dabize

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/ticking-arctic-carbon-bomb-may-b.html

More info on clathrate melting risk magnitude from the SF meeting

I'd have to guess that the geologist was misquoted:

“We don't have proof in the geological record that any of that has ever happened before,” he said.

Hasn't the Storegga event been tied pretty tightly to clathrates & methane?

Terry

Not sure, although it certainly should have disrupted some methane clathrate beds.

The Storegga slide was followed by fairly rapid warming and sea level rise, featuring the flooding of Doggerland (i.e. most of what is now the North Sea) but I always thought that the proximate cause of warming of this period was due to the events that ended the Younger Dryas- i.e.the resumption of the North Atlantic thermohaline current. So the Storegga Slide may well have contributed to this warming, via methane release, but I don't know of any direct proof of it.

http://www.nature.com/news/gas-hydrates-in-arctic-are-shallowest-yet-found-1.11988

Maybe an explanation for those ridiculously high SSTs near the mouth of the MacKenzie last summer?

I came across this too......http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v490/n7421/full/nature11528.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20121025

Since hydrates can exist at higher temps as long as they are deeper, then trajectory changes in very warm currents such as the GS certainly might bring large temperature increases to sea floor regions in the Atlantic that contain such hydrates.

And the current changes in the Arctic might plausibly produce changes in the thermohaline dynamics of the GS capable of altering its course.

Sigh......

Bumped for some truly crummy news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19410444

I sure hope this paper (the Nature paper that is the source of the article) turns out to be another case of Nature's famous "molecular memory" paper, where some people diluted a solution to nullity and claimed that the solvent "remembered" the solute.....................

It's an emotional thing, too.

I for one will mourn the passing of the Karri tree in SW Australia.

But what was the deal about "Walmart birds"?

Doesn't he know that we killed off the passenger pigeon - the ultimate "Walmart bird"?

That is an ad hominiem attack. Rush Limbaugh is a right wing wacko who is a big reason why our middle class

is buying into the BS that lowering taxes on wealthy will solve our problems. He is disgusting.

Just because I view things differently than the mainstream climate folks...and still yet believe in GHG climate change...

still invites such attacks.

By the way, I am an operational meteorologist for 21 years published many papers on weather...have a

MS in meteorology too and have taken many climate courses including one recently at the graduate level just to learn...

not for any degree. And oh yeah...I got an A and was the top student in the class.

I have been monitoring our climate since the 80s. So don't write me off as a non climate scientist. I understand to a very

high degree how the atmosphere and climate system works including radiative tranfer. My GPA for my BS was 3.92 and for my MS was

3.95 while working a full time job and raising kids and I went to PSU a very tough program!!! I also authored a landmark paper on forecasting

heavy snowstorms that still gets referenced today. So don't write me off as just a meteorologist that knows squat about climate.

That is condescending. I remember when all the meteorologist who couldn't hack the hard core math changed majors and

became climatology majors back in the 80s! It is a lot different now and there are very very smart people working in climo

studies. So I take nothing away from their intelligence now...it is totally different. Some of the best and brightest students

go into climate studies and there is heavy duty math now....

Also I am an avid bird watcher and it kills me to see all these wind farms ruining habitat and killing many many birds.

There are very inefficient and not able to sustain themselves without government subsidies.

Yes I don't agree with the mining practice either and that pisses me off too. But coal, oil and natural gas

is the way to go for now until a better cost effective alternative is available unless we want too go

back to the 1800s....many many people would suffer and die. I know some of the radical left would

like to see the earth's population crash...humans are the scourge or cancer of the Earth according to them.

So let climate change happen and kills billions....

Man is this f'ed up.... you people have no clue what cutting back CO2 emissions would do to the world's economy

and our standard of living. I want my kids to enjoy a middle class existence not excessive just what they need.

anyway...this is a feudal argument.

I suppose it was..........but telling us collectively that stopping AGW is not worth redirecting economic activity (especially when such redirection is an economic PLUS) is outrageously counter to the facts (in a rather Rush - ite way) - and did rather invite derision.

Mea culpa then........I maintain that your opinion as stated is factually without support and logically flawed, but I take back implications that you are unfit to discuss the point.

BTW - its "futile", not "feudal"

But please don't wipe out the world's economies!!!! It's bad enough already....

Blizzard, take some advice: Stick to forecasting local Wx

You have a red tag - presumably you can do that well enough.

But complaining about wind farms killing birds in a world where whole mountaintops are being removed to mine coal tells me that you'd better leave the "big picture" stuff to others.

And I don't mean Rushbo.

The ESAS is definitely at risk with this storm, but I wonder about another possible source.

The water off the Yukon coast has seen Mediterranean like temperatures in the past weeks. The sea is shallow and was probably inundated about the same time as the ESAS. and there is a lot of buried Methane.

The last few days have seen 3M waves riding 2M swells mixing the water, so some of that surface heat is reaching the shallow bottom.

The ESAS is at least being monitored. What about the Mackenzie Delta Basin?

Terry

Hi Terry,

The heat may be less of an issue than the pressure.........see my post at Nevens.

