PhillipS
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Start with the opening post for this thread and read the first page of responses - that will give you a good start. And links to papers related to arctic methane releases are scattered throughout the thread.
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Ah, I think I see the source of your confusion - you need to understand the distinction between alarming and alarmism, Reading reports that Russian scientists are observing a large increase in the rate of methane release - is alarming. Running around screaming that the world is ending - that's alarmism. Nobody is doing that here. All clear now? BTW - your Nom de Blog is a good one, very appropriate. Blue Sky - empty and devoid of anything of interest. An inspired choice.
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I feel that you're misreading the RC column - they are not saying the we can ignore the issue of methane releases. From my reading of the RC column they are saying that the worst-case scenarios have not materialized. The issue is serious, but not yet catastrophic. So the difference between the RC blog and the thread here is more a matter of degree of severity. Now if you have any real contribution to add to the thread, say, a legitimate scientist whose research comes to different conclusions - we'd love for you to share the link to the paper. But your snark really doesn't add as much as you obviously think it does.
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The scale is shown at the bottom beginning at 1 minute into the video. The scale ranges from just under 1600 ppb to just over 1900 ppb. So the short-terms spikes over 2400 ppb recorded at Barrow (such as the one in 2004) were off the scale. And probably too localized to see on the global map.
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I just heard back from the ESRL webmaster on the issue of why some plots from Barrow showed high methane readings while other plots didn't. Here's the response: Thanks for your questions regarding methane at Barrow. The reason for the differences in the graphs with the high two data points is due to a couple of things. The graphs of data for the entire time span are created beforehand, whereas the plots for the other time span options are created on the fly when the user asks for them. In this case for Barrow methane, the high data points have been determined to be invalid samples, due to some type of sampling or measurement problem, and were 'flagged' in the database as bad samples. But this flagging occurred after the pre-generated graph was made. So they showed up on the the plot of all the data, but not on the plots of other time spans. The pre-generated plots were updated yesterday, and now the plot of all the methane data for Barrow no longer shows those two high points. This is a good example of why any data points that are plotted in orange are considered preliminary, because it is possible that the quality control steps on the data have not been done yet, and invalid samples may be displayed but later will be fixed. The date on the lower right corner of the graph is the date that the graph was created. Kirk Thoning NOAA/ESRL/GMD Webmaster So as several posters suggested the anomalously high readings were just that - anomalies. Which have now been flagged and removed. The two lessons learned, for me anyway, are not to get too excited about provisional data, and that the NOAA QA process works.
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I see what you are saying about the dates on the bottom of the graphs - so you may be correct. Would you agree that there is a conflict between the various Barrow CH4 plots that will have to be resolved by the ESRL webmaster? I'll contact him and post his response (and, of course, you're welcome to contact him too). Until we hear back with a definitive answer from him my suggestion is we table the issue. Monday is a federal holiday so I don't expect to hear anything until Tuesday at the earliest. BTW - I looked at CO2 adn CH4 plots from other ESRL observatories and they show a spectrum of dates. Don't know what, if anything, that means.
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It seems that you are the one who is confused. Here is the long term CH4 plot from Barrow as of 12/31/2011: The high methane readings are there. Now here's this year's plot, also from 12/31/2011: The anomalous high readings are shown on this one, too. So why are you claiming that the readings are obviously not correct? Granted, they are shown in orange to indicate that they are still provisional, but that's a big difference from saying that they are incorrect. Also, be aware that if you are trying to use the "Some - a subset of the available data" option on the ESRL webpage - it is a bit buggy and may not plot all data points. But that's an issue for you to take up with the webmaster if it bothers you.
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I never said you made it up, I said it is not recent. A huge difference. Christy et al 2011 is not recent by any stretch of the term - it is old news and has been thorougly debunked. You claimed in clear, unambiguous language that there is "New peer reviewed literature by John Christy and Roy Spencer". All you have to do to put this whole issue to rest is to provide the link to the paper(s) you were referring to. Were you telling the truth (in which case you can easily provide the links) or was your claim a complete fabrication? If you understand the scientific method at all you know that all claims require supporting data. You have not provided the data to support your claim so you have failed to follow the scientific method. Even a child (or teenager) could understand that, and that is the failure I referred to.
