The U.K.'s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in "Exclusive: The methane time bomb":
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists ...
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Assuming these findings are published in a peer-reviewed publication, as is planned, they should be taken quite seriously for four reasons. First, many fear that a huge methane release is what happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Second, releasing even a small fraction of the sub-sea methane would make a stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at non-catastrophic concentrations all but impossible.
Third, as NOAA reported earlier this year, levels of methane rose sharply last year for the first time since 1998:
Fourth, the findings are apparently based on very new and credible in situ measurements:
Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane -- sometimes at up to 100 times background levels -- over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years ...
Since 1994, Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences "has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea, but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots," which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments." Why now?
Dr Semiletov has suggested several possible reasons why methane is now being released from the Arctic, including the rising volume of relatively warmer water being discharged from Siberia's rivers due to the melting of the permafrost on the land.
The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.
The article notes that the "preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008" are "being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union." Until that happens, it will be difficult to know what to make of all this. You can read what some other scientists say about these preliminary reports here. Stay tuned.
The time to act is yesterday.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
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greentiger Posted 8:07 am
24 Sep 2008
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human power Posted 12:32 pm
24 Sep 2008
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hekatonkheire Posted 7:56 pm
24 Sep 2008
You mentioned that recent spike in atmospheric methane. How much of that is due to submarine methane release, how much is due to release from thawing permafrost, and how much is due to changes in hydrology?
Nobody seems to know the answers to these questions. But this article suggests a pretty clear logical chain: methane released from clathrates caused the extinction event at the end of the Permian, and now it's happening again (you can see it in that spike in the graph) so runaway climate change has begun. The time to do something about it was yesterday (when you should have written to your congressman) but now it's today, so the only thing really left is suicide.
Which is depressing if it's true, but if it is true you haven't presented convincing evidence; rather, you've just presented something that looks like an argument to a reader who trusts you enough not to examine the logic. And again I find myself wondering, what's the point of coverage like this? It scares the crap out of people, and I suspect, tends to shock them into inaction - but is that the right thing to do? If the time to act was yesterday, then maybe. If there's still a point to acting today, then maybe not.
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Billhook Posted 8:27 pm
24 Sep 2008
That time continues, with the difference that US intransigence has committed the planet to changes that will remove food supplies from very large numbers of people.
One small good may come from this news of Clathrates' collapse:
it just might put an end to the longstanding complacent nonsense of elevated atmospheric CO2 "stabilization" targets -
There never has been any such prospect due to the many active pos. feedbacks that are accelerating at CO2 levels above the natural of around 270 ppmv.
The only rational target is to cleanse the atmosphere ASAP,
using whatever sustainable energy and carbon recovery techniques we can afford,
while converging nations' tradable GHG emission rights to per capita parity.
Regards,
Bilhook
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Hmpf Posted 11:46 pm
24 Sep 2008
Because whenever I talk to people about this, reactions range from cyncially-amused disbelief to fatalism, so apparently either people just don’t believe that things can really be as bad as all that, or people do believe that but think that everything is lost already and they therefore don’t have to do anything. And the political sphere, as we all know, is twiddling its metaphorical thumbs.
How do we inspire people to act?
(This has been posted to the comments sections for this bit of news at Climate Progress and worldchanging, too, because I’m really curious/desperate for replies.)
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:09 am
25 Sep 2008
People would be shocked, feel that they have been given a second chance, breath a sigh of relief, and get busy restoring the planet's carbon sinks while eliminating the use of fossil fuels. Humanity would continue to argue and fight but at least it would be over methods to use instead of the reality of global warming.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Hmpf Posted 1:20 am
25 Sep 2008
One issue is apparently that people just generally refuse to believe really bad news, especially regarding the environment. The idea seems to be that "environmentalists have talked about 'The End of the World' before and they have always been wrong, so this must be a load of claptrap, too".
BTW: I live in Germany, and I've been somewhat disturbed, these last few days, to see that this news - which I regard very important indeed - has not been covered by any of the major news media here, as far as I can see. It doesn't even turn up on environmentally-oriented websites (though to be fair, I don't know many German ones).