An interesting graph by Yurganov

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/AIRS_CH4%20_2002-2012.pdf

I'm not convinced that much of the 'blue ice' we're seeing isn't the result of methane being gobbled by beasties beneath the ice. This winter we should have plenty of time to review the MODIS images to see if blue ice isn't most prominent in known methane rich locals.

Terry

The "blue ice" phenomenon is interesting - at first I though it was regional (limited to fast ice and kettle lakes in the Lena Delta region), then it became clear that much of the CAA has it as well. Lots of Greenland glaciers too.

But look at the uploaded file of the Ob'/Taz estuaries as they melted recently (fair weather, 5/28 to 6/9).

The ice starts as gray - turns white before melting and assumes a bluish cast only just before the final melt (last frame - Ob' only)

So the blue ice does after all have an important regional component, which would favor the involvement of CH4 release (or the blooming of CH4 eating microbiota).

I'd have thought the lower Ob' would have LOTS of CH4, though.

Geologic methane seeps along boundaries of Arctic permafrost thaw and melting glaciers

http://www.nature.co...l/ngeo1480.html

"These seeps were characterized by anomalously high methane fluxes, and in Alaska by ancient radiocarbon ages and stable isotope values that matched those of coal bed and thermogenic methane accumulations."

This seems to be the money quote.

The release of LIA era CH4 from the Greenland sites may not be of great consequence, since Greenland has not exactly been a compost heap for the past 500 years.

However, they seem to have direct evidence that ancient CH4 is being released from melting permafrost in Alaska. Since there could be a very great deal of methanogenic C in/under that permafrost - and since the CH4 from those deposits may have been generating it and then trapping it for thousands of years, there would seem to be some cause for concern......

The central arctic farted.

I'd like to know how the Greenland Ice cap farts - at least the southern part. Isn't it too soon to see any kind of melt there? Or is it now supporting CH4-producing bacteria that can be metabolically active below freezing and beneath this last winter's snowpack.

Inquiring minds, you know......

Also, those images would impress me more if they extended the scale beyond 1870ppm

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-earth-042711-105329

New paper out concluding that the high rate of CO2 release combined with the resulting ocean acidification that we are seeing today is best comparable with the Permian mass extinction - the largest of them all.

The role of acidification and deep ocean anoxia is important, because it suggests that the base of the food chain - ocean invertebrates - may be threatened much more now than during more recent high CO2 episodes (e.g. the PETM), which came on more gradually.

This isn't only about CH4, but its implications are certainly not good - hence the post in this thread.

shameful.... Terrorism and the methane in the ESAS are not comparable. You should be called out and shunned for this terrible judgement.

MauMau tactics of the worst kind.

I like the shunning, though.

Were you Cotton Mather in a previous life?

Well, it's obviously coming from the Clathrates.

Friv, the clathrate story, as you say, is unsettling enough.

I've decided that it is just too unclear to say much about that without better data, which should be available soon.

But the link I posted suggested that release from clathrates couldn't be responsible for the low level emission of CH4 from wide areas of the ocean surface, since the CH4 would be exposed to seawater and would be converted to CO2 before it reached the surface.

The CH4 clathrate outgassing would be seen only as the "fountains" described by Semelitov and Sharapova in the ESAS, since only in this way would it escape oxidation by the seawater.

Broad, low-level CH4 emergence from the ocean surface can be expected only if:

a) the water has become saturated and maximally acidified by clathrate CH4, and thus incapable of converting it to CO2, or

the CH4 is actually being produced locally at the ocean surface by micro-organisms.

Possibility B is bad enough, since it suggests that there is a whole new source of CH4 that we haven't yet accounted for.

It's better than A, though.

You should be ashamed to compare methane release to one of the biggest tragedy's in American history, 9/11.

You should be ashamed to pretend that the death toll of 9/11 is not trivial compared to the one we will bear from AGW.

Good Godwin!

You are 100% correct.

OK, but one threat is a lot bigger in overall magnitude than the other.

How many planes would have to be hijacked and flown into buildings per year to generate the same aggregate death toll that will be generated by 115 degree heat waves lasting 3 weeks at a time or more (to mention only one of the better characterized risks of AGW)?

That will be happening pretty soon at the rate we're going, methane or no methane.

What we're doing now (nothing) is a hell of a lot WORSE for our collective safety than materially aiding terrorists.

OK, I'll edit too........

Peer review is unnecessary for detecting the presence of large fish in our milk supply.............

idk... A large portion typically means most of it... From what I hear there are massive amounts down there. I was looking for peer reviewed papers that suggest most of that methane is unstable enough to be released in the next 100 years.

This suggests that we have more of a difference in attitude toward uncertainty than we may with the facts themselves (as they are known,) at least in regard to the CH4 question.

If I knew there was a high likelihood that massive amounts of CH4 would be released from the ESAS in the next 100 years, I'd be terrified. But the uncertainty around the question makes the risk impossible to assess accurately just now. As it is, I'm very much concerned that this MIGHT be true.

You seem to be not worried at all unless there is "peer reviewed evidence" that the catastrophe is going to happen, never mind all of the circumstantial indications that there is real (if unquantifiable) risk of this.

