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Arctic Ice in Death Spiral
UXBRIDGE, Canada - The carbon dioxide emissions from burning such fossil fuels have now melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation and dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting.
The carbon dioxide emissions from burning such fossil fuels have now melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation and dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting. (AFP/File/Martin Bureau) "The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.
The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.
"I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover," he said.
There can be no recovery because tremendous amounts of extra heat are added every summer to the region as more than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun. A warmer Arctic Ocean not only takes much longer to re-freeze, it emits huge volumes of additional heat energy into the atmosphere, disrupting the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere, scientists have now confirmed.
"The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic," James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the United States told IPS in Oslo, Norway last June in an exclusive interview. ' Paradoxically, a warmer Arctic means "future cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception" in these regions, Overland told IPS.
There is growing evidence of widespread impacts from a warmer Arctic, agreed Serreze. "Trapping all that additional heat has to have impacts and those will grow in the future," he said.
One local impact underway is a rapid warming of the coastal regions of the Arctic, where average temperatures are now three to five degrees C warmer than they were 30 years ago. If the global average temperature increases from the present 0.8 C to two degrees C, as seems likely, the entire Arctic region will warm at least four to six degrees and possibly eight degrees due to a series of processes and feedbacks called Arctic amplification.
A similar feverish rise in our body temperatures would put us in hospital if it didn't kill us outright.
"I hate to say it but I think we are committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic," Serreze said.
If the Arctic becomes six degrees warmer, then half of the world's permafrost will likely thaw, probably to a depth of a few metres, releasing most of the carbon and methane accumulated there over thousands of years, said Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a world expert on permafrost.
Methane is a global warming gas approximately 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2).
That would be catastrophic for human civilisation, experts agree. The permafrost region spans 13 million square kilometres of the land in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe and contains at least twice as much carbon as is currently present in the atmosphere - 1,672 gigatonnes of carbon, according a paper published in Nature in 2009. That's three times more carbon than all of the worlds' forests contain.
"Permafrost thawing has been observed consistently across the entire region since the 1980s," Romanovsky said in an interview.
A Canadian study in 2009 documented that the southernmost permafrost limit had retreated 130 kilometres over the past 50 years in Quebec's James Bay region. At the northern edge, for the first time in a decade, the heat from the Arctic Ocean pushed far inland this summer, Romanovsky said.
There are no good estimates of how much CO2 and methane is being released by the thawing permafrost or by the undersea permafrost that acts as a cap over unknown quantities of methane hydrates (a type of frozen methane) along the Arctic Ocean shelf, he said.
"Methane is always there anywhere you drill through the permafrost," Romanovsky noted.
Last spring , Romanovsky's colleagues reported that an estimated eight million tonnes of methane emissions are bubbling to the surface from the shallow East Siberian Arctic shelf every year in what were the first-ever measurements taken there. If just one percent of the Arctic undersea methane reaches the atmosphere, it could quadruple the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere.
Abrupt releases of large amounts of CO2 and methane are certainly possible on a scale of decades, he said. The present relatively slow thaw of the permafrost could rapidly accelerate in a few decades, releasing huge amounts of global warming gases.
Another permafrost expert, Ted Schuur of the University of Florida, has come to the same conclusion. "In a matter of decades we could lose much of the permafrost," Shuur told IPS.
Those losses are more likely to come rapidly and upfront, he says. In other words, much of the permafrost thaw would happen at the beginning of a massive 50-year meltdown because of rapid feedbacks.
Emissions of CO2 and methane from thawing permafrost are not yet factored into the global climate models and it will be several years before this can be done reasonably well, Shuur said.
"Current mitigation targets are only based on anthropogenic (human) emissions," he explained.
Present pledges by governments to reduce emissions will still result in a global average temperature increase of 3.5 to 3.9 C by 2100, according to the latest analysis. That would result in an Arctic that's 10 to 16 degrees C warmer, releasing most of the permafrost carbon and methane and unknown quantities of methane hydrates.
This why some climate scientists are calling for a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, recommending that fossil fuel emissions peak by 2015 and decline three per cent per year. But even then there's still a 50-percent probability of exceeding two degrees C current studies show. If the emissions peak is delayed until 2025, then global temperatures will rise to three degrees C, the Arctic will be eight to 10 degrees warmer and the world will lose most its permafrost.
Meanwhile, a new generation of low-cost, thin-film solar roof and outside wall coverings being made today has the potential to eliminate burning coal and oil to generate electricity, energy experts believe - if governments have the political will to fully embrace green technologies.