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Hmpf Posted 1:29 am
25 Sep 2008
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Robco1 Posted 2:27 am
25 Sep 2008
Ironically enough, the actions necessary to address this problem would also help our ailing economy.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:45 am
25 Sep 2008
Note the lack of discussion on this thread. You would think that news that could turn out to be the end of the world would generate some interest. The fact is, viewers are avoiding this post. It crosses a threshold.
The potential for an astoroid strike or global warming tipping point, a pandemic disease or even a mega volcanoe is always there. We just don't worry about it. Imagine the public's reaction to news that a giant asteroid is on a collision course.
On a personal level, the potential for a life ending disease is also always there but we don't dwell on it. And the truth of the matter is, a life ending illness awaits all of us. So, such news isn't really anything new. Death and taxes have always been inevitable.
Discovery of a tipping point would also not affect my lifespan or that of my children, which helps alleviate some of the anxiety. Few of us lose sleep at night dreaming about the billion malnourished who already exist and few of us go out of our way to do anything about it.
My tact will be to assume the science has the potential to be wrong regardless of the findings and/or that we will find solutions regardless. There really is no other position to take. Other than the fact that we are all going to die someday, which has always been true and is something we will all deal with one day, the future cannot be predicted.
My advice, don't worry about it.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Hmpf Posted 2:51 am
25 Sep 2008
As for friends and relatives, though... I'm already blogging about this topic fairly frequently, and I don't get the impression that there's much headway to make, there. Not that my f&f are a particularly doubting bunch - they're probably more progressive than average - but whenever I do broach the topic in personal conversation, I get the impression that people are a) bored, b) fatalist, c) too stressed out by other concerns in their lives to really care/do anything. So I tend to avoid 'spamming' their personal e-mail accounts with this stuff - they all know they can get this kind of info from my blog on a semi-regular basis, if they want to seek it out.
It would be easier, I imagine, if there were more concrete things I could suggest people do - something that would give them the feeling that they can actually get active about this. (Of course, reducing personal consumption/emissions is something to do... but to far too many people, that feels like effectively doing nothing - and they're not entirely wrong, because we do need change on a large scale.)
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MAD MAC Posted 3:09 am
25 Sep 2008
I think this would be more like "global cooling". That caused a lot of skepticism because it's essentially the same people (or rather the same types of people) that were making the global cooling arguement.
The problem that the environmental movement has to come to grips with is one of credibility, because at it's root, much of the movement is against modernization while most people on the planet are not. Hence many enviros are trying to use the environment to force changes that could not normally be achieved through consensus.
Victory in Pattani
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hekatonkheire Posted 3:15 am
25 Sep 2008
Momentum seems to be building; it seems generally accepted now that climate change is real and that it's bad enough that it needs to be fixed. Opinions differ on how fixed it needs to be though, and when the fixing needs to happen. I think that once the science reaches a point where our knowledge about clathrates allows us to say things like "clathrate release is adding 0.4ppm CO2e per year every year right now, and if we get to 450ppm CO2e that's going to go up to 1.2ppm CO2e" then it will be much easier to talk to people about arctic methane than it is now, when all we can say is "there's a lot of it down there and we don't know how much of it is going to be released, or when, and to be honest we might all already be screwed depending on your definition of screwed, but really, we don't know". It'll be easier because in the former case you can then follow up with "so that means if we spend more than five years over 420ppm CO2e then we're going to have to more or less shut down the economy to compensate" whereas in the latter case all you can say is "look, all you can really do at this stage is worry. And try to fly less. Assuming it's not already too late".
Well, hopefully the science will get to that point pretty soon. I find it a little bit reassuring to remember that there are an awful lot of really clever, highly motivated and also quite scared people up in the Arctic (and elsewhere) right now working on figuring out exactly this kind of thing.
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MAD MAC Posted 3:37 am
25 Sep 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Hmpf Posted 4:12 am
25 Sep 2008
Seems to me as if the only truly reasonable reaction to this is, for each of us, to turn our lives around so as to reduce our personal emissions as much as possible, right now - and start to get politically active so as to get society to adopt that course, as well.