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You claimed that there is new peer-reviewed literature - none of the papers Dr Spencer referenced are new. So you still haven't backed up your assertion. Another FAIL on your part. And failing to produce data to back up an assertion is certainly defying the scientific method.
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You're correct no methane spike was seen at Alert in early December, but look at the altitude bar. The Siberian air crossed Alert at about 15,000 feet on 12/3 and it crossed Barrow at about 3,000 feet. That possibly made a difference. Look at the long-term trend you posted for Alert - I count at least nine episodes of anomalously high readings at Alert since observations began in 1985. That seems consistent with plumes periodically passing over the observatory there. COntrast that with the methane record for Samoa, the observatory farthest from the arctic: Not a single anomalously high high methane reading over the same period. I suspect that's because methane is well mixed by the time it reaches Samoa.
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One of the cool features of the ESRL site is that you can select any of the observatories and see what air they were sampling on a given day. The Summit, Greenland, plot for 12/3/2011 (the same day Terry posted earlier for Barrow) is: Notice that Summit was sampling air that had traveled from Scandinavia ten days earlier. Nothing from Siberia. Now, methane plumes have been reported from the seafloor near Svalbard but they are small enough to diffuse into the water column before reaching the surface. No boiling sea effect and no plume to cause readings to spike upwards. Here's an image from another report on Svalbard:
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I confess it took me a bit to understand these plots so perhaps I can help. They're pretty cool really. If I'm reading them correctly, they are a 'backtrack' of the air over Barrow on a particular day. They are generated from met data. In the plots shown for 12/3/2011, if a weather balloon (or high methane concentration) was observed at Barrow on that day we can have good confidence that its journey originated from Siberia ten days before. Or somewhere along the paths shown less than ten days earlier. This sort of plot is particularly useful for determining the source of transient phenomona such as the alarming methane spikes this thread is discussing. If the plots showed that Barrow was measuring air from, say, Greenland then it might mean that the reported Siberian methane releases are only part of a larger problem, i.e. methane deposits throughout the arctic are beginning to destabilize. Instead they appear to correlate with the reported ESAS releases, and other observatories aren't seeing similar spikes, so perhaps we're looking at a regional issue instead a massive methane belch. On the other hand, the long-term methane record from Barrow shows a number of anomalously high episodes so possibly we're just now understanding a serious development tha't been unfolding for years.
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In my opinion you are correct in saying that everyone should be skeptical - all I would add is to not limit one's skepticism to just the bad news. Mistakes get made in both directions. Sensors go bad, operators screw up and so forth. But keep in mind that all NOAA observatories (including Barrow) have rigorous QA procedures because nobody benefits from posting data and then having to retract it. As for your question about why only Barrow is showing the high CH4 readings - as others have pointed out, Barrow is the observatory closest to the reported seafloor releases. And although CH4 is a well-mixed GHG,there will still be a plume with higher concentrations downwind from the emission site. (Similar in many ways to the emission plume downwind of a coal-fired power plant.) As with all plumes, the CH4 emissions will spread out and diffuse as they travel further from their vents. Keep in mind, too, that CH4 is lighter than air so the plume will rise as well as dissipate with distance from the source. Which, to me, is why it's not surprising that other arctic observatories, such as Summit, Greenland, don't show an identical spike in CH4 readings. I would expect elevated CH4 levels to be observable from aircraft, and that is exactly what the HIPPO flights reported. When we look at the long term record for Barrow we see that there have been a number of previous episodes of anomalous high CH4 readings which typically have lasted a month or so. This latest episode has only lasted a few weeks so far so it's too early to tell if it follows historic patterns. But even if it does that doesn't mean we can ignore the issue of destabilizing CH4 deposits. There is simply too much potential for disaster to be complacent.
