Tag Archives: Methane

How much CO2 will melting permafrost release? | Summit County Citizens Voice

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Bob Berwyn.–“New study shows soil moisture is a big factor in global warming equation.

“Methane won’t be the only problem as Arctic permafrost thaws in the coming decades. A new study shows that, as frozen permafrost areas warm and dry out, they will also release more CO2. The study was led by Northern Arizona University assistant research professor Christina Schädel and published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“The findings show that a 10 degree Celsius increase in soil temperature released twice as much carbon into the atmosphere, and drier, aerobic soil conditions released more than three times more carbon than wetter, anaerobic soil conditions.

“Our results show that increasing temperatures have a large effect on carbon release from permafrost but that changes in soil moisture conditions have an even greater effect,” said Schädel. “We conclude that the permafrost carbon feedback will be stronger when a larger percentage of the permafrost zone undergoes thaw in a dry and oxygen-rich environment.”

“The study was part of an ongoing effort to quantify greenhouse gas releases from thawing permafrost, a critical part of the global warming equation because so much carbon is currently locked up in frozen organic soils in the Arctic. Much of the data came from the international Permafrost Carbon Network that Schädel co-leads with Northern Arizona University professor of ecosystem ecology, Ted Schuur.”  Continue reading:  How much CO2 will melting permafrost release? | Summit County Citizens Voice

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Doomsday revisited: will warming deprive us of oxygen?

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“Global warming has triggered an array of apocalyptic scenarios for future generations, from worsening drought, storms and floods to melted icesheets and rising seas.”  From: phys.org

GR:  According to the article, greenhouse emissions continuing without reduction or a sudden release of methane could eliminate the phytoplankton that produces most of our oxygen. Curtains.

Demonstrate for an End to Global Warming

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Climate-change demonstrations show our leaders that we want them to take steps to stop global warming. We must also ask our leaders to change the human activities that are causing climate change.

  1. We want them to block corporate control over our government and the decisions it makes.
  2. We want them to end international sales of weapons and begin to encourage peace and a focus on life style and resource use.
  3. We want them to discourage unsustainable resource harvests.
  4. We want them to encourage human rights and equality.
  5. We want them to speak out for wild animals and natural ecosystems.
  6. We want them to call for restoring the damaged lands and seas.
  7. And finally, we want them to oppose gender inequality and overpopulation.

Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, activities causing climate change would continue. Farming, deforestation, industrial fishing, desertification, construction, and growth of the human population would continue to waste the Earth and release CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

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Global warming will be faster than expected.

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“Global warming will progress faster than what was previously believed. The reason is that greenhouse gas emissions that arise naturally are also affected by increased temperatures. This has been confirmed in a new study that measures natural methane emissions.

“Everything indicates that global warming caused by humans leads to increased natural greenhouse gas emissions. Our detailed measurements reveal a clear pattern of greater methane emissions from lakes at higher temperatures,” says Sivakiruthika Natchimuthu, doctoral student at Tema Environmental Change, Linköping University, Sweden, and lead author of the latest publication on this topic from her group.”  From: nuclear-news.net

GR:  More bad news.  (Just had to include the book cover somewhere.)

Permafrost: hiding a climate time bomb?

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“On the front line of climate change in the Canadian Arctic, scientists hunt for clues to a potentially catastrophic global warming trend: melting permafrost.

“On the rolling landscape of shrubs and moss around Hudson Bay, they probe the once impenetrable ground now thawing in places due to global warming.

“Teams are measuring the soil’s carbon content, temperature, pace of melt and the resulting release of once-trapped greenhouse gases.

“There is twice as much carbon in permafrost than in the atmosphere,” said Florent Domine, a researcher with France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).”  From: phys.org

GR:  This can’t be mentioned too often:  Permafrost is starting to melt at higher than normal rates. The concern is how fast the melting will accelerate.  At present it is a minor contributor of greenhouse gas (methane), but if our current rate of warming accelerates, permafrost melting and methane release could speed up. This would speed up global warming and further accelerate permafrost melting in an unstoppable upward spiral.