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Show All"I don't mind the humans offing themselves," said the Bear, "but they're taking the rest of us with them."
That's a big trash can you just kicked over ...
Oh, I get it! "Troofer" is a pun on "truther", and it's spelled as if 'truthers' are really D.U.M.B. (kinda like those people who say "bof" when they mean "both".) You know, stupid people. Gosh. You are so very, very clever. And I like how you conflated Miggy with the "troofers". Now that was a real "two-fer". Oh look! I made a joke, too! I'm sophisticated and above-it-all also! All I can say is, thank goodness that the left has been AWOL on the whole "troofer" thing from the git go.... That's all I'm sayin'.
Dear miggy:
I think you need to reread paganism. I hardly think it has to do with Satan. The people who worshiped nature and nature gods were and are all those who worship NATURE. So, you have somehow dissed all of the indigenous cultures in the world by throwing them in with Satan, which is a religious concept, and not a concept that the 'pagans' were interested in. You're losing me just by making a blanket statement like that.
Secondly, the members of those clubs are the "elite" at least money wise, and they all seem to be republican. So, if you want to say the republicans worship Satan, well maybe some do, but the Bohemian Club and others are 'all boy" gangs that worship money and most are republican. Why would you be so surprised and suspicious that a bunch of rich republicans from every industy are gathered yearly in a bizarre version of "camp.?" They dress up like "hill billies' or maybe that's just the camp name, and this seems some what analogus to Marie Antoinette dressing up like a shepherdess...you know, dress up as poor people for fun.
We already know that they are psychos, but what is your plan or point re: the Arctic ice melt?
Miggy, are you tired of being mocked just because you tell the truth about Satan's minions? Would you like to strike down your oppressors?
You can totally dominate any website/comment section/blog. How? Just sign your name (in blood) on the line below when it appears on your monitor.
_____________________________________
Signature
The small print: Above signed individual agrees to give his/her/it's soul to Satan in exchange for the power to dominate any online forum.
Has anyone ever seen a bigger collection of nutcases outside a teaparty rally than in this list? Lord Monckton??? The man is totally and completely ignorant of what he's talking about as was clear in his Congressional testimony! Anything that he's associated with has to be a fraud! What does it say about the intelligence of someone who takes him seriously?
Active ignorance is, by far, the most dangerous threat to the survival of human beings. I am sick and tired of 20th century thinking being allowed to dominate, and cancel out 21st century progress! Those who can't stop looking over their shoulder at the past, often find themselves running off a cliff. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that Republicans are the bane of our existence. Progressives must come together and stop this madness or our grandchildren will suffer the consequences.
You are crazy.
That was certainly a helpful, useful contribution.
And bullshit is composted and spread on fields.
We, my friendly competitors and I, have to drive down solar heating costs well below natural gas costs, produce algae cheaply, sequester gigatons of carbon-containing algae cell husks for an average of 2500 years in huge mountainous landfills in the desert so that moisture-loving bacteria can't break them down, crush the price of nonphotovoltaic solar electricity generation, store electricity effectively, and re-envision transit without the automobile. We need to reverse the destruction of the Arctic Ocean's ice pack. There are some industrial needs that I haven't gotten to.
You, the non-inventors, absolutely need to do many things that the few inventors among us can't get done. In general, you'll get more done for the planet by lighting one biodiesel candle than by cursing the darkness.
We need more inventors and we also need "first customers", people who would not only give of their time and energy to inhibit climate change, or would even risk their necks sometimes, but who would actually take risks with their own property to bring about new technology. Take tiny risks and scale model risks at first, but take them! The revolution will not come from inside the beltway. The revolution will come from Exxon long after you are dead. Right now, the revolution is you and your neighbor.
What skill sets do you have, and what do you wish you had?
One biodiesel candle for each of us should stop this global warming thing in its tracks. Where can I buy mine?
Hello Paul K,
Great post. What I most like to see here are suggested solutions.
According to these two websites, it is now possible to BUILD your own photovoltaic cells for a fraction of the retail price.
www.greendiyenergy.com/index.php?vsa=y ... (diy stands for 'do it yourself') and
www.earth4energy.com/
I'm not technically qualified to judge the truth of the claims, but when I googled: "photovoltaic cells","build them yourself", I got 17,800 results.
Assuming that one can build cheap cells at home, two possibilities open up. One is for businesses to help people do it. My preferred choice, however, is for neighbors to help neighbors go solar. We could have block by block "Neighborhood Solar Energy Parties" in the same way that in Berkeley and the East Bay we now have "Neighborhood Garden Work Parties" in people's yards.
