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17395
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Menacing Methane – An Analysis
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/15/menacing-methane-an-analysis/
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December 15, 2020 Menacing Methane – An Analysis by Robert Hunziker PMMA chambers used to measure methane and CO2 emissions in Storflaket peat bog near Abisko, northern Sweden. Photograph Source: Dentren – CC BY-SA 3.0 “The story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet.” (Peter Wadhams) Legendary Arctic explorers Sir James Clark Ross, who located the northern magnetic pole in 1831 and Sir William Edward Parry, who set a record in 1827 for the Farthest North exploration serve as footnotes in the context of the Arctic’s most prolific scientist, Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus, University of Cambridge, with more than 50 expeditions to the world’s poles under his belt. Dr. Peter Wadhams (A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic, Oxford University Press) delivered the principal lecture for a very special presentation by Scientists Warning/Europe ‘20: “The Threat from Arctic Methane” Nov. 24, 2020 (1:32 m) Within two weeks of his presentation, the annual Arctic Report Card, December 9, 2020, was released by NOAA: “Record wildfires, dwindling sea ice and ecosystem disruptions all point to the rapid change besetting the region.” (Source: Three Signs a ‘New Arctic’ Is Emerging, Scientific American, Dec. 9, 2020) In his lecture, Dr. Wadhams accentuated profound Arctic changes unprecedented throughout recorded history that go well beyond the context of NOAA’s Arctic Report Card. He discussed far-reaching Arctic changes with a distinct possibility of dire consequences for the planet’s climate system. Based upon his presentation, highlighted herein, unless and until ongoing experimental efforts in England for remediation of the Arctic are proven to work, meaning revival of the Arctic, the planet is destined to become a vastly different place, not for the better, and likely not in the distant future but much sooner than that. The Arctic is changing too fast for comfort. “The Arctic is no longer the Arctic” (Wadhams). It is something entirely different. The change is palpable. It has morphed into a looming threat of radical climate upheaval. Regrettably, neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) nor any major nation/state is braced for Arctic upheaval. It is not universally recognized as an impending threat in the near future. World opinion is broadly shaped by the IPCC narrative, which does not recognize a methane threat from the seas off Russia’s northern coastline. But, according to Professor Wadhams: They’re wrong! Explained in detail during Dr. Wadhams’ lecture, the Arctic’s disintegration stems from rapid loss of sea ice due to global warming, specifically over the past 40 years, which now exposes shallow continental underwater shelves along Russia’s northern coastline to unheralded bouts of solar radiation because of loss of albedo, meaning loss of reflectivity (sea ice is very reflective, 80%-90%, of solar radiation). Nowadays, dark water absorbs that same extra heat that had been reflecting back into outer space for centuries upon centuries. The major issue is continental shelves above Russia in extremely shallow water, only 50-100m in depth. Solar radiated warming now extends all the way to the bottom of the seabed, in turn, thawing the underwater sediment, which contains eons of accumulation of frozen methane. That dangerous thawing process is happening now. Recent Russian expeditions discovered water columns with methane bubbling, emitting directly into the atmosphere on a scale never witnessed before. “That is the threat. The thawing of the seabed … giving us a rapid increase in emissions… in this case of methane.” (Wadhams) When Dr. Wadhams recently sailed north of the Bering Sea, which divides Russia from Alaska, he found temps of 17°C (62.6°F) and 11°C (51.8°F) in the Arctic Ocean. “These are temperatures like you get in the North Sea in summer when people go swimming. It’s not typically Arctic conditions anymore.” (Wadhams) “When we look at temperatures at the bottom on the seabed, we find temperatures above the freezing point… Under the water we find a layer of permafrost and underneath that permafrost a couple hundred meters of sediment, and that sediment is filled with methane gas which reacts with the sediment to produce methane hydrate, which is ice that contains methane molecules… remove it from the sea and put a match to it and it burns.” (Wadhams) In the end, as the permafrost protective layer melts, like it’s actually doing, the methane hydrates in shallow waters become unstable and release methane gas. Among the seas north of Russia, the East Siberian Artic Shelf is the one continental shelf that combines a curiously unique dangerous cocktail: (1) Extremely low water depth (2) High concentrations of hydrates in the sediment. The methane layer is approximately two kilometers (1.25 miles) thick. “So, that’s 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) of sediment that contains high concentrations of methane.” (Wadhams) As the seabed warms, the permafrost melts, leaving naked hydrates. Naked hydrates are not stable. They quickly decompose into methane gas released in water columns directly into the atmosphere. Areas where naked hydrates are melting show methane measurements so extensive that a ship randomly sailing past, if it created a spark or dropped a cigarette overboard, would blow up. “This is truly a frightening circumstance of huge amounts of methane released from the seabed coming up to the sea surface where it is released into