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Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Deadly Greenhouse Gas
Russian research team astonished after finding 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.
The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.
"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them."
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change.
Dr Semiletov's team published a study in 2010 estimating that the methane emissions from this region were about eight million tonnes a year, but the latest expedition suggests this is a significant underestimate of the phenomenon.
In late summer, the Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted an extensive survey of about 10,000 square miles of sea off the East Siberian coast. Scientists deployed four highly sensitive instruments, both seismic and acoustic, to monitor the "fountains" or plumes of methane bubbles rising to the sea surface from beneath the seabed.
"In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed," Dr Semiletov said. "We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal."
Dr Semiletov released his findings for the first time last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
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537 Comments so far
Show AllIt won't be long now.
I think you are right. I expect temperatures to rise 10 to 12 degrees by 2050. There will be huge amounts of fresh water, from melting ice and glaciers, that will flow into the Oceans and disrupted the currents that moderate our temperatures. The fresh water will dilute the salt in the oceans that power the currents. As this occurs, we will have begun a new ice age that will happen in the blink of a geological eye. I believe that intelligence agencies are aware of this and have informed their respective governments. What we saw come out of the just concluded Climate Conference in Durbin, South Africa, was nothing. No new treaties. A promise to do something later. Kicking the can down the road. Why?
Our leaders know now that it is too late to do anything to stop what is coming. Don't expect governments to tell you the truth. They are afraid that such information will cause a panic and everybody will stop going to work and paying their bills. Sorry to be to bearer of such bad news. No one hopes I am wrong more then me.
Enjoy you're family while you can.
Cheers.
Do please read Dr Hansen's analysis of the likelihood of another ice age. The short summary is: zero, until we humans have died off to less than pre-industrial levels and our technology has ceased to operate.
Guys, what's your payoff for taking that "it's over, we're finished" stance?
If there is a solution it will come from the most intelligent among us who are currently engaged in imperialism, militarism, warfare, ever more efficient weapons inventions, ever more efficient ways of "profiting" from "finance" and the like. Perhaps you are among the smarter among us and can offer solutions, hard solutions, not just "we must this, we must that". I am not, unfortunately. So, yes, I understand, we must lower carbon emissions, and we must prevent methane emissions. We must. HOW? I want specific technological approaches. Please enlighten me. Of course we also "must" decrease greed and lust for power because these seem to eclipse the more urgent issue of saving the planet. Again, HOW? Specifics, please. "Hope"? No thanks.
Okay first of all, stop having children. Go. Right now. Get a vasectomy or tubiligation. Bring everyone you know with you to do the same. No world government services of any kind will be available to anyone who has not gotten spayed or neutered for the next twenty years.
Then, after you've done that, start a world government based on human rights and respect for freedom of speech and assembly. The purpose of the goverment will be to monitor earth systems, and distribute food, water, energy, health care and shelter to those who need it, and to keep the internet functioning.
Okay, then have lunch.
After that, unravel the current poisonous world network of supply chains, and the security forces that protect those supply chains, and replace that with a eco-friendly system that respects soil, water and air, and human rights of speech and assembly.
Go have a nap.
Then, dismantle medieval religions and replace them with the knowledge that we live on a planet amidst a vast universe. There are no borders on the planet. There are no races. Sexuality is diverse and homosexuality is common in hundreds of species. Morality, rituals and the rest must begin with that knowledge.
After you've done that, you can design the eco-friendly democratic hall where people from all around the world will meet to work out problems of soil, water, air and what kind of parties should be held to celebrate your achievements each year. Each party will bring different things to the table. A respect for science, art and civil discourse will determine the best path for the world government to take. (Not the perfect path, but the best.)
Music, art, dance, and much frivolity will ensue, and that will be good. However, you will need to discuss which mind altering substances will be allowed at the party. But again, that should be based on eco-friendly circumstances.
The idea that you can and should party all the time, stay high all the time, shop all the time, consume at will without regard to society, will have to be discussed. Those who choose to do so with disdain for environment and social costs, those who can afford to have disdain for social and environmental costs, will remain a problem. I have no advice. Perhaps it's our Achilles heal as a species. But, perhaps we are in for a consciousness change. You decide.
The basic rules of trial by jury, due process, innocent before proven guilt, and Habeus Corpus will be respected.
Get to bed before midnight because it's going to be a busy day tomorrow. Eat your vegetables. Drink plenty of water. And if you don't have anything good to say about someone, then don't say it at all.
No government services unless you've been spayed or neutered? Then you talk about human rights?