One of our slogans in Berkeley is "Building Community One Raised Bed at a Time." Can we now move to "Building Community One Solar Roof at a Time?" Or how about, "Saving the Planet, Neighborhood by Neighborhood?"
I intend to start asking my friends whether cheap, co-operatively built solar energy might really be possible. ("Neighborhood Vegetables" has an email list of 1700.) Here's hoping that many of you will do the same.
And thanks again Paul, for starting me on this chain of thought.
>>
If the Arctic becomes six degrees warmer, then half of the world's permafrost will likely thaw, probably to a depth of a few metres, releasing most of the carbon and methane accumulated there over thousands of years, said Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a world expert on permafrost.
<<
And that will be just about all she wrote. The planet will recover quite nicely in some altered form, and without human beings and much of today's wildlife, but new forms of animal and plant life will evolve. Give it a hundred thousand years and the planet will once again be lush and beautiful and mostly in ecological balance.
Isn't it wonderful how the Left has apocalyptic visions to match the rapture of the Right?
Humanity will survive. Yes, there will be massive death, but in the end the human race is adaptable. If Eskimos can survive in the high Arctic without modern technology, and if Siberians can trek to America during the Ice Age, we will find a way to survive climactic terror.
The great advantage of apocalyptic fantasies, Left and Right, is that it excuses us from the necessity of engaging in messy social actions.
Methane is a much more efficient global warming agent than CO2. Release of methane will accelerate global warming which will accelerate release of more methane. This becomes what is called a "positive feedback loop.".
I'm not sure how much of a percentage of the atmosphere might become methane, but there must be some percentage, if achieved, such that the atmosphere would become toxic to animals that need to breathe oxygen in order to survive.
I wonder if the methane could reach such a concentration as to become combustible when mixed with the already existing oxygen.
Perhaps humans can evolve in such a fashion as to be able to breathe methane. I just don't know, but to flatly state that "humanity will survive" seems somewhat hubristic (Is that even a word? Perhaps I should refudiate my use of that term.) to me.
I wonder if at some point some dinosaur proclaimed that dinosaurs will survive.
Yes, DK, I know about the methane feedback loop. It might heat the planet by another 10 degrees centigrade, but we're not going to choke on it, and it's not going to replace our oxygen. CO2 is now 391 parts per million in the atmosphere. CH4, methane, is 1.8 parts per million, 217 times less. Pound for pound methane is about 23 time more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. But even if it triples in the atmosphere, we're not going to choke.
I googled this information. You could too. But apparently you would rather sustain your fears than do the research. Research is just one quality that distinguishes us from both dinosaurs and tea partiers. Try it. You might like it.
Thank you for the acerbic, abusive, insulting ad hominem attack. That is generally a very good way to get someone to listen intently and to seriously consider your arguments.
I'm sorry, DK, I really am. I thought about how I could get my point across in a more peaceful way, and I'm afraid I wasn't skillful enough to do it.
The point is though, that before you marshall a series of arguments to support your opinion, please research the facts behind those arguments. It wasn't that hard to find the proportion of methane in the atmosphere. Mao Tse-tung used to say,
"No investigation, no right to speak." Well, we have the right to speak here no matter what, but sometimes it does create a bit of pain to listen to it, and reminds me of countless political screeds I've heard which also could do with a bit of research. Especially after I've been called hubristic (yes, it's a word) and likened to a fatuous dinosaur after the comet had hit. A bit of ad-hominem there also, agreed?
So how about we go back to our corners and start again, content that there is a little bit to learn about ourselves every day.
Okay, ya gotta deal!
I could have, maybe should have, googled a few things first, and I often do so.
There is a geologic history of sudden temperature rises on earth triggered by smaller temperature rises. A positive methane release feedback loop is a prime suspect.
Yes, absolutely true. We have very little time left to prevent this catastrophe, after which nothing work to slow down runaway warming.
Yes, absolutely true. We have very little time left to prevent this catastrophe, after which nothing will work to slow down runaway warming.
a good insight into what will happen if 'humanity' no longer exists:
'the world without us' by alan weisman....................
Massive plantings of fast growing plant species would do a lot, and very quickly, to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. This could buy us some time while we implement Paul K's solutions.
I just wish I could think of some plant that would do just that... (he offered, with a puckish grin...)
Aaaah, we're probably doomed anyway, but at least we could go out with style. (You're talking about "hops" aren't you?)
You wouldn't plant something you were planning to burn. That's would be counter-productive, so you must be right. Hops it is. Or kudzu. Or scotch broom.