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You're right - and their concerns are legit. Simplistic models, and models with very coarse resolution (which is a different problem) are limited in what they can tell you, and in how much confidence you can have in their output. This is not to say that models, even simple models, aren't useful - it's just important to understand their limitations and caveats.
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Thank you for the link to the research paper. Not being an AGU member and being too cheap to buy the full article I can only read the abstract, but it seems to me that there is more meat to the paper than there was to the Colin Schultz EOS article you originally linked to. However, I still have concerns about the simplistic permafrost model they used since we know from measurements that the actual methane hydrate deposits are more complex than that. And I am skeptical of their conclusions that today's methane release is simply the continuation of a process that began 8K years ago. The current CH4 values are around 1900 ppb and rising. Here's a plot of the full instrumental record at Barrow AK. As we can see, the atmospheric methane levels have risen from around 1700 ppb in 1983 to today's 1900 ppb. Which works out to a rate of increase of 200 ppb in 28 years, or about 7 ppb/year. Extrapolating back the 8K years at a constant rate would indicate that the Earth had an atmospheric methane level of -54,000 ppb at the start of this interglacial - if their conclusions are correct. Hmmm, a negative CH4 concentration seems a bit questionable. Well, some of the observed methane increase is from AGW so let's split the observed CH4 increase into natural and AGW. Picking values out of thin air, let's assume 99% (6.93 ppb/year) of the observed increase is from AGW and 1% (0.07 ppb/year) is from the natural process proposed by the paper's authors. This time for the extrapolation I'll assume 150 years of AGW methane release in addition to the 8K years of natural CH4 release. I come up with a combined AGW and natural release of 1600 ppb which when subtracted from today's readings gives a starting concentration of around 300 ppb. That's a lot easier to believe than -54,000 ppb if all of the release is natural. Now, before people start beating on me, my assumptions above are just a back of the envelope math exercise and only meant to illustrate how to be an honest skeptic and use available data to assess a paper's assertions. The data available today, limited though it may be, indicates that CH4 release is increasing as a consequence of AGW so anybody claiming otherwise has to show some solid evidence as to how this could be natural.
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That is an interesting article, but please understand that it was not, and will not, be peer-reviewed. It was published in EOS, the weekly AGU newpaper and not in one of the AGU research journals. As expressed on the AGU.org website: Eos is a newspaper, not a research journal. Furthermore: Eos does not consider or accept manuscripts that have previously been published or that are being considered by other publications. Which is not to say that it is automatically flawed, just that it is one journalist's opinion and not research. One thing that struck me when I read the abstract was the author's simplistic model of the methane deposits being 200 meters below the seafloor. That is simply not true and is very easy to debunk. The depth of the hydrate deposits, and the thickness of the overlying sediments (including permafrost if persent), vary considerably - with the methane hydrate deposits actually being exposed to seawater in some places. Here's a pic fyi: The presentation TerryM linked to is a much better explanation of the situation off the coast of Siberia.
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It appears that the datapoints plotted represent weekly methane readings. For most of 2011 the values were relatively stable around 1900 ppb. The last two readings, 2175 and 2200 ppb, are roughly 15% higher. Which would certainly be alarming if they represent a massive methane release. But, as others have pointed out, there's just not enough data. If you look at the longer term record you'll see a number of outliers among the datapoints. I have no idea what causes the abnormal readings but given that they are taken at Barrow, AK, I'm pretty sure that they're not cow farts as LEK suggested. Reindeer farts, maybe. My suggestion is to continue to monitor the news and journals for fresh info as it becomes available. And to continue to expose misinformation and sloppy thinking whenever you find it.
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Does anyone know whether the GHG effect of methane is linear (double the gas concentration has double the effect), or logarithmic like CO2 (each doubling of the gas concentration has the same increase in effect)?