We must limit reproduction all the world around to a maximum of 0.5 live birth per person for the foreseeable future, enforced by immediate post-partum sterilisation of both parents. No special pleadings, no exceptions, no artificial insemination or surrogation. Significant "thank you" gifts for those who choose to forego their right to reproduce. Any male who impregnates a second woman before the first has miscarried/aborted loses his dangly bits, no recourse. All women get the finest in pre- peri- and postnatal care; all parents have full access to support services for parenting their child (or children in the case of natural twins, etc)
It's the only way to be sure.
Having babies should not be subsidized by the government. It is a choice to have children, and it's currently destroying the environment and the social stability of the world.
So stop doing it. Don't do it for me. Do it for the children who will be born into a world where methane is about to destory life on the planet. And do not expect the government to subsidize having children. That's insane.
Why are you concerned about over population ~queerplanet~? __ Wthin 6 to 10 years max there won't be any babies, or adults, unless some way is found by scientists to reverse the thawing Arctic ice and permafrost.
That's how it is... John Atcheson, Igor Semiletov and some other scientists were ignored, the Arctic's "Ticking Time Bomb" has gone off... That's the primary number one issue now.
There are many very serious issues, (*over ppopulation*),,, destroying rain forests and other forests,, acidification of th eoceans,, global warming and dramatic climate changes,, possible world wide depression,, food and water shortages,, nuclear accidents,, threats of major wars,, fracking,, tar sands... There are lots of serious issues.
Only ONE pending issue is going to causea a mass extintion of life on Earth. Runaway GW caused by vast amounts of Arctic methane releases... Got it? You should "got it", you were well aware of the issue in the 70s... Remember? Btw,, you are one of the 8 billion,,, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Doomer porn alert!
Good Lord. I can only hope Wayne is drunk. I'd hate to think anyone could write like this while sober.
Ha Ha Haa... Nope; wrong again NULL... Sober as a whore in church.
I do believe however that you suffer from being bi-polar or from the Semmilweiss syndrome.
Tell us NULL.. What pending issue is the most serious for humankind at the present time? What pending issue is quite capable of causing a mass extintion of life on Earth?
Tell us once again that Dr. Semiletov is not correct and Refkin is correct about the new Arctic methane report.
Tell us how five armchair scientists claim no methane released from the Arctic in 2008 and how they determined that,,, when the ISSS team's 400 sciemtists who were conducting hands on, on site research in the Arctic, said so much was releasing that it was incredible.. And now it is far, far worse... Thanks NULL ..
Gotta go now and drink my Postum... With a cherry. So you now have fun here.
Oh NULL, ask your sidekick Alycon if he can get at least 5 billion more people to become vagetarians within the next 5 years, shut down the meat industry around the world so we can all relax and stop worrying about global warming,,, cause this is friggin depressing and tell Thon Brocket I said hi and hope he is sick. tt. .
qp,
Hear, hear--for most of what you say. (2:14pm post)
But I'm going to do what Mairead has accused me of doing and repeat the same points yet again, because you keep ignoring those facts and numbers to keep making your assertions about population.
Suppose we do what you say, and stop having children. Imagine no children are born in the world for the next 20 years.
The world birth rate is about 140 million/yr (down from 1960s peak of 173m). The death rate is 57m/yr (expected to increase to 80m/yr by 2040 (aging pop. etc))
So net world population growth rate = 83 m/yr. (half of 1963 peak of 2.2%) That means at the end of 20 years of no children being born, world population would have declined from the current 7 billion to about 6.89 billion. Is that enough to save us? If not, tell us what actual population solution you propose that would make enough difference.
While you're considering that, consider this: since developed countries are already at virtually ZPG and are only a small part of the world population (even smaller if you only consider the reasonably well-off in the developed world) most of the reduction would occur among those who had the highest birth rates and would continue to have the highest death rates--the very poor. Since they contribute very little to greenhouse gases (the poorest 80% of the world's population emits about 7% of GHGs) there would be even less effect on climate change than that 6.9b would indicate. And that's all the time we have to solve it, if we're very very lucky. Please stop giving deniers and delayers false hopes for people to invest in.
HOW? I want specific technological approaches. Please enlighten me. Of course we also "must" decrease greed and lust for power because these seem to eclipse the more urgent issue of saving the planet. Again, HOW? Specifics, please. "Hope"? No thanks.
Okay, let's start with: what are you yourself willing ---actually willing--- to do? What are your strengths? The solution isn't just one thing, it's many things and it begins with completely wresting political control from the current ruling class. Can you do a piece of that? Or if none of the activities that go into organising is your forte, what is?
Mairead wrote:
Guys, what's your payoff for taking that "it's over, we're finished" stance?
Excellent question. Though it's a stance I don't hold, it worries me. For one thing, from the perspective of the PTB that want to keep burning fossil fuels, it's a useful demoralization - the white flag of surrender.
