TerryM

An interesting comment at Neven's theorizes that Aug & Sept CH4 levels pack additional punch in the Arctic because the low solar angle forces photons through much more of the GHG polluted atmosphere. 

Terry

I believe the downturn then flattening of CH4 is usually ascribed to the chaotic period following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Whether CH4 levels are following or driving global temperature rise might make an interesting subject by itself.

Howard predicates his argument on the concept that at ~ 2C runaway feedbacks occur causing additional warming. Hansen and colleges see the danger at +1.8C with S&S even lower.

If CH4 pushes us to one of these tipping points in 10 years or 20 years the 100 year GWP of CH4 obviously isn't of concern.

The IPCC's latest figures are 10yr - 108, 20 yr - 86 and 100yr - 34 times the GHG value of CO2. Shindell et al don't provide 10 year figures but for 20 and 100yr horizons they arrive at figures of 105 and 33 respectively. 

Howard quotes the IPCC:

 The IPCC further concludes that at the 10-year timescale, the current global release of methane from all anthropogenic sources exceeds (slightly) all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions as agents of global warming; that is, methane emissions are more important (slightly) than carbon dioxide emissions for driving the current rate of global warming. At the 20-year timescale, total global emissions of methane are equivalent to over 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

and notes that while long term climate change is driven by CO2 the immediate response is to CH4 and black carbon.

He then quotes Shindell's report which was accepted by the UN in 2012:

 unless emissions of methane and black carbon are reduced immediately, the Earth's average surface temperature will warm by 1.5°C by about 2030 and by 2.0°C by 2045 to 2050 whether or not carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.

His fear is that one of the tipping points will be reached within a 20 year time frame making the 100 year responses moot.

Seeing the CH4 increases since 2010 and attributing them to recent fracking in the States he believes that we could reach 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2035. My own fear is based on the probability that, particularly in the light of the Ukraine situation, Europe will embrace widespread fracking & they won't be any better at capturing emissions than the US has been.

Long Term the problem is certainly CO2. If a tipping point is reached because of CH4 and black carbon the long term doesn't matter.

all quotes from from

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/ese3.35#ese335-bib-0034

Terry

My bad.

The correct linkage is below

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/ese3.3

As Chubbs pointed out it compares the damage done by NG losses and finds that even coal is a preferable heat source,

Terry

A new paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/ese3.

shows that leakage from fracking operations may be so extensive that rather than using the 100yr equivalent figures for CH4 to CO2 the much higher 20yr figures will come into play.

The paper is not long and it's an easy read.

Terry

Where is everyone posting over there. Its pretty dead from what I see. Is there a forum like this?

You probably lost the thread in the 1,500,000 + hits since the site started this Feb. You can usually keep up with everything if you devote an hour or so to it each day.

A few years ago this was an active site hosting more than a few active threads with good information being passed back and forth. Today I spend far more time at Neven's.

Terry

Nice to see this thread has resurfaced. Vergent, now over at Neven's Forum, has posted an interesting finding that the "blow out vents" which we worried about when they expanded from 10M to a 1 kM size are now reported to be 150 kM across.

A shame that some of the best posters have moved on to other sites.

Terry

The HTM also occurred relatively shortly after the ESAS was inundated. According to S&S the thermal pulse from that shock warming has been traveling downward ever since. I assume that the Mackenzie Delta Region and other shallow Arctic basins suffer the same conditions.

We're talking about two separate heat pulses, the one that occurred as water levels rose & the modern one, both squeezing the permafrost & hydrate cap from above against the geo-heating from below. Add in a Storegga event or two to stir things up (check the Pingo features) & we've got real problems.

We haven't reached HTM conditions yet, at least in Greenland, but could in very short order. When Flade Isblink melts out (It was -10 yesterday ~20C above normal), all bets are off.

Skier

Not following the 3 km comment- we're in very shallow waters.

Terry

Chris R has a nice piece at

http://dosbat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/something-wicked-this-way-comes.html

He discounts the possibility of a major methane release based as far as I can tell mainly on the fact that there wasn't one during the HTM and I'm not sure the HTM is comparable.since it was so much closer to the time that the ESAS was inundated.

I think he's a little optimistic but he provides plenty of sources and is definitely worth a read.