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Methane releases can happen, and have happened, for natural reasons - but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of humans triggering a massive methane release in the near term. Clathrates, frozen methane hydrates, can be found in many places around the world, for example in the Gulf of Mexico, and can be stable for eons so long as the temperature and pressure are correct. The massive methane deposits along the arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, and Canada are in relatively shallow waters so it is primarily temperature that keeps them stable. AGW is increasing the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) for the arctic, so some clathrate deposits are approaching instability. A recent paper on the topic: Simulation of Arctic Gas Hydrate Dissociation in Response to Climate Change: Basin-Scale Assessment And an excerpt from the abstract: Paleooceanographic evidence has been used to postulate that methane from oceanic hydrates may have had a significant role in regulating climate. However, the behavior of contemporary oceanic methane hydrate deposits subjected to rapid temperature changes, like those now occurring in the arctic and those predicted under future climate change scenarios, has only recently been investigated. Field investigations have discovered substantial methane gas plumes exiting the seafloor along the Arctic Ocean margin, and the plumes appear at depths corresponding to the upper limit of a receding gas hydrate stability zone. It has been suggested that these plumes may be the first visible signs of the dissociation of shallow hydrate deposits due to ongoing climate change in the arctic. Unfortunately, the full paper is behind a paywall, but a search with Google Scholar turns up a number of relevant papers. WinterWxLuvr, adaptation isn't a quick, or inexpensive, process - and history is full of examples of civilizations collapsing from their failure to adapt to changes. The longer we continue BAU, the more GHGs we dump into the atmosphere, the less time and resources wil be available for the inevitable attempt to adapt. The era of cheap energy is unsustainable because fossil fuels are finite. So the question becomes do we look ahead to the future and make the needed transition soon, or do we ignore reality, put off the inevitable shift from fossil fuels until a full-blown crisis develops, and hope that we've left enough resources for our descendants to hold civilization together? Are we smart enough to be conservatives in the original sense - conserving resources for future generations?
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Having read the back and forth in this thread, I think it's time for all parties to switch to decaf. Vergent, thank you for posting the link to the article. It is interesting and alarming - but it's just a news article. It's not peer-reviewed science . . . heck, it's not even non-peer-reviewed science. It is a news article which was written to grab the readers' attention. And I confess it did so. I hope all parties can agree that before anybody can assess how significant and serious this methane release is we need real data. We don't know the extent of the venting, the amount of methane being released, or (worst case) whether this is an indication that the massive arctic methane deposits are becoming unstable. Hopefully the Russian researhers will publish their results soon. Until then it is largely pointless to speculate. Methane leaks are not new - you can search youtube and find lots of alarming videos. Here's the url to a video of in the summer of 2007. If the newly discovered vents are reaching the surface I expect they look like a larger version of these vents. And here's a video on 'The Door to Hell', a methane leak that's been burning for over thirty years.For those skeptical and denialist posters who keep singing "Don't worry, be happy!" - you might want to do some reading on Extinction Events and how methane releases have been implicated in several of them. Wikipedia has a good article on the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis which provides link for further reading. Here's an excerpt from that article: One exception, however, may be in clathrates associated with the Arctic ocean, where clathrates can exist in shallower water stabilized by lower temperatures rather than higher pressures; these may potentially be marginally stable much closer to the surface of the sea-bed, stabilized by a frozen 'lid' of permafrost preventing methane escape. Recent research carried out in 2008 in the Siberian Arctic has shown millions of tons of methane being released, apparently through perforations in the seabed permafrost,[11] with concentrations in some regions reaching up to 100 times normal.[12][13] 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.[14] Current methane release has previously been estimated at 0.5 Mt per year.[15] Shakhova et al. (2008) estimate that not less than 1,400 Gt of carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, and 5–10% of that area is subject to puncturing by open taliks. They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve,[16][17] equivalent in greenhouse effect to a doubling in the current level of CO2. Remember, these methane vents are in addition to the warming caused by our fossil fuel use so if the article is true we could see a much larger rise in global temperatures over the next few decades. So, for now, let's see what the researchers can tell us. I think we'll still have time for panic if it's warranted.