There are aspects of momentum in how we've messed up the climate system that are most worrisome. In particular, the negative forcing from aerosols means global warming could get a lot worse before it gets better. From what I've been able to glean, I cannot definitively refute the "it's now hopeless" stance. I do not know it to be false.
But non-scientists do have an exaggerated sense of "the tipping point" in the dynamics of Earth systems. Scientists have used this concept to explain how climate momentum could work, but it's not clear that there really is such a thing as "the tipping point." I used to think that when the Arctic summer sea ice disappeared, the albedo-flip resulting would represent a tipping point. But a subsequent study established that the Earth can and has rebuilt icy regions (albeit slowly) once temperatures turned cooler.
The prospect of huge stores of methane melting quickly enough to form a self-reinforcing feedback is the tipping point at issue here. But it is not clear from observations, models, or paleoclimate that this catastrophic rate of methane release is likely. The most prominent researchers have said it is "very unlikely in the near term." By now everyone knows the consensus could be wrong, but it's also possible they could be right.
Just having some reasonable possibility of a runaway greenhouse to the Venus Syndrome staring us in the face all the time is extremely stressful for some people. Certainly for me. If you've ever been an addict, you can relate to the appeal of hopelessness: hitting bottom, "ah the heck with it." There's a palpable relief from giving up.
Finally, there's a romantic or even erotic charge people get from disasters. It's the reason people always rubberneck around a wreck. This kind of emotional chemistry can get addictive - people appreciate a good disaster fix. I've seen the indulgence in hopelessness referred to as doomer porn.
Well, I wish all was well: It was at least good to see a lot of posters return a civil word to other posters that they have done verbal battle with. You really can't waste time as it is busy wasting you. And so by next September we should see some serious evidence of the downfall of the species or not. The year 2012 approaches and will pass by as sure as our memory fades. Yes great volcanic eruptions have been predicted and therein lies a chance for Climate change redemption. Open your heart and lungs, breath in the black smoke: It could just save the planet and the children to.
Just how big is the current ESAS (East Siberian Arctic Shelf) methane flux? Hard to say before Semiletov publishes results (I've heard that would be in Spring of 2012), but what the hell, we can hazard an educated guess based on the following (all quantities Teragrams [megatonnes] of Carbon in CH4 per year):
Shakhova et al (2010) estimated 8 TgC.
An AGU abstract from this team, based on results up to 2010, says the flux is a multiple of 8 TgC.
Semiletov has commented that in 2011 he's seeing dramatically more methane venting than in 2010.
Hmmm. Let's take about the most pessimistic multiples we can justify, say 4x for the 2010 flux, and another 4x higher for 2011. Then 16 x 8 gets us to a current ESAS methane flux estimate of 128 TgC. Remember, this is just a wild-ass guess (WAG), here. A gedankenexperiment. What the hell.
Okay then, what does 128 TgC mean? Taking methane budget numbers from the Abrupt Climate Change report, we have a total global methane budget of 530 TgC. So the WAG ESAS flux would be a 24% increase. By comparison, the two largest sources in the methane budget are swamps at 39%, and cow farts ("enteric fermentation" in polite company) at 15%.
For the next step of our WAG, we'll bypass the complications and hazard the heuristic that a 24% increase in the global methane flux would lead to a 24% increase in atmospheric methane, from 1820 to 2257 ppb. Using the 20-year, 105x global warming potential for methane, that increase is the equivalent of CO2 going from the current 392 to 438 ppm.
The outcome is pretty close to 0.1°C of additional warming (half right away, half in a while), which is a lot, when you consider that the Earth warmed 0.8°C over the past century. Somewhere out there is a temperature threshold beyond which the methane problem feeds into itself, causing Earth systems to lurch into a new equilibrium. My impression is that nobody but nobody really knows where that turning point is.
But if there really were such dramatic increases of Arctic methane as ventured in our WAG, then you'd expect to see a surge in atmospheric methane from, say, the monitoring station in Barrow, Alaska (conveniently next-door to the ESAS). Here's a picture the whole family can enjoy. Gather the kiddies around the computer screen and sing yuletide carols! See those red dots waaay out in the upper right-hand corner of the graph? I hate to tell you this, old sport, but those red dots are bad news.
See those red dots waaay out in the upper right-hand corner of the graph? I hate to tell you this, old sport, but those red dots are bad news.
Pity that the graph doesn't explain why the last subseries is in red, but those latest plots look a lot like an unconscious canary to me.
And just visually smoothing that curve, even without those last two plots, doesn't look good either.
I should have explained better. Each dot represents a weekly atmospheric methane sample. The red ones are the past year.