the atmosphere.” (Wadhams) Dr. Wadhams discussed the approach of mainstream science: “Scientists have been very complacent and the IPCC, in fact, has been totally complacent about this, because they say, oh well, methane released in the seabed dissolves in the ocean and doesn’t reach the surface. That’s actually wrong. It is true if the water depth is great, meaning in water depth greater than 200 to 300 meters. But, it is not true in water depth of only 50-60 meters because the methane gas rises quickly… it doesn’t have time to dissolve… a lot of scientists who’ve never been to the Arctic imagine that the methane dissolves in the water so we don’t have anything to worry about. They’re just not aware that the water depth is very shallow.” The proof is convincing as methane emissions are rapidly increasing: “We know that something has been going on in the last few years because if we look at the amount of methane in the atmosphere, it rose steadily from the 1980s and then it reached a peak in the year 2000… since 2007, an increase once again, and it’s been going up ever since in an accelerating way.” (Wadhams) What’s the risk? Scientists who study the Arctic fear the whole complex of protective permafrost will thaw and expose the shelf along the East Siberian Artic Sea, as well as other seas nearby, like the Laptev Sea and the Kara Sea. In turn, causing a big burst of methane, an outbreak. Russian scientists have estimated such an outburst could be 50 gigatons, but that’s only for the initial release. That’s equivalent to 50 billion tons. “I did an analysis with two colleagues on what that would do to global warming… we’d be getting an extra 0.6°C more or less immediately, a sudden rise of global temperatures… Now, this is not good news because the entire move up since the 19th century has only been one degree centigrade for the planet as a whole, and here we are… adding 0.6°C instantly, within a few months or weeks, we don’t know how instant, but it would be very instant. It’s something we’ve never experienced on this planet.” (Wadhams) Unfortunately, o.6°C would be just the start followed by more, as additional sediment thaws. Furthermore, the economic costs would likely be one trillion pounds per year. What can be done? CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere via Direct Air Capture (DAC), but it is very expensive. However, it’s an enormous job on the scale of existing planet-wide fossil fuel infrastructure. Even then, DAC does not apply to removal of methane. Emergency plans should be formulated by nation/states and especially by coastal cities because a “big burst” could happen at any time. Estimates are within the next few years. Certainly, the underwater permafrost is thinning. Russian scientists measure it. Other geo-engineering measures for amelioration of Arctic disintegration are under study. For example, Marine cloud brightening via drone ships at sea is one study underway in order to reflect solar radiation back into outer space. It could reduce temperatures to help stem and possibly (hopefully) reverse Arctic sea ice loss. This can be attempted on a localized basis. A group of scientists in England is currently working on solutions for the Arctic, experimenting with a technique that blows a powdered solution on the sea surface where it’ll thwart the methane before it emits into the atmosphere. This is still only theoretical, as experimentation is ongoing. Throughout the virtual online session with Dr. Wadhams, he emphasized the disconnect between the scientific community and the reality of what’s happening in the shallow waters of the East Siberian Arctic Sea (ESAS), which region is equivalent in combined size to Germany, France, Gr Br, Italy, and Japan with 75% of the area in 50-80m, shallow waters, allowing methane (CH4) release from the subsea permafrost without oxidation in the water column directly into the atmosphere. That is a very bad setup, just itching for trouble. “I think you should be worried about the methane threat despite the fact that the International Panel on Climate Change is keeping very quiet about it.” (Wadhams) Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com. |
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17396
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Menacing Methane – An Analysis
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Hi ryan, That Hunziker is a real scumbag, isn't he? LOL He always dredges up fear porn that goes to the extreme... which is why he is probably the least credible environmental author out there. The scumbag wrote: "Regrettably, neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) nor any major nation/state is braced for Arctic upheaval. It is not universally recognized as an impending threat in the near future." What he means to say is that despite the IPCC having the worlds leading experts on Arctic methane they have found that such a methane release is unlikely so he has dredged up someone with an appropriately doomy sounding message for people who like fear porn. And no surprise the guy he picked has put out such publications as "A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic"... LOL Have you even considered following the science instead of the extremists? Cheers Jim |
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17397
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Tipping points: Methane
URL: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-urgency-climate-understated-intergovernmental-panel.html