If you burn the whole plant you are at least carbon neutral. If you burn only part of the plant, say, oh, I don't know, the flowers possibly, and grind the rest into compost, or use it to make plastics or building materials or textiles, then you have removed carbon from the atmosphere. This works for hops or kudzu or scotch broom.
yes, this is a good idea, Puck...pot to the rescue, in more than one way!
It's easy enough to create dried plant matter. The trick is first to keep it from decomposing for an average of 2500 years (by keeping it completely dry, by dumping it onto the ocean floor, by keeping it in permafrost conditions...), and then to scale sequestration up to the gigaton range. Just growing a plant doesn't work if the plant decomposes into nothing but its original nutrients, carbon dioxide and water.
In the meantime, sequestering 100 lbs of plant matter (leaves?) for a long time is a worthwhile experiment.
Do the sequestration experiment next to an interstate highway so all the cars zooming by at 74 mph can see it??
>>>> "future cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception"
Snowy, but not particularly cold.
One planet, different eco-systems thru out the world and the scientists say the east coast will get colder because the Arctic is getting warmer and those dumb shit global warming deniers back there will not realize that the earth spins on its axis and where are the axis'? Where the massive weight of the ice in, basically,the north and south poles will start to move to maintain its balance. this is logic to me as I'm no scientist. Where will you be; hot or cold or in between as far as weather is concerned? Tony
One theory is that the shift of weight over the earth's crust from the melting of the poles will trigger an increase in earthquakes and volcanoes.
http://globalwarming.solveyourproblem.com/melting-glaciers.shtml ... tells us
"When glaciers melt, the pressure they once exerted upon the surface of the earth becomes dramatically reduced. When this happens, geologists tell us, all sorts of things can happen. All kinds of geologic reactions occur when glaciers begin to melt. For instance, many of the geologic reactions that are thought to occur include an increase occurrence in tsunamis (which are caused by underwater earthquakes), an increase in earthquakes, and all kinds of volcanic eruptions."
And ... www.rinart-woodwork.com/will-global-warming-unleash-more-seismic-activity.html#high_3 ,,, says that it is already happening:
"Though they get little attention, glacial melting of the Antarctic ice is already causing earthquakes and underwater landslides."
and that ... "Even the shape of the Earth appears to have been significantly influenced by climate events due to changes in the mass of water stored in oceans, continents and atmosphere. Satellite data indicate the bulge in Earth’s gravity field at the equator is growing ..."
I googled ... "melting polar ice",earthquakes,geologist ... Interesting, no?
Without real leadership from the top in Washington and strong support by Congress nothing much is going to happen.
But the political situation in the United States is hopeless, what with the tea party ascendent and old-line republicans in denial. We're seeing the triumph of know nothingism.
I've never felt such pessimism in my life. The future for human civilization on Earth is dim indeed.
Jim Shea
It's true that this Civilization, and even Homo Sapiens Sapiens, might not be up to the challenges this Century is bringing.
But there have been huge challenges before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
As long as a few thousand people survive the next century or two, there is Hope.
I think that's not too much to accomplish.
Perhaps we'll get a better Human species, and a new Civilization, out of the rubble.
What Civilization? I don't see any Civilization. I DO see some civilzed people, but I don't see any signs of Civlization.
If there was a Civilization, it would act quickly to stop what is a very clear threat to its existince and put an end to the behaviors that fomented the threat. What we have seen are some half-hearted attempts by some civilized people trying to civilize a bunch of Barbarians, so that the whole may act as a Civilization and quickly bring a halt to what threatens it.
My grandson is going to be in for a he'll of ride!
We've been told to be afraid so many times now I don't know if there's much I can personally do. Collectively though we can make a huge difference. Yet the truth is that most CO2 comes from a relatively small number of polluters. A energy conscious family might cut their driving, for example, or use public transportation. Meanwhile some Mordor up in the Alberta Tar Sands spews out billions of pounds of CO2. (Republican senators recently visiting the site complimented the extraction companies for their balanced approach.)
We have a system of corporatism in place that won't stop until the planet is dead. As long as there's a single tree or fish in the ocean, they'll take it. We can't even breathe the air without paying for health insurance here, if Obamacare gets its way. Citizens have lost their rights (which they never had anyway if they can so easily be taken away.) We're nothing more than peons in a post-industrial feudal system built on corporate power and patronage. Social mobility has been eviscerated--i.e., if you're born poor, you'll stay poor.