One of the red dots in the upper-right is half off the chart at 2200 ppb (in the neighborhood of my pessimistic wild-ass guess number, as it happens). I'll have to find the raw data somewhere to see if any dots are completely off the chart. There's also a gray trend line, now uncluttered by dots, suddenly stretching to a new maximum at nearly 2000 ppb.
To my reading, this chart is the worst thing I've seen yet. Something is definitely going on up there. The picture is continually updated under the same url, so you can bookmark it to keep an eye on what happens, over the weeks, to atmospheric methane in Barrow, Alaska.
No, I did get that they were last year's...what puzzles me is that there's no legend explaining why they're red rather than blue. It really should have a legend, especially if the color has no significance.
I hope you've better luck finding the raw data than I did because I completely agree that it looks like something is going on. Dr Semiletov (strange name - "seven years") evidently hasn't been at the vodka after all. That poor canary is dreadfully scary-looking, lying there.
The blue dots are confirmed readings. The red dots are tentative readings. They keep the data on ice for a year while they make sure everything's properly calibrated.
Raw data is available for download from the Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group (CCGG) of NOAA's Earth Systems Research Lab (ESRL), but only the confirmed readings - cutting off about a year ago. So I have no access to data for the past few weeks.
Just to help with navigation into Barrow station data from NOAA ESRL CCGG (scientists just love a warm bowl of acronym soup), here's the page for Barrow. You can access GHG charts and raw data from there, if you're interested.
Way to post Aleph. I've bookmarked the acronym soup page for Barrow.
Man, those red dots look bad.
This all leads to the conclusion, presuming those red dots morph to blue, that Igor Semiletov's "astonishment" is entirely justified - the CH4 has indeed made it onto the graphs.
Since Igor monitored hundreds of these plumes, and supposes thousands, it seems next to impossible that these are freak occurrences, say from an underwater landslide and resultant turbidity current, more so because I take it the ESAS is shallow and probably gently inclined?
Time for 'second impressions':
As I understand it, the problem with Wally/Lackner trees is dollars and cents. Removing the CO2 from the atmosphere is straightforward, disposing of of the resultant is not. Maybe we'll have to overlook disposing of the product economically, and just pull CO2 out of the air from a massive worldwide program involving all possible ways and means, real forests, charcoal, artificial trees, and of course, simultaneously, reducing emissions to the point of absolute necessity to keep a few lights on and run the farm machinery and food cycle?
I'm a geologist, and Earth's Energy Imbalance is not part of my strength. But if I read Jim Hansen correctly, this is the key - to restore the Earth's Energy Balance.
And deal with the probable dramatic increased forcing if and when the coal-fired plants are shut down?
What a fine start to the weekend - Mike
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Thanks for your interest.
I'd like to see just one demonstration project where the amount of carbon captured is more than that of sufficient energy to drive the technology - economical in terms of carbon. We know how to capture carbon in submarines and airliners, but not in a carbon-economical manner. What I hear of planned demonstration projects from the major carbon capture firms is maybe by 2017 or so. Okay. What do we do in the meantime? I expect we'll wind up injecting SO2 into the stratosphere, if things get really scary. That won't turn out well, needless to say.
Sorry about your weekend. This damn chart has discombobulated the heck out of me. As Mairead said, evidently Semiletov hasn't been at the vodka after all.
Dlugokencky's statement about "no evidence of substantial increases in methane emissions from the Arctic" appears to have been invalidated.
Most people don't like simple solutions even when faced with an extreme crisis, even when these simple solutions are within the power of most individuals and families. Systemic change, new technologies, mass transit, shutting down coal and nuclear power plants, shutting down tar sands production, and so on, they all can be done. But until then, there are simpler solutions with enormous impact. I will make one last attempt here:
Livestock raising, meat and dairy transportation, storage and cooking worldwide has been estimated to account for a full 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions. I used to cite a figure of 18% based on the UN FAO report "Livestock's Long Shadow." But a study by the Worldwatch Institute has found that the FAO report underestimates this component by a huge margin! PDF file of the report "Livestock and Climate Change" is available online. Do one good deed this holiday season: download the file, and read it fully. It's only 9 pages long, pictures included. To get an idea about the carbon footprint of a hamburger, check out "The Cheeseburger Footprint". This easy-to-read article is based on a European research paper, "Energy Use in the Food Sector: A data survey" (PDF file), but it expands on it. Read these. Then think about it. PLEASE do it!
51% of the total GHG emissions from one set of related activities is no chump change. Here is a serious area of action that is within the power of most people, even while they work towards changing the system. And this action is about the future of life on this planet. And it is not even counter to other actions that target the system either. And we are not even talking of the health benefits of switching to a vegan, or even mostly vegan diet.