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October, 2019 Urgency of climate change may be understated in intergovernmental panel report, expert says by Alvin Powell, Harvard University Urgency of climate change may be understated in intergovernmental panel report, expert says "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report last week warning of the mounting effects of global warming on the seas, increasing temperatures and acidification, and on the world's melting ice. It noted the potential dangers from sea level rise, water shortages in glacier-fed rivers, declining and shifting fish stocks, and increased frequency and severity of storms, among many other hazards. The release came during a week marked by climate-related activities, from youth protests around the world to a United Nations summit meeting of global leaders to consider the issue. The Gazette spoke with John Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, of environmental science and policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and affiliated professor in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science. Holdren was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration and now co-leads the Arctic Initiative at HKS' Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Surprisingly, while the situation seems urgent, Holdren suggested there may be something positive lurking under the gloom. Q&A: John Holdren GAZETTE: These IPCC reports on climate seem to be getting more and more dire. Is there any good news in this latest report, the "Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere"? HOLDREN: I don't think there's any good news in the report because it's focused only on the science, and it's been true for decades now that virtually all of the new news from climate science has been bad news. The current good news is on the public awareness side. It's that the fraction of the American public and of publics around the world who understand that climate change is real, caused by humans, already doing significant damage, and that we need to act, has been going up. I actually think we could be close to a political tipping point, because of the combination of expanded grassroots conviction that more needs to be done and these authoritative reports underscoring how pervasive the impacts of climate change already are, even though we're just at about 1 degree Celsius above the preindustrial temperature. GAZETTE: It seemed like for many years the job was to convince people about the science of climate change. Are we at a point where that job has been mostly done, positions are more or less baked in on either side, and the question now is going to be decided at the ballot box? HOLDREN: The polls now show that between 70 and 80 percent of the U.S. electorate is convinced about the realities of climate change. So, the challenge is not to persuade the last 20 or 30 percent. We don't need them. Seventy or 80 percent support is more than we've had for almost any change in our political system over the life of the republic. What we need to do is to persuade those who are already convinced about the science to increase their sense of urgency, to decide that they need to work for and vote for candidates who understand this issue and are prepared to take serious action. Our problem now is that, although a high percentage of the American electorate understands that climate change is real and caused by humans, if you ask the same people, "What keeps you awake at night?" they're worried about their jobs, getting their kids through college, their retirement, the health system, drugs, terrorism. Climate change tends to come in number eight or nine. But that's progress. When I started talking to President [Barack] Obama about these matters in 2007, the percentage who believed in the reality of human-caused climate change was between 60 and 65 percent. And the priority ranking was 18 or 19. GAZETTE: Did the climate protests last week—the fact that they were global in scope and youth-driven—move the needle a little bit? HOLDREN: Absolutely. In my view, most of the major sociopolitical changes that have occurred in this country and elsewhere—Civil Rights, improving the status of women, and many others—have resulted from a combination of what you might call bottom-up and top-down influences. Consider how the Vietnam War ended. It ended because of the interaction of defections at the top—people like Daniel Ellsberg [who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971] on the inside, saying, "Wait a minute, the emperor has no clothes"— and the bottom-up withdrawal of public support that occurred after virtually every American had either a family member or a friend who had been killed or injured in Vietnam, and nobody could really explain why. I think we're seeing that with climate change: from the top, with reports like those of the IPCC and the U.S. National Climate Assessment, which comes out roughly every four years, on the impacts of climate change on the United States. The last one was released on the day after Thanksgiving last year—Black Friday—and in spite of that it got big coverage in the mainstream media outlets. That in itself was a sign of positive change in concern about this issue. GAZETTE: Is the "bottom-up" in this case driven by Texas, the Caribbean, the Carolinas getting hit again and again? Is that convincing people? HOLDREN: I think there's no question about it. People are experiencing more, longer, stronger heat waves; more and bigger torrential downpours producing more flooding; hotter wildfires burning larger areas and destroying more property; longer allergy seasons; worse pest outbreaks; and more. If you look at the number of countries in which the highest temperatures ever recorded have occurred in just the last three or four years, it's absolutely extraordinary. In almost every ocean basin in which hurricanes and typhoons occur, the largest and strongest ones ever recorded have occurred since 2012. One of the things the new IPCC ocean