Research links tundra fires, thawing permafrost

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Wildfires on Arctic tundra can contribute to widespread permafrost thaw much like blazes in forested areas, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the online journal Scientific Reports.  From: phys.org

GR:  The real concern here is that the fires are growing larger than in the past. Methane released by melting permafrost, coupled with increasing green-house gasses from deforestation, farming, and energy production, may accelerate the rate of forecast climate change.

Study of huge Siberian craters shows Giant Pool of Methane below them

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In recent years, scientists have been baffled by a number of mysterious giant holes that have formed in Siberia.

Intrigued as to what was causing this peculiar natural phenomenon, a group of scientists from the respected Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics, in Novosibirsk, Russia, set-out on an expedition to unearth their mysteries.

The scientists, including Dr Igor Yeltsov, deputy director of the institute, conducted a range of experiments at Yamal hole, in northern Siberia – one of the biggest and most famous newly-formed craters to be found in recent years.

Prior to these experiments, scientists had not previously had the opportunity to study the cause and effect of the craters – a unique natural occurrence – in such detail.

Upon the formation of the Yamal hole – which is up to 60 metres in depth – speculation was rife amongst the media and scientific community, sparking a flurry of theories ranging from UFOs, to stray missiles, to meteorites.

But what Dr Igor and his group of scientists found was a far more distressing explanation of the natural event.  More at:  www.dailykos.com

GR:  Earlier statements attributed the craters to common seasonal melting permafrost or embedded ice rather than methane eruptions.  Eruptions are far more worrying than melting ice, because methane is a powerful green-house gas that could accelerate global warming.

Is Human Warming Prodding A Sleeping Methane Monster off Oregon’s Coast?

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“We’ve talked quite a bit about the Arctic Methane Monster — the potential that a rapidly warming Arctic will force the release of disproportionately large volumes of methane from organic material locked in permafrost and in frozen sea bed hydrates composing volumes of this powerful greenhouse gas large enough to significantly increase the pace of human-forced global warming. But if we consider the globe as a whole, the Arctic isn’t the only place where large methane stores lurk — laying in wait for the heat we’ve already added to the world’s oceans and atmosphere to trigger their release. And a new study out of the University of Washington provides yet another indication that the continental shelf off Oregon and Washington may be one of many emerging methane release hot spots.

“For all around the world, and beneath the broad, blue expanse of the world’s seas, rest billions and billions of tons of frozen methane hydrate.

“A kind of methane and ice combination, frozen hydrate is one of the world’s most effective natural methods of trapping and sequestering carbon. Over long ages, organic material at the bottom of the oceans decompose into hydrocarbons, often breaking down into methane gas. At high pressure and low temperature, this methane gas can be locked away in a frozen water-ice hydrate lattice, which is then often buried beneath the sea bed where it can safely remain for thousands or even millions of years.”  More at: robertscribbler.com

Top Scientist — Threat of Catastrophic Permafrost Thaw is “Real and Imminent”

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Unmeasured dangers rising up and still nothing effective from our governments. More members of the U. S. House and Senate need to speak up and add weight to the President’s calls for action.

robertscribbler's avatarrobertscribbler

There’s a lot of carbon stored in the Arctic’s thawing permafrost. According to our best estimates, it’s in the range of 1,300 billion tons (see Climate Change and the Permafrost Feedback). That’s more than twice the amount of carbon already emitted by fossil fuels globally since the 1880s. And the sad irony is that continuing to burn fossil fuels risks passing a tipping point beyond which rapid destabilization and release of those carbon stores becomes locked in.

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(Global permafrost coverage as recorded by the World Meteorological Organization. A 2 C global warming threshold is generally thought to be the point at which enough of the Arctic permafrost will go into catastrophic destabilization, to result in a global warming amplifying feedback that then thaws all or most of the rest. The 2 C threshold was chosen because it is the bottom boundary of the Pliocene — a time when this…

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