Arctic collapse dramatically increases global warming

[GliderGuider]

Arctic collapse dramatically increases global warming

Parts of Arctic Siberia are releasing ten times more carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, a University of Manchester scientist and an international team of researchers have found.

Writing in Nature, the scientists, led by Stockholm University, discovered that much more greenhouse gas is being released into the atmosphere than previously calculated, from and ancient an large carbon pool held in a permafrost along the 7,000 km desolate coast of northernmost Siberian Arctic – dramatically increasing global warming.

As the temperature climbs carbon, stored in vast ice walls along this Arctic coast called Yedoma, covering about one million km2 (four times the area of the UK), is pouring into the Arctic Ocean in one of the world’s most remote and desolate regions.

This region is experiencing twice the global average of climate warming. While satellite images reveal thousands of kilometers of milky-cloudy waters along the Arctic coast, suggesting a massive influx of material, the Yedoma has remained understudied largely due to the region’s inaccessibility.

Hold on tight now, here we go...

[longship]

1. Methane?

If it's methane that's indeed very worrisome. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. There is a lot of methane trapped in permafrost.

Big positive feedback mechanism.

[GliderGuider]

2. Yep, methane.

Everywhere you look up above the Arctic Circle you see instability of one sort or another. Ice and snow coverage, air temps, water temps, soil temps, melting permafrost, bubbling methane in the lakes and oceans... It really looks like we've passed a bifurcation point hand have entered a new climate regime.

For 5 years I thought Peak Oil and financial collapse were the significant short term threats to civilization, but that climate change would only bite us in the medium or longer term. How wrong can one doomer be?

[Bigmack]

4. "Wrong" is such a STRONG term

I like "misaligned" betta....Maybe we "just" got the main threats out of order?! Ms Bigmack

[GliderGuider]

7. As long as there is at least one credible civilization-busting threat on the horizon

I'll be a happy doomer.

[CRH]

12. I too have long been a peak oil researcher and siren for hard times to come, ...

but I don't totally agree meeting the peak of hydrocarbon usage has misrepresented the theory, or the resulting bleak outlook for humanity. Well before Kyoto, peak oil researchers also recognized the threat to the environment from excessive CO2 and other green house gasses.

The peak oil theory has always centered on the premise that ROI and ROEI would for the most part be an economic limitation, but it also can be said that the cost of using the last of the hydrocarbons beyond peak, can be calculated in the cost of collapsing ecosystems.

Because the environment gave out before the financial viability of hydrocarbons, does not invalidate that the peak in usage had been realized when the earth's safe CO2 saturation capacity, had been reached.

What most researchers didn't realize, was that our 'usage peak' in relation to the delayed CO2 time bomb, was realized well before the economic limitations. When most of us were shouting, our fate had already been realized, just not demonstrated.

One can say the climate collapse is the largest threat we face, but its reality was realized after the 'peak hydrocarbon usage' led to the earth's safe atmospheric GHG saturation capacity, being breached.

edit: for clarity

[GliderGuider]

15. No, I don't think the theory was misrepresented at all.

It's as big of a threat as ever. The mistake I made was in assuming that the effects of climate change would take several decades yet to manifest.

What this means is that the socially visible global impacts of Peak Oil, Climate Change and Financial Collapse are not going to be time-phased at all, but will hit pretty much simultaneously, starting now. On edit: Actually, starting in 2007-2008, given the benefit of hindsight.

[NickB79]

3. Whooopsie! nt

[Gregorian]

5. By the way, when the ice is gone, all of the energy that would go into melting it

will simply go into heating up the planet instead.

I love tourism and cars and babies. Aren't they great We're going to have a billion more of them, soon.

[Speck Tater]

8. Very scary when you think about it.

Add a constant amount of heat to a pan full of ice. Gradually, the ice will melt but the temperature of the water stays very low, close to 0 C. Then, the instant the last of the ice has melted, the temperature of the water starts shooting up rapidly.

Google "latent heat" and "phase transition". It's very scary stuff when applied to polar ice.

[longship]

9. To say nothing about albedo

Sea water absorbs much more heat than ice, which reflects heat back into space. Yet another positive feedback mechanism.

Tipping point anybody?

[Speck Tater]

10. Yes, that's right. I forgot about albedo. nt

[pscot]

6. This is not possible

My TV is still offering me more of everything and happiness ever after. The newsreaders still smile like imbeciles. Surely they wouldn't continue flogging electronic junk and sweetened, caffeinated beverages is we were really on the cusp of disaster?

[Hydra]

11. Check this tidbit out

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.

Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me...?

[Junkdrawer]

13. Bookmark this page... (Methane Emission Monitoring Maps)

Note how the big emissions are in the late fall thru spring....


2012:
https://sites.google.com/site/apocalypse4realmethane2012/home/2012-Arctic-CH4-AIRS-359-hPa-vs-IASI-970-600-mb

2011:
https://sites.google.com/site/apocalypse4realmethane2012/home/2011-airs-ch4-359-hpa-vs-iasi-ch4-970-600-mb

[GliderGuider]

14. Thanks! nt