and cryosphere report emphasized very powerfully is that, in many parts of the world, previously once-per-century extreme sea level events are now going to occur every year by 2050. We're going to have 100-year storms every year. This will happen in spite of a relatively modest change in the globally and annually average surface temperature of the Earth. GAZETTE: There are a lot of different projections in this report. Was there anything that surprised you? HOLDREN: The climate scientists who have looked most broadly at the impacts of climate change are not surprised by this report. What you need to understand about the IPCC is that it is the nature of the beast that they only establish the floor on what we know, they are almost never on the cutting edge. There are scores of authors, and you're never going to get all those authors to agree on what the top two or three understand in their own field. For example, they said in this new report that, by 2100, sea level might go up by a meter. That's an increase on what the IPCC said before, but NOAA said in 2012 that the increase could be as much as two meters by 2100. This is typical. The IPCC approach makes their results very respectable, because they got all these people to agree, but it certainly isn't describing the worst that could happen. This report says some very sensible things about the influence of rapid climate change in the Arctic. One of these points is that, as the sea ice and the snow cover shrink, we'll see impacts on the circulation patterns of the atmosphere over much of the Northern Hemisphere. The new report is more cautious than I would be on that particular issue. While the new IPCC report says, "It's likely that there will be influences in this domain, but our confidence is low to medium," in my view, I think expert confidence is already high. I think we're already seeing effects and remaining disagreements among experts in this space are about how exactly it works, about the relative importance of different mechanisms that contribute to making the polar jet weaker and wavier. The waviness means that, in downward lobes, more cold, Arctic air penetrates in the midlatitudes, and, in the upward lobes, more warm midlatitude air penetrates into the far north. GAZETTE: Is that the polar vortex we've seen? HOLDREN: Yes, it's what the media have called the polar vortex. Technically, the polar vortex has always been there. What's changing is its speed and shape. I think the evidence for that [shifting circulation pattern] is stronger than the current IPCC report reflects. If you look at the history of IPCC reports going back to their inception in 1990, each one has reported increasing confidence, higher certainty, and bigger effects. The reality is that many of the effects of climate change are now manifesting more rapidly than was projected even 10 or 15 years ago. GAZETTE: One thing mentioned during the news conference after the report was released was tipping points where a small change creates a cascade of changes from which there may not be any going back. Are there any of those that you see as particularly worrisome or likely? HOLDREN: I think the most worrisome one is the possibility that we will get to the point where the thawing permafrost is emitting enormous quantities of both carbon dioxide and methane. We know the permafrost contains 2-and-a-half times as much carbon as is now in the atmosphere. It's organic carbon that has been frozen undecomposed for millennia. As the permafrost thaws under the rapidly warming Arctic climate, that carbon becomes susceptible to bacterial decomposition. If the circumstances are anaerobic, the decomposition produces methane; if they're aerobic—if oxygen is present—it produces CO2. Methane is worse in the short term. On a 100-year time scale, the methane is 30 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 per molecule. We don't know yet at what point the permafrost will have thawed to a level at which these emissions become a really big deal. There's already a lot of evidence that the permafrost is disgorging more CO2 and methane than it did before the human-caused warming raised the temperature. But, again, I think the evidence there is a little stronger than the IPCC report reflects. In second place, but not by much, is the drying out of the tropical forests. If you look at what's happening already in the Amazon and, to a lesser extent, in the tropics in Indonesia and central Africa, you see very strong drying tendencies already very evident. GAZETTE: Is that causing the fires we're seeing in the Amazon? HOLDREN: Fire has been a longstanding phenomenon in the Amazon, but fires now are bigger, hotter, and get out of control more easily. You see this in Indonesia as well. Roughly a million people in that country are suffering acute air pollution because smoke from the fires is so widespread. We've seen that phenomenon in the United States, too. The wildfires in the Northwest—in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State—have transmitted dangerous levels of fine particulates all the way to New England. These bigger, hotter fires generate a lot of smoke and transmit it farther. GAZETTE: Climate change is characterized by these big problems and long-term effects. Are there things in the short term that can be reversed HOLDREN: The difficulty in a problem like climate change is the time lag. By the time there are dead bodies in the street, you're already way down the road. At any given time, we're not experiencing everything that we're already committed to. That causes policymakers and publics to underestimate how bad it is. If we could somehow freeze the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases and reflecting particles where they are today, the temperature would