Of course, that's for a definition of 'reasonable' which is based on two assumptions:
1.) The survival of civilisation/humans/life on earth is a priority that overrides individual desires for unnecessary luxuries. (I'm not equating the three things separated by slashes in the previous sentence, btw - I'm just listing them in the order of likelihood of their being threatened.)
2.) In a complex system which we do not fully understand, we should not be too ready to declare that 'it's over' and 'we're screwed'. As long as there are factors that aren't understood, there is hope. This means that giving up now is unreasonable, because only by giving up (and, by implication, continuing our lives the 'business as usual' way as long as it's still possible) do we condemn ourselves with absolute certainty.
(Addendum: yes, I know that so far, all the previously ignored factors that were discovered made things worse instead of better. Even so, I would argue that hope is always better than, well, surrender, because only surrender guarantees defeat. The problem with this kind of really rather desperate hope is, of course, that it is a kind of hope that requires, hm, a kind of mental discipline, you could almost call it 'work'. It's not an obvious or easy hope, and thus may be difficult to reach for most people. I think I read just enough Tolkien as a teenager to 'get' this kind of hope. ;-))
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MAD MAC Posted 7:40 pm
25 Sep 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Hmpf Posted 11:31 pm
25 Sep 2008
Sure, a few million or even a few billion will probably survive even the most catastrophic potential outcomes (except if we get a repeat of the Perm-Triassic Extinction, but even then, with some preparation, it would probably be possible to build refuges for a few thousand or so)... But to me, even 'just a few' billion dead is quite apocalyptic enough. Mass starvation etc. certainly will not be very conducive to world peace, either... So, the observation that humanity will probably survive in some form, is not much consolation.
Also, even if it could be assured that we, i.e. humans, would be able to deal with the impending changes just fine, there's still the issue of the rest of the biosphere that does not have culture and technology to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
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MAD MAC Posted 1:40 am
26 Sep 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:27 am
26 Sep 2008
A massive, and for the first time, global population crash, but more specifically, the mass suffering this would entail, is what we strive to avoid. This scenario has played out countless times all through human history. The scale has grown with the advent of cities and countries as we have yet to break the endless cycle of population increase, resource depletion, warfare over what remains, and collapse.
Our population has grown to the point that we are now impacting the climate of our entire planet, not just the climates of parts of the world (desertification of the fertile crescent, the Greek islands etc). Ever read Mote in God's Eye?
When you think about it, how could burning an entire planet's carbon sinks while simultaneously releasing the energy in hundreds of millions of years of stored solar energy and its attendant carbon not tip something out of balance?
MAC
The global cooling thing was just a short blip, a hypothesis that didn't prove out. Most hypothesis don't. The media blew it up, as it always does, into something it wasn't. I'd blame the media and the ignorance of the general public, not the scientists formulating hypothesis to be tested.
The problem that the environmental movement has to come to grips with is one of credibility.
The IPCC confirmed global warming not the environmental community.
...much of the movement is against modernization while most people on the planet are not.
Look again at the articles on this blog. Do you detect a Luddite bent and if not does this suggest that your stereotype needs updating?
Hence many enviros are trying to use the environment to force changes that could not normally be achieved through consensus.
I think you may have that backwards. Environmentalists are striving to protect the environment, which out of necessity and by definition requires change.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Paleocon Posted 7:23 am
26 Sep 2008
Where are those areas? I imagine that AGW fundamentalists are investing billions in these areas...buying up land like crazy.
"...a 90 percent chance that the US has contributed .2 degrees F of temperature increase in the last 50 years..." The IPCC Consensus in perspective
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Paleocon Posted 7:28 am
26 Sep 2008
I was going to send money to Joseph's fund, but now it just doesn't make sense. That time has passed. Now it is simply a matter of survival. It is far more important for progressives to use their money to prepare for survival so that those who survive will be stewards of Earth. I am sure that environmental organizations would agree that sending them money in light of this new information would be irresponsible.