I can't understand this. The same approach to the terrorism risk after 9/11 would have us giving free flying lessons and plane tickets to all members of Al Qaeda..........

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120422.html

This is weird, and unsettling if true.

NASA has detected CH4 coming from the ocean in the Arctic - seems to be leaking out from under the icepack.

They do not think it is from the seabed, as the sites sampled were relatively deep.

I thought that the ocean would fairly efficiently turn any CH4 produced into CO2, no?

If not, then it could be a bit of a problem.

Where the hell is it coming from - jellyfish?

This is not bad.

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/03/18/2116357/as-natural-gas-production-grows.html

This story raises a question that has been bothering me a bit, but according to your map there doesn't seem to be a correlation between highly "fracked" areas and CH4 levels.

But WTF is going on in the Sea of Okhotsk, and in Russia generally?

We seam to have missed discussing this.

http://www.huffingto..._b_1256215.html

That seems to be a good summary of the ESAS situation, and doesn't change my position on this:

1) Could be scary

2) Has too much company in possible AGW scariness for me to sweat it now

3) Too many variables to figure out whether it actually IS scary, leading me back to 2

One possible issue: I didn't see a discussion of the possible local depletion of OH- ion, which is consumed in the conversion of CH4 to CO2.

If the ESAS has been bubbling methane for a while now without the methane showing up in the atmosphere, presumably it has been converted to CO2 in the water before it could emerge as methane. This suggests possible future scariness if the CH4 release persists, which seems likely given the size of the source and the likely future temperature trend.

This has been raised in the "methane scenario" of the Permian/Triassic mass extinction, and might be worthy of discussion here.

S&S Heading back out in March

In March of this year, along with international collaborators, Natalia and I are conducting another research expedition, to a methane “hot spot” that we have located off the coast of the Laptev Sea in Siberia.

http://www.iarc.uaf....-igor-semiletov

Wow - I hope they keep that drill bit well cooled.

I'd hate it if we had to start awarding a Heisenberg Award alongside the Darwin Award........

While methane clathrates and thawing permafrost are major concerns of climate science, I don't share the immediate concern implied by the thread title. Does there appear to be some escalation in methane release from certain areas? The evidence I have been presented indicates...maybe. This is one area of research which will require additional information to be placed into proper context.

The threat is very real, but the more immediate concern is CO2 and inevitable rise in temperature it is producing. That rise in temperature is what will destabilize the locked up methane clathrates and the rotting of plant material frozen in the permafrost.

I agree completely.

I think that the differences among many of us are ones of communication - essentially word choice - more than anything else.

Obviously the threats from CO2 are far better defined than any posed by CH4 release, and people should say so.

That said, the CH4 threat does have a "high upside" potential (even if it is from a low base) which deserves exploration, if only because it is interesting.

It would be nice to be able to explore subjects like this without constantly having to parry accusations of "alarmism" from posters who want to establish their cred with the denial crowd. Such people should know that this is impossible - those guys are impervious to rational argument, and some of them are being paid to disrupt it - see my new thread on evidence for this.....

Well, you're probably right since it is clear that he is not on speaking terms with reality. But the major reason I write is to provide info for the new readers who may not realize what a troll he is. Hopefully they still have a genuine interest in learning the truth.

That's great if you can stand it....after a while it depresses me, so I skip them.

Actually, I can't tell that you get anything at all - 'clueless' is the kindest description for your posts. Certainly your backward interpretation of Terry's post is a good example.

The various posters who have pointed out the seriousness and inevitability of global ice melting and the cosequencial sea level rise don't want it to happen - we are trying to wake people up to the reality that unless we reduce GHG emissions it is going to happen - and, in fact, a strong case can be made that it has already started. How about a quick review of the facts:

1. Fact - global temperatures have been rising for more than a century
   
2. Fact - global ice is melting
   
3. Fact - there is ample ice in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to raise sea levels more than 10 meters if the melting continues.
   
4. Fact - the global ice melting will continue until a new equilibrium is reached or until the ice is gone.
   
5. Fact - under BAU we will continue to dump gigatons of GHGs into the atmosphere, pushing the global temperatures higher than today's temperature
   
6. Fact - the cost of adapting or mitigating several meters of coastal inundation in America and worldwide will be staggering.
   

Which of those facts do you either not understand or dispute? All of them can be supported with data so just let us know where your confusion lies and we'll help clear it up.

And the only fact that we have any control over is number 5. We can change that amount of GHGs we emit. I'm not saying that would be easy, or inexpensive, But the first four facts are observed data and basic physics.

The people who face facts are simply being realistic. Nothing in their actions implies that they want the consequences to occur. But those who deny the facts, or who choose wilful ingorance instead of facing the facts - well, those people are acting in a fashion consistent with wanting, or at least not caring whether, the disaster to occur.

So - what are you doing to keep sea level rise from occuring? How are you proving you care about those who would be affected by sea level rise? Posting snark and ill-considered opinions, which is all we've seen from you, seems pretty lame. But maybe that's all you're capable of.

Phillip - I think you are wasting your time with him. I found using the Ignore button to have great utility...it improved my mood at once.