still rise to close to 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial times. If we actually want to stay below 1.5—and the IPCC report from last fall argued that doing so would bring big benefits compared to going to 2 degrees or more—we really have to start reducing our emissions very rapidly. We'll eventually have to be actually pulling more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than we're adding in order to meet that extremely challenging goal. The good news is it's still up to us how bad the impacts of climate change get. It's going to get worse, but it'll get a lot less bad if we take action than if we don't. If we do a lot, we can end up with a temperature increase of 2 or 2.5 degrees. If there are major breakthroughs, maybe we can get back to 1.5. And that will be a vastly better world than business as usual, where, by the turn of this century, you get to 4 or 4.5 degrees C." |
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17399
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Tipping points: Methane
URL: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-ado-about-methane/
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Hi Akira, Good post without the fear porn. Notice that Holdren says: "We don't know yet at what point the permafrost will have thawed to a level at which these emissions become a really big deal. There's already a lot of evidence that the permafrost is disgorging more CO2 and methane than it did before the human-caused warming raised the temperature. But, again, I think the evidence there is a little stronger than the IPCC report reflects." While the sleazy journalism ryan prefers started with this quote: "The story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet." Big difference, ryan likes the fear porn that Hunziker puts out and I've repeatedly shown this type of examples where they go overboard. A good example would be the dire WWF report The Living Planet that Hunziker turned into The Dying Planet and completely misrepresented what the WWF report said. As for methane, here is a good article from the Realclimate blog. If you aren't familiar those are climate scientists who typically tackle climate deniers... but they do take on some of the alarmism such as the methane scare: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/0 1/much-ado-about-methane/ One thing to keep in mind is that over the past half million years with the cycle of ice ages the earth has been much warmer than today. During the MIS 11 interglacial period 425,000 years ago temperatures were much warmer and sea levels were as much as 60 feet higher than today implying most or all of West Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets were gone... but there was no spike in methane. Cheers Jim |
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17400
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Tipping points: Methane
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That opening quote, "The story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet." comes from: PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS Professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. Peter's first degree was a BA (Hons.) in Physics at Churchill College, Cambridge. While at college he was an assistant on the "Hudson-70" Expedition, an 11-month Canadian cruise which accomplished the first circumnavigation of the Americas. This included multidisciplinary oceanographic and marine geophysical work in South Atlantic, Antarctic, Chilean fjords, S and N Pacific, Beaufort Sea and NW Passage. From 1970-74 he studied for a PhD at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge on "The effect of a sea ice cover on ocean surface waves". His PhD was awarded in April 1974. From 1974-75 Peter was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, Victoria, B.C., Canada, working on sea ice structure and dynamics in the Beaufort Sea and the impact of oil spills. In January 1976 Peter returned to Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, initially as a Senior Research Associate (Principal Investigator for Office of Naval Research). From 1981 he was an Assistant Director of Research; from 1987 to 1992 Peter was Director of the Institute. From 1992 he was a Reader in Polar Studies, and in 1994 was awarded a ScD (Cantab) for published work. Since 2001 he has been Professor of Ocean Physics. In January 2003 the Sea Ice and Polar Oceanography Group moved to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge - with an observational science section based in the Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) at Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory (DML), Oban, Scotland. Peter has also held the following visiting positions:- 1980-81. Office of Naval Research Chair of Arctic Marine Science, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. 1987-88. Cecil and Ida Green Scholar at Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla; and Walker-Ames Professor, University of Washington, Seattle. Further visits to Scripps in 1988-9 and 1989-90, working with acoustic tomography group (Walter Munk) on effect of sea ice on acoustic travel time changes. 1995. Invited Visiting Professor, Arctic Environmental Research Centre, National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan. 1996-7. British Council - Monbusho Visiting Professor at Graduate University of Advanced Studies, Tokyo, Japan, based at National Institute of Polar Research. Further visits undertaken in 2000-1 supported by Royal Society grant for developing Anglo-Japanese collaboration in Arctic marine science. 1983-93. Senior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge. HONOURS 1971 Bronze medal, Goverrment of Canada, for being one of six to complete "Hudson-70" circumnavigation. 1977 W.S. Bruce Prize, Royal Society of Edinburgh, "for oceanographic investigations and for studies of pack ice behaviour near Spitsbergen, the North Pole and off East Greenland". 1983 Elected Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America "in recognition of significant contributions to the knowledge of the polar and sub-polar regions" 1987 The Polar Medal (presented by H.M. The Queen) 1990 Italgas Prize for Research and Innovation in Environmental Sciences, Turin. Currently member of Club Premio Italgas, organising research network on sustainable development. TEACHING DUTIES....etc... |