WHY, oh WHY is that people don't want to consider this simple change, and get others to make the switch as well? Because it is so damn simple, and therefore cannot be effective? Yes, the meat industry will have to be closed down, people will lose "jobs". But so will the people who work in weapons industries and so will the people who work for Monsanto and any number of other destructive industries when people make the switch to a saner, sustainable system. But if humanity is one big family, then there will have to be sharing and accommodating within the family members during times of transition. And if some rich members of this family don't want to share, they need to be made to understand that that's the right thing to do. The alternative is mass culling of human population.
Switch to a vegan diet. Stop indulging in mindless activities in the name of entertainment and leisure - activities that consume lots of energy and produces, directly or indirectly, lots of greenhouse gas emissions. Get everyone to turn away, stop and boycott such activities. This will free up a lot of wasted energy and avoid lots of GHG emissions. Not just fossil fuel energy, but human energy as well - energy that can then be used for fixing the broken society. Start with yourself. And your family. First stop the insanity at a personal level and a family level. Get your neighbors, relatives and coworkers involved. This is doable. Knowing and not acting is just as wrong and just as criminal as deliberate wrongdoing and deliberate endangering of life on this planet.
Don't ever quit posting here at CD. Seriously.
I was just looking over the map of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
Several of the methane "fountain" areas are located conspicuously at the mouths of rivers, one of them the Lena. There is often a submarine canyon system off of large rivers, and if these rivers are discharging more than usual, as I understand is the case, there might be an enhanced probability of submarine landslides and subsequent pressure release. This (pressure release) is apparently a highly effective method to release methane clathrates.
I'm just shooting from the hip here, looking for ideas.
Mike
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OK - I just looked up 'The Lena River". It's big allright, but I see no mention of a submarine canyon. A large delta area of permafrost, yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_River
Nope not earth slides ~Mike. The subsea permafrost is melting. We were very well warned in 2003 and 2004 this would happen SOON if the Arctic warmed up and the permafrost melted... Those warnings were igonred by everyone... Not one single thing has been done to reuce our human caused Co2 emissions which have risen every year since 2004.
Now that this is happening the most dangerous feedback loop to global warming will trigger at any time,,, if it has not already done so... Once that happens runaway global warming WILL occcur... Once runaway global warming begins there will be nothing at all we will be able to do to reverse it. Nothing, even if all humans left the planet... Such event have occured peviously with no human activity to entice the issue.
Many times over the years I have posted links where top scientists have firmly stated if only a fraction,, or just 2% of the methane in the East Sibberian Shelf area releases, it will cause a ctatastrophic world wide disaster and there will be nothing at all we will then be able to do... It will be irreversible.
I see Null has jumped off of the Refkin bandwagon and is on Semiletov's wagon now after rudely arguing with me since Oct 1 that I was wrong, because five scientists said no significant Arctic methane has released during the past 20 years...They were wrong to not factor in the melting Arctic Ocean ice and especially ignoring the warnings of Dr. Semiletov and the 400 ISSS team's scientists.
I also find it strange that scientists will say X percentage of methane has released from wetlands and X number from animal husbandry, etc. But none has come from the Arctic. Not credible information to me.
One of the greatest methane emitters is from termite activity and I don't see those scientists mentioning that either... Oh well, it really doesn't matter anymore.
Global emissions of methane due to termites are estimated to be between 2 and 22 Tg per year, making them the second largest natural source of methane.
http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html
Human activity accounts for nearly half of the methane released into the atmosphere, the most from coal mining and drilling for oil and gas.
All methane emissions, both natural and AGW, pale in comparrison with the amount which will release from the Arctic as the sea ice melts and the sub sea permafrost melts and add to the amount already releasing every year.
Can scientists find a safe method to stop the Arctic methane from releasing?__ I sure do hope so,,, but they'd better hurry.
Hi Wayne - up in the wee hours thinking about this.
Yessir - you seem to have an instinct there. No point in being angry I think. Your declarative sentences "there will be xxx" are unusual in scientific parlance. In truth - no one "knows" for sure Wayne - there are only probabilities at higher and higher levels of likelihood. When you declare that you "know", or even that other top scientists "know", is it not possible that you do everyone a disservice? Wouldn't it be better to be more humble - even if you are sure you are right? Otherwise you may come off sounding like a Biblical Prophet - and there are not a lot of scientists who can relate, and perhaps a large segment of the public will turn off as well.
It's true we have collectively not responded as we should have in the face of overwhelming evidence, not just of methane, but also of CO2, of the freshwater crisis, of the human injustice dimension, and a host of other environmental and human and natural rights issues.
We are, when all is said and done, Ice Age hunters in a new world of our own making, and no one is more surprised than those self-same adventurers that a bunch of spear-chuckers could have terra-formed a planet.
