginning of our records (1850 or whatever) is Not a key event in the history of the Earth's climate Or in the evolution of the human species. Humans didn't instantly appear on this planet in 1850, we lived here just fine long before that and in very different conditions than those measured since 1850. So using 1850 as a reference is totally meaningless. Why don't you look at the 1000-year scale or 10000-year scale if you really want to talk about changes to H. sapiens' living conditions?

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  01/12  at  05:29 AM

Ateologu, I thought I'd just list every argument a global warming denier like you uses, and shoot them down (to save time). Perhaps you can recognise a few you've used on this thread:

Most arguments made by climate change deniers can be shown to be false:
1. A common argument relates to historical and geological warm periods, suggesting the current global warming is of natural rather than anthropogenic origin. However, studies of historical temperatures based ice cores, tree rings, corals, pollen, cave deposits, sediments and other proxies indicate late 20th to early 21st century mean temperatures exceed those of the Medieval Warm Period (1000 – 1150AD) by 0.5oC.
2. References by denialists to past natural climate changes miss the point. It is no more warranted to artificially raise atmospheric temperatures than, for example, destroy the ozone layer or lower the pH of the ocean just because such changes have taken place in the past!
3. Denialists often attribute global warming to an increase in solar radiation. Warming of the upper troposphere, cooling of the upper atmosphere, surface warming during winters and nights are consistent with GHG effects rather than solar effects.
4. Some denialists invoked low cosmic rays to account for global warming. Claims of correlations have been refuted by Rahmstorf et al. (2004), who showed the data have been de-trended.
5. In the absence of a common extraterrestrial cause, claims by some denialists as if Earth shares climate changes with Mars and Venus remain unsupported.
6. Another argument by denialists relates to an apparent lack of a top-tropospheric "hot spot," an expected consequence of global warming. However, the TTHS has been in fact identified (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/tropical-tropopshere-ii/.)(seehttp://www.abc.net.au/ unleashed/stories/ s2323407.htm).
7. A common argument by denialists is a concentration of climate measurements around cities. This argument, is negated by the global distribution of ground measurements, weather balloon measurements and satellite-based measurements over the world's continents, oceans and polar regions.
8. Denialists claim the Earth has been cooling since 2002. The critical manifestation of global warming comes from the poles, where mean temperatures have increased by up to 4oC.
9. Denialists often criticize computer models, betraying a misunderstanding of their nature which, as in other field in science, constitute tools used to test matches between direct measurements, calculations and intepretations. More than 20 independently developed climate models are consistent with directly observed trends.
10. Claims CO2 increases are beneficial as plant food overlook the drying/burning consequences of the extensive droughts. In so far as some agricultural advantages may arise in northern latitudes from thawing of sub-Arctic permafrost, they are more than negated by the release of methane from the permafrost as a powerful feedback effect of global warming.

Or just wait a couple of decades, when record high temperatures will cause crop failures and natural ecosystem collapses, which will predictably result in the death spiral of civilization.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/12  at  02:43 PM

I was going to answer you point by point, but halfway I decided it's really not worth it. You're not listening any way. You've already decided that the only real source of heat in this region of space - the Sun - doesn't have the most influence (which is laughable), so nothing I say from this point on will make any difference.

I'll just reciprocate your "argument from the future" and assure you that in a few years or decades the AGW hysteria will be (conveniently) forgotten, just like the Global Cooling hysteria of the 70s.

Buh-bye now.

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  01/16  at  04:18 AM

Ateologu,

I appreciate your time trying to rationalize your ideology. I'll repeat: The science of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere serving as a greenhouse gas was well established by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, so there is no valid argument that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not cause global warming.

Yeah, it is mindblowing that a doubling of the trace greenhouse gas CO2 in the air would push the Earth into a hot state by raising the surface temperature over 3C, but the mathematics/physics are clear.

You say that I've "already decided that the only real source of heat in this region of space - the Sun -doesn't have the most influence," but I am only saying:

"An unending spate of pure luminous energy pours from the Sun in all directions. Eight minutes downstream at the speed of light, part of this extraordinary flux crashes down on the Earth in a 170,000-trillion-watt torrent. Some of it splashes back into space...The Sun’s energy flows through the earth system and out the other side, ebbing back into the coldness of space as a tide of infrared radiation...If Major Anders had had a camera working in the infrared, that departing energy would have shown up as a warm glow on the night side of the planet. Forty years on, that glow has dimmed a little; less energy is getting out. By thickening the skies with carbon dioxide, we are blocking the energy’s flow, and allowing a buildup of heat here at the surface of the Earth." --"Not-So-Lonely Planet," New York Times, 24 Dec '08

I hope you remember this conversation ateologu, because this error in judgement you've made isn't just a little one, but a really big one, and I hope you feel very very guilty when the scientists and organizations you've dissed turn out to be correct (I believe the odds of them being correct is over 90%, so you are really going out on a limb).

Buh-bye now.

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