To say that we can make individual decisions to end climate change is utterly absurd. Will I commit to making those changes? Yes, of course. But I know there's a whole system of political patronage built around exploitation of the planet's resources, which are finite.
We're in the last phase of a plundering of the earth's resources. Paradoxically, as those resources deplete, they become more valuable and prone to exploitation. And as the resources like oil get harder to get to, they're more likely to be spilled like the BP well showed. Why? Regulatory capture. The industries that leverage their influence to get first in line for the plunder use that influence to weaken regulatory standards and enforcement. Result: more spills, more bank fraud, plunder of public treasury, etc..
Can we do something? Of course. But it will take a lot of political momentum to stop the exploitation. And that will ultimately be a political contest, one that requires a lot of money and power to win. It's a battle that must be fought even if it can't be won.
See Chris Hedges' article "Don't Blame the Democrats":
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/do_not_pity_the_democrats_20100913/
"The elite of the elite want their fresh batch of resources and they're not going to stop melting the polar caps until they get them. They believe they own the Arctics anyway, so it's their right to melt them if they want." This is truly their mentality and they must be stopped.
The Cap and Trade fight is just to take our minds off of what is really happening. If the Governments did not believe in Global Warming then they would not be fighting over the Arctic drilling rights. Cap and Trade is a farce! The Corporations are in it for the short term profits, not the long run.
we have countries like Canada whose leader Steven Harper is so pro oil and anti alternatives it is sickening. His voters base is in Alberta the TAR SANDS so he does everything for Alberta and screw the rest of the country. He has to be stopped
One of our Congressional candidates, the Republican naturally, is a climate change denier. Word of his nutty ideas doesn't seem to penetrate into the local media, which says something about how stoogelike and repulsive the local media are. I suspect this same pattern is true in many Congressional districts.
From what I've read EVERY Republican candidate for the Senate is a denier. Castle was the last reasonable Repub and he got defeated by the tea party twit. Doesn't bode well for the future of civilization, does it?
And for those who think that humans will somehow survive, that may be true for the short term, but according to the fossil record, very few species live more than about 5 million years. We've got a ways to go, but then in the fossil record things weren't as bad as they are becoming except for a very few occasions marked by massive extinctions.
Still one of my favorite videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T_3WJPYY9g
The article says we are going to go past the 2 major climate tipping points very soon. They are the complete arctic melt followed by the complete permafrost melt. The only thing that might save us from more than 4 degrees global warming is a total collapse of global civilisation real soon now.
Further tipping points, once looking less likely this century, must be now moving faster on the way, include the melting of Antarctica and complete loss of the Amazon and Congo rainforests.
Our capacity to keep up our CO2 emissions, or stop them after passing the final tipping points may then be irrelevant. Eaarth will stay in a stable hot state, and will do so for another age.
Things which are not going to make a difference, except in a negative sense. Crap and trade. Business as usual. The US Congress. President Obama. Fossil fuel corporations. The full stack of privileged game playing human beings. The entire game is to be wiped out.
"The only thing that might save us from more than 4 degrees global warming is a total collapse of global civilisation real soon now. "
Here's a good conspiracy theory:
Bombs kill thousands. The Mid-east wars were meant to reduce the global population through war to avoid global warming. global warming is a known fact and it is only repressed by the corp, controlled media to avoid mass hysteria or a sane response that would result in no profits for the oil co's. They (the infamous THEY!) soon realize "thousands" are not fast enough, we must eliminate MILLIONS!
Disease kills millions! When will the disease bombs be let loose!?!
The "climate change" currently going on in this world today is a lot like the planes/WTC incident. It is a giant experiment and no one knows the outcome, most likely, it will be worse than we think.
Please comment on article only. Ignore disrupters like Miggy. Responding to them encourages them. It diverts the discussion from the article which is the goal of the disrupter.
Yes
Despite the economy, lots of people are out driving daily. In fact, global oil consumption has almost reached its pre-crash level, and coal consumption never slowed down. The scramble to increase NatGas extraction do balance the rather high rate of depletion--12-16% per well--gives us fracking and a showdown between China and Japan over territorial claims. IOW, Business as Usual is marching full speed ahead.
Admitting that we're "committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic" and accepting the deleterious effects of such change by taking measures now to adapt to it seems to be the best strategy to pursue. Something not really mentioned in the article is the speed of the forcing, which is in turn forcing the climate system into a much faster response than is natural. The results of such forcing cannot be known aside from its negative aspesct. Civilized people ought to continue their efforts to get the Barbarians to see they are threatened too. Some will evolve and some will not.
Planning and acting now is paramount. Arks take time to build.