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Just found something on the Lena River:
"The excess methane has been detected in localized hotspots in the outfall of the Lena River and the border between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Some melting may be the result of geological heating, but more thawing is believed to be due to the greatly increased volumes of meltwater being discharged from the Siberian rivers flowing north."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
There's a lot of info in this and linked articles to it - playing catch-up here.
Back to bed - talk later?
Mike
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Sure, we are headed for disaster. The big questions still in my mind are how bad and how soon. The methane problem was predicted but now it is here. They are growing vegetables in Greenland now and they walk where they used to ski. Polar bears are dying from exhaustion trying to swim to ice that is not there.
I live in Maine and this is by far the warmest year I can recall - it is mid December and there is no more than a rare hint of ice in the pond. Ducks swim in the pond but no birds come to the feeders; neither of these have happened in earlier Decembers. Are these things related to the global warming? They do seem like odd changes; what is going on?
pecohen
I believe they are almost entirely the result of global warming. Although small scale regional changes cannot scientifically be said to be the result of AGW in all cases, overall, and in the interests of truth, I hold to my belief, with the afforementioned caveat.
Here, for you and for all, is a 2008 report from the Russian Federation's "Roshydromet", which is in a sense old news, but since it's the Russian Arctic Shelf that is under the microscope, I think the following report will provide perspective and an opinion outside of the NATO box:
------------------
"ASSESSMENT REPORT
ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION" [2008]
http://climate2008.igce.ru/v2008/pdf/resume_ob_eng.pdf
--------------------
"GCOS [Global Climate Observing System] comprises 135 reference stations and 12 upperair stations of the Russian Federation. It also includes two stations (Teriberka and New Port) providing monitoring of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane)..." [page 6]
"— Methane (CH4) is the second greenhouse gas by its significance after CO2; its current concentration is 2.5 times as high as the pre-industrial value and reached 1774 ppb in 2005..." [page 8]
[River Runoff]
"Runoff increases were also observed in the Yenisey basin (8%) and in the greater part of the Lena basin, particularly in the last decade of the 20th century. [page 8]
--------------------
Take a look at the color graphs on page 9 - illuminating. Consider that the methane concentration is now at the very top of the chart for methane (Barrow Alaska)
Manysummits in Calgary
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No doubt the US military is entirely aware of these new readings, and has for many years been assessing the situation from their point of view.
It has occurred to me that the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the recent evisceration of the US Constitution is to prepare for martial law in the event of societal breakdown.
My wife Julia advises that I stick to science - but how can I do this?
Here is something from Ernest Hemingway, in the frontspiece of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s book on JFK, "A Thousand Days":
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them. The world breaks every one and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially."
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Looking at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2011.fig2.png, it appears that we were seeing a leveling off of methane during 1990-2005, at which point it began rising again, albeit more slowly than during the '80s.
I wonder whether 2005 was a tipping point at which methane started releasing from the clathrates. Just trickles, not enough to observe except statistically. If so, then those 2 dots look like another, much more serious, tipping point was passed.
Damned if I can find the raw data that produced those two heart-attack dots though.
Edit: Okay, here's something that might be relevant: In October 2011, the ARM North Slope of Alaska site in Barrow welcomed a new eddy correlation (ECOR) flux measurement system and complementary surface energy balance system (SEBS), as well as a change to its baseline instrument suite: a methane gas (CH4) sensor for measurements of greenhouse gases emanating from the surrounding tundra.
Are those 2 heart-attack dots possibly due, partly, to increased measurement? Picking up tundra releases where earlier they didn't have any instrumentation?
"Are those 2 heart-attack dots possibly due, partly, to increased measurement?"
Your conjecture of a possible calibration problem subsequent to the installation of new equipment is difficult to sustain, I think. For one thing, the heart-attack dots seem to be more recent than the equipment installation two months ago.
If you're interested in the gory details of my attempt to figure out this somewhat frustrating chart:
On the Data Visualization page for the Barrow data, select Parameter: CH4 and Time Span: Current. Press Submit.
Up comes this chart, zoomed in on 2011 CH4 data for Barrow.
The zoomed chart has a line for 2001.8, which is Oct 19. There's no explicit indication of the date of the heart-attack dots, but they seem to be at 2011.88,
which is Nov 17.
Note also the two green dots for Jan 22, high outliers like the heart-attack dots, though not quite so high. No red dots appear for the same week - perhaps the green dots represent rejected data.
The full Barrow chart is more splattered with these green outlier dots than any methane chart from elsewhere, for some reason, though none of them are as high as the mid-November heart-attack dots. Perhaps they'll throw out the heart-attack dots (turn them green) upon further examination.
Thanks for that. For some reason I couldn't find that page. I did find another roll-your-own page, but it only offered stale data.