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17402
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Tipping points: Methane
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Hi Akira, LOL... well I know who he is. I would recommend reading what other climate scientists are saying about methane as opposed to his bio. The methane scare is old stuff that gets trotted about by less than honest journalists everyone so often. However the Arctic methane experts don't see this and the IPCC doesn't support this. Cheers Jim |
17403
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: who do you recommend?(NT)
| (NT) |
17404
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: I already provide a reference
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Hi Akira, I already provided a reference in the form of a blog post by David Archer. In case you aren't familiar: David Edward Archer (born September 15, 1960) is a computational ocean chemist,[1] and has been a professor at the Geophysical Sciences department at the University of Chicago since 1993.[2] He has published research on the carbon cycle of the ocean and the sea floor. He has worked on the history of atmospheric CO 2 concentration, the expectation of fossil fuel CO 2 over geologic time scales in the future, and the impact of CO 2 on future ice age cycles, ocean methane hydrate decomposition, and coral reefs.[1] Archer is a contributor to the RealClimate blog.[1] Teaching responsibilities He teaches classes on global warming, environmental chemistry, and global geochemical cycles.[2] He is the author of Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, an introductory textbook on the environmental sciences for non-science undergraduates.[3] Education He obtained his Ph.D from the University of Washington in 1990.[2] Books The Global Carbon Cycle (Princeton Primers in Climate), The Global Carbon Cycle (Princeton Primers in Climate) The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation for the Climate Change Forecast, 2010, edited with Raymond Pierrehumbert, ISBN 978-1-4051-9616-1, 432 pages The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate, 2008, ISBN 978-0- 691-13654-7, 192 pages The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-73255-0, 260 pages Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4051-4039-3, 208 pages And now that you have seen Dr Archer's bio perhaps you would read what he wrote about the methane hype. Cheers Jim |
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From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: all of the referenced studies are 11 years old or older(NT)
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17408
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It was an 8 year old blog post
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Hi Akira, Well it was an 8 year old blog post so not surprising that his references are 11 years old or older. Still it's conclusions were about the extreme methane scenario from a scientist who specifically studies ocean methane hydrate decomposition. And nothing has happened to alter those conclusions which is why the IPCC still doesn't promote the methane hydrate doom scenarios. Cheers Jim |
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17405
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: I already provide a reference
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plenty of rebuttals disputing david's take on things in the comments below the article...it certainly is not a settled matter and bears further investigation...archer sounds like another self-absorbed stuffed shirt who likes to pretend he knows stuff...some examples of other opinions... "Some facts (please correct me if I get anything wrong): –methane has a GW potential of 105x CO2 on a decadal basis (Shindell et al. 2006) –seabed methane (hydrates and free methane) in the ESAS alone are estimated in the 1000Gt range. –Semiletov and a team of other experts were rushed up to the Arctic to investigate a ‘dramatic’ increase in methane release, described by some as “the sea bubbling as if it were boiling.” –Semiletov saw methane plumes an order of magnitude wider than any he had seen before in his many trips to the region. –the Barrow station recorded sharp spikes in methane levels in November –other sources show unusual increases in methane concentration over the Arctic this November over last November: ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/ especially ARCTpolar2010.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg and ARCTpolar2011.