Terry

http://www.nature.co...t-found-1.11988

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

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

http://www.unep.org/pdf/permafrost.pdf

A UN report on permafrost

Terry

Steve

Could I ask the subject of you presentation?

Terry

Another report from Russia - frankly the reporter messed up the details, but the tenor of the article rings true.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_17/Methane-emissions-in-Arctic-cause-climate-change-catastrophic-effect-expert-says/

Terry

An interesting article that may help bring some up to speed on the methane situation. - things have changed in the last year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-currier/arctic-crisis_b_1859710.html

Terry

New study from University of Vancouver, and an understatement:

"Rather large percentages of existing species become committed to extinction."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/09/11/science-uvic-permafrost-carbon.html

Terry

To be blind to the atmosphere is 'not good'...

http://www.dailycamera.com/science-environment/ci_21453731/scientists-concerned-about-budget-cuts-boulder-based-air

In Canada the cuts have been more dramatic - of course our Minister of Science thinks the world is 6k yrs old.(He's also my local MP & I've spent too much time and effort helping those that run against him)

The drop of in situ sampling was extremely bad, if they stop sampling altogether - disastrous.

I'll probably have to adjust the tin foil hat, but this indicates to me that there's data that's expected to arrive that will scare the heck out of everyone.

Will you be taking in S&S's presentations at the AGU? I'm sure the presentations themselves will be made available, but I'd like to have a feeling for the audience reaction.

Terry

For those of us waiting patiently for words of comfort from S&S (before they make their presentation at the AGU), a publication a that spurious rag Nature has the latest.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11392.html

With a translation for the layman at

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=8640

“Although this is a very remote region thousands of miles from the UK, considering the amount of carbon locked in this permafrost is twice the amount present in the atmosphere as CO2, the scale of the release of both CO2 and methane into the atmosphere will have a huge effect.

“This will have consequences for the temperatures all over the world.”

Was the take away quote.

Terry

That's a question for Rush, Rupert, or the Koch brothers.

Amen

BTW - has anyone looked into the methane situation recently? I foolishly thought it was the topic for this thread.

Terry

i suppose this is the next page in the Heartland Playbook, possibly entitled - Don't Worry, Be Happy

Ntrop has conveniently forgotten to mention a few things.

Farming has been tried in Northern Canada - it failed because of the lack of topsoil - same for Siberia.

The pluvial period in the ANE started with the Mousterian Pluvial (50Kyr BP-20KyrBP) hardly a time of global warmth.

Deaths from heat waves are orders of magnitude larger than deaths from cold snaps.

Could this be yet another iteration of BB?

Terry

I have to agree that this is BS scare mongering. 8000 years ago during the Holocene climatic

optimum the Arctic was 2-4C warmer than today. There is postulated to have been a complete

melt of the Arctic sea ice in summer and the climate rapidly warmed. Why was there not a huge

release of methane that spun the climate out of control with that warm period? The climate

is a self regulating machine with a lot of feedbacks and "states". Yes is could warm...but it

would stabilize at a new equilibrium level. Otherwise, anytime it warms, or cools for that matter,

the climate would spin out of control. We are here now and life abounds on earth BECAUSE

our climate stabilizes. This article and "research" is pure stupidity. Shameful.

Have you researched the source of the ESAS methane at all?

If you had you'd know that Holocene climatic optimum couldn't have had an effect, and if you researched Clathrates along with the Holocene Max you probably would have learned why England is now an island.

Could it be you've been straying over into Watts World, and got confused?

Terry

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

When governments chose to hide the data, it's hard not to assume the worst.

Terry

Vergent

If we just close our eyes it will disappear.

Canada has been shuttering monitoring facilities as rapidly as it can. I had hoped that the US under Obama would resist the urge.

Terry

Has there been any word on S&S's activities this season?

Terry

Chaunskaya Gulf, next to Pevek has gone from blue back to white over the last week. My understanding is that many of the biota have very short life cycles and can imagine a case in which methanophiles gobble the available methane (ice still white), are eaten by phytoplankton getting by on solar radition through the ice (blue ice), which after a relatively short period die off (white ice)and are not able to regrow another bloom due to the absence of methanophiles which can't handle the now oxygenated environment.

If sufficient methane is present the cycle keeps repeating (blue ice), but if a toxin is introduced or if the under ice surface becomes too oxygenated to support the methanophiles, the ice returns to its white state.

Or it could be that a little snow has fallen.

Terry

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