I see that you're right about the instrumentation having occurred after those samples. It looks like the heart-attack samples were captured in August, and that there's nothing available for Sep-Dec yet. Disappointing and maddening all in one tidy parcel.
Their color choices are abysmal, especially since a cursory keik in P'shop suggests that they're apparently using transparency such that two overlapping plots look a different color. Since they offer no explanation for the greenish plots at all, I've to wonder whether they're meant to be blue or to represent something else entirely. If I could afford it, I'd send them a copy of Tufte!
"It looks like the heart-attack samples were captured in August, and that there's nothing available for Sep-Dec yet."
I don't think so. If you select "Last Year" as the Time Span, you'll see that they're segmenting the year into tenths, not twelfths. So the last sample at 2011.88 is mid-November. (Semiletov's expedition was in September.) I'm saying the change in instrumentation happened near the 2011.8 (Oct 19) line, after which there are a few weeks of normal samples before the heart-attack dots.
I dunno. That current-year chart itself is segmented into 2-month columns (0 at the left edge, then 2, 4, 6, and 8, with the 8 column being half-width. Take a look at it and tell me if you see something different.
I'm saying those are not two month columns, but 1/5 year columns - as evidenced by the fact that the 2010 data has only 5 columns for a full year (2011.0 succeeding 2010.8).
Good heavens, you're right.
Just think of all the advantages in dividing a year by 5 instead of the conventional 12. Or 52. Or 4. Or even 6 or 3. It makes my brain hurt.
Whoever chose that interval must be a very interesting person, though I believe I'd prefer that he or she not have access to sharp objects.
It's common for yearly data charts, I think, just because it's the lazy way for a programer. Dealing with the irregular pattern of month-lengths can be a pain, and may not work with the graphing software if it expects uniform increments.
Unfortunately, it's baffling for humans. I need to calculate 0.8 x 365 = 292 and then find 292 on a day-of-year chart to determine that, in a non-leap year, 292 = October 19.
They keep the scissors in a locked drawer around here. I'm only allowed to use them under strict supervision.
There is another reason to believe the "heart attack" dots.
Igor Semiletov's direct observations at the source, and his expert opinion as to their significance.
Evidence first - always. (You can tell I was a field geologist, but even James Lovelock and Jim Hansen lament that we are data poor and model rich.)
Mike
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Well MIke,,, I don't offer my opinions about the issue... I repeat the words of some of the worlds top scientists... Obviously most don't wish to hear it. I don't wish to hear it either, I don't want to see what is most certainly coming arrive, that is runaway global warming, which will without question cause a mss extintion of life on Earth.
I have been writing about the Arctic methane threat for amost ten years and very few want to believe it.
Well now what a few scientists have repeatedly warned us of is happening and they have been ignored.... Even now ,many people are saying Dr. Semiletov can't possibly be correct and search for reasons to prove he is wrong.... Unfortunantly he is not wrong.
So please don't criticize me for what I write, criticize the scientists I quote if you wish to disagree.
Hi Wayne!
You didn't understand a word I said.
Anyway - good luck to all of us.
Mike
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I understood this comment you wrote to me ~Mike~,, and btw, I was not at all angry with you.
Your comment, which I repled to... > ("Wayne - there are only probabilities at higher and higher levels of likelihood. When you declare that you "know", or even that other top scientists "know", is it not possible that you do everyone a disservice?")..end quote. ... I take that as criticism, constructive or otherwise.
I personally have enough faith in Drs. Semiletov and Shakova to say I know they are correct... I probably shouldn't say this, but I will... Dr. Shakova is a long time very good friend of the family... Natalia is a delightful lady and and is extremely intelligent and she is fully dedicated to her research... She does not make mistakes.
In 2007,,, Drs. Shakova and Semiletov, science professors at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, stated,,, "The release to the atmosphere of only (one percent) of the methane stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to 3 to 4 times," Shakhova said… they were IGNORED! "
In April 2007, the ISSS teams of 400 scientists from all around the world conducted a winter expedition on the sea ice.
that found methane gas trapped under and in the sea ice, showed the team that the methane was not only being dissolved in the water, it was bubbling out into the atmosphere.
But in 2008,,,, five top scientists wrote a report and said NO methane was releasing from the Arctic… A ”peer” reviewed paper which Mr. NULL keeps posting here… Those five armchair scientists were wrong…. So Drs. Shakova and Semiletov were IGNORED!!! __ Which is a damn and NOW a deadly shame.
In 2008,, Dr Shakhova notes that the Earth's geological record indicates that atmospheric methane concentrations have varied between about .3 to .4 parts per million during cold periods to .6 to .7 parts per million during warm periods. Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years, she said. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher... She was IGNORED!