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg –a potential feedback has been proposed that once emissions of seabed methane start to increase significantly, they will create conditions (through warming, sea ice melt, disruption of sea bed…) that will essentially guarantee that all of the seabed methane will be released. –many models have represented seabed methane as including clathrate caps over pools of free methane These are among the reasons that some of us have expressed concerns about the recent reports of increased methane emissions. The main counterpoint presented here seems to be that the methane will likely not be released quickly enough to have a global warming potential of much greater than CO2. How certainly do we know this? Even if there is little good evidence of sudden release in the paleo-record, we are now increasing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere faster than at any time in the history of the earth, iirc. This is a new experiment we are conducting, and the exact degree to which and speed at which things will unravel cannot be known with certainty. The other point that is constantly made is that right now emissions from this source are ‘small potatoes’ compared to other sources. Of course. But if we are seeing the beginning of an exponential increase in this source, it won’t take long for it to be a very major contributor indeed. Of course, the main thing all this should tell us is that we need to decrease our GHG emissions–CO2 and CH4 and the others–to below zero very quickly indeed. Unfortunately, we seem to be doing the opposite–the global civilization seems to have something of a death wish. I do appreciate the discussion of this important topic here. I would also point out that Shakhova did not say that the recent increase in emissions were the result of GW, and she specifically emphasized that they had not made this claim. So we can hope that whatever the cause of the recent increase in emissions this summer and fall is self limiting or cyclical in some way, rather than the beginning of an exponential increase" ..... "Even if that is not correct, we have a situation where the ESAS is getting hit by (a) retreating sea ice causing a near albedo flip in the Arctic, heating up the sea exactly in the area in question (open water there right now), (b) increasingly warm oceans waters flowing in from both the Pacific and the Atlantic, (c ) rapidly rising sea-surface temperatures, and (d) increasing positive feedback from anthropogenic aerosols hanging over the Arctic Sea from pollution arriving from Asia. Also, further to wili’s posting of the AIRS CH4 for the Arctic for 2010 and 2011, I have added 2002, for comparison — you can see all three of these together at this link: http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2012/01/arctic-methane-local-pm-ascending-airs.html I do not believe that the answer lies in the up-to-now published literature. And I think it foolhardy to assume it does." .... "“It’s the CO2, friend” is essentially a semantic argument. Those of us who are, yes, alarmed by the Semiletov/Shakhova evidence are quite aware that methane degrades into CO2, adding substantial amounts of carbon dioxide to our atmospheric thermal blanket. What Archer’s post did not address is the recent 1km wide methane plumes that have been observed in the Arctic, or the enormous measured increase of methane concentrations in Arctic water and atmosphere. These plumes, along with Walter’s work, indicate unusual and rapid releases. The data you cited assumes that a modest increase in methane/CO2 will still be less than our annual 7Gt and up AGW CO2 emissions. Even if this is true, accelerated methane releases in response to Arctic warming could be the early stages of a process that carries its own feedback loops. Finally, scientists, including on this blog, appear to be awaiting catastrophic bursts prior to validating the danger. Humans instead need to act cautiously and preemptively in light of recent events in the Arctic. Otherwise, black swans could kill us all, partly because scientists were afraid to be wrong, or called the new “liberal”, (horrors!), “alarmist”. It’s a little complicated to address the methane releases in the context of things like burning coal and gas and destroying forests. This is what scientists have to do, and forcefully. Gavin gets this, but some of the other contributors here err on the side of caution. Journalists are on the sidelines, and politicians are bought." ..... |
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[17409]
17409
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: you seem a little desperate ryan
|
Hi ryan, You seem a little desperate copy and pasting from the comments. Dr Archer studies ocean methane hydrate decomposition so it isn't a rebuttal to point out that methane is a potent greenhouse gas or the amount of methane trapped in permafrost and on the sea floor. That was just a clueless commenter who probably liked the methane doom scenario as you do. The Semiletov paper was referenced by Dr Archer in that blog post so again, not a rebuttal to what he wrote. Did you not realize that when the person wrote "unusual increases in methane concentration over the Arctic this November over last November" they were talking about 2011? And yet here we are in 2020 and methane monitoring (graph above) shows it has steadily risen without any unusual spikes. Sorry dude, but while the methane doom scenario may be something you cherish it simply doesn't hold up which is why climate scientists remain focused on CO2 and not the doomy methane explosion. Why do you like this doom stuff more than real science? Cheers Jim |
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17401
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: and...
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since I'm sure you read the original article carefully, you're aware that just about all of the information in there, including most of the quotes came from Dr. Peter Wadhams. |
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17398
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Tipping points: Methane
| thanks for looking that up and posting it akira...good interview...change is coming fast... |
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