In 2007... Dr. Shakhova's research results show that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is already a significant methane source, releasing 7 teragrams of methane yearly, which is as much as is emitted from the rest of the ocean…. It continued to get much worse every year and the ISSS teams reports were IGNORED…. And some here say that cannot be computed in climate models etc, or figure the FLUX, etc, etc. Bullshit !!!
Shakova et al (2010) assessed the ESAS flux of methane into the atmosphere at 6.31 to 9.73 (midlevel 7.98) TgC per year (I usually abbreviate this to simply 8 TgC). These results were not ignored, but featured in the most prominent American science journal.
To this day, the 8 TgC estimate is the only quantified result published, to my knowledge. Shakova et al conclude that the 8 TgC flux is "not alarmingly altering the contemporary global CH4 budget" because the global methane budget is about 530 TgC. 8 is 1.5% of 530. Not a significant forcing.
In my wild-ass guess (above) I attempted to quantify what it would look like if the increases Semiletov describes amount to quadrupling the previous estimate twice, to 128 TgC. This is more like a quarter or a fifth of the global methane budget, a significant forcing.
If that is what is happening (and the evidence to date remains quite thin) then an exponential rate of growth on the order of quadrupling yearly is not something anyone's forecasting tools are equipped to reliably predict. Your insistence that competent scientists should be clairvoyant serves only to convince people that you are not to be taken seriously.
I look at my seven year old son.
So full of life, of hope and promise.
Have we come all this way to be defeated -
Is the Universe, or Multiverse - fractal - or quantum at all scales?
Is there a difference between life and non-life, or are our eyes simply unable to see?
Whatever the answers, one thing is certain - we are part and parcel of this fathomless Cosmos.
Squabbling for crumbs of food is good training - but for what?
Surely we can find it within ourselves to move forward, like Nansen's "Fram."
Let's not go back -
Manysummits
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Hudson: That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
Burke: Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don't we try that?
~~~ Aliens
Reply to ~Aleph Null~
You say I should not be taken seriously NULL... Since I primarily have always quoted Drs. Semiletov and Shakova and the 400 ISSS scientists they lead,, with on site research in the Arctic,,, then you are saying they should not be teken seriously either... Suit yourself NULL
The one comment you frequently quote of Dr. Shakova when trying to discredit me was from 2007- 8,,,, four to five years ago, when the (then current) methane emissions were not as serious, or "alarming"..... NOT YET.
What you always ignore however,,, are Dr. Shakova's many other comments and warnings... She was warning us about what will occur if the Arctic ice continued to melt, the sub sea permasfrost thawed and vast quantities of methae then released in the future,,,, like is occurring NOW in 2011 and it is soon going to be a hell of a lot worse... It is already incredible,,amazing,, frightening,, according to the most qualified scientist alive on the Arctic methane issue.
You IGNORE this important comment from Dr.Shakkova,,, > (""The release to the atmosphere of only (one percent) of the methane stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to 3 to 4 times," ).
You IGNORE this important comment from Dr. Shakova,,, > (" Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years... Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher").... That was in 2007 and 8. NULL,,, now what ~John Atchesen warned us of is happening.
And you attempted to downplay what Dr. Semiletov has reported in their lastest research expedition... Your saying Revkin has a credible report... And you say I shold not be taken seriously.
Having anyone attempt to reverse the thawing Arctic sea ice goes against your obvious agenda NULL, an corrupt agenda whch supports big oil and shipping.
You have continually argued with me,, insulted me from your first reply to me,, attacked me for my opinions on the issue,, opinions which are based entirely upon what very highly qualified scientists have reported.
For the past 8 years I have continually said the Arctic methane issue was our most serious issue,, and it is... No other pending issue is going to cause a mass extintion of life... You mocked me and the scientists who termed it a "Ticking Time Bomb".. That is until your last few comments on this now off the front page thread, where few will read them and you know it really is a most serious issue NULL, but you won't really admit it, or admit you have been totally wrong about it ever since you arrived here at CD.
You are trying very hard to back track your denying errors with different comments on another newer thread here however.
You obviously are quite intelligent NULL,,, but in logic, common sense and honesty,,,, you flunk... You and I both know what you are NUll... Whether any others here know is not important... The only thing that is very deadky important now is the Arctic methane threat... So you can rave on and play the smart guy here NULL,,, I honestly don't care what you do or what you write..
The passage quoted, that the 8 TgC flux reported is "not alarmingly altering the contemporary global CH4 budget" relates to the most recent estimate available, from Shakhova et al, published in 2010. She (with her co-authors) is referring to the same estimate Wayne relayed, only putting it in the context of the global methane budget. To say the Arctic flux is 8 TgC is meaningless without an understanding of what the number means, of how it compares to the global number. 8 is not all that much compared to 530, according to Shakhova in 2010.