"...a 90 percent chance that the US has contributed .2 degrees F of temperature increase in the last 50 years..." The IPCC Consensus in perspective
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:46 am
26 Sep 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Billhook Posted 10:31 am
26 Sep 2008
we'd need to quantify the total CO2-equivalent influence
of the full range of active positive feedback loops
and also the current annual capacity of the planet's carbon sinks.
This would be no small task.
If and when the former exceeds the latter, then we should be unable
to halt the increase of airborne carbon due to the overflowing sinks,
even by halting all anthropogenic carbon emissions.
Only then would "runaway climate change" have begun.
While we are some way off that point,
the momentum of some of the feedbacks' acceleration
is such that we'd be committed to it long before we reached it.
The one sure-fire way to ensure that awful commitment occurs
is for well-informed people to cop out and seek an illusion of safety
in personalised bolt holes.
An almost equally defeatist & deluded plan is to spend ones time striving
for renewable energy developments, which,
alongside energy conservation & efficiency measures,
merely leave fossil fuels on the markets for others to buy -
What is required is a well focussed global effort
on achieving an equitable & efficient Treaty of the Atmospheric Commons.
Once it is in place, with an agreed declining global budget for GHG output,
and with agreed allocations of tradable national emission rights converging,
over time, from current wealth-based usage to global per capita parity,
then industry is no longer disadvantaged by national carbon constraints,
nor does it have incentive to move abroad,
and the above critiques of practical development actions are nullified.
Perhaps the best black joke around is that,
even with this news of the Hydrates starting to collapse,
just how few people are willing to face personally
the specific task of advancing that requisite treaty.
By my (uncertain) maths, out of a 6.5 billion population,
it's not even one person in ten thousand !
So if you're not already involved,
and happen to have nothing better to do . . . .
Regards,
Billhook
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MClemens Posted 1:51 pm
26 Sep 2008
MClemens
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MAD MAC Posted 2:10 pm
26 Sep 2008
"Environmentalists are striving to protect the environment, which out of necessity and by definition requires change."
The question becomes what kind of change we are talking about. Outside of the environmental movement (read the vast majority of humans) the general consensus is that man has dominion over the earth. That it is there for us to exploit. The question then becomes how can we do this sustainably.
Within the environmental movement there is much more of a consensus that man should live in harmony with nature, that nature is to preserved for nature's sake.
Now, these two paths often intermingle - no question about it. One might say that to have resources to exploit, we have to maintain bio-diversity. That's a fair arguement. But there is no getting around the fact that you are dealing with two fundamental outlooks here.
Victory in Pattani
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amazingdrx Posted 3:28 pm
26 Sep 2008
It is aparently so hard to understand how a doubling effect works, in technical terms it's known as an exponential phenomenon, that this just doesn't register even with people who are well informed in other areas.
I guess very simple examples are needed to explain it. But this is how ice is melting and how methane is being released and how solar energy is being absorbed by areas once covered with ice, that used to reflect solar energy.
The time period that it takes for all of these factors to double, ice melt, methane release, solar absorption, GHG concentration; is growing shorter and shorter.
Once that time period becomes critically short, there will be no stopping it until some sort of planetary thermostat kinks in, like massive fire storms, caused by drought, throwing up enough soot to cause another ice age.
Has this doubling period theshold already happened? An inevitable, unstoppable exponential disaster? With the different factors all pointing in the same direction, it could be.
Think of it in positive terms. If you get 9% on your savings, they double in 8 years, just from interest. 18% would double your money in 4 years.
As the rate of GHG climate change increases from all these additive factors, the effects will double in shorter and shorter time periods. At some point the ability of human civilization to adapt quickly enough will be overcome.
If you will be long gone by then, maybe you just don't care? That's the impression I get from most deniers. It's pure selfishness that (mis)informs their cognitive decision.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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MAD MAC Posted 4:53 pm
26 Sep 2008
"If you will be long gone by then, maybe you just don't care? That's the impression I get from most deniers. It's pure selfishness that (mis)informs their cognitive decision."
First of all, environmentalists should stop using the term "denier". They are using it as a pejorative in a debate where pejoratives have no place. If you want to move people to your point of view, calling them names is not going to do it. There are people who are skeptics, and they have LEGITIMATE REASONS for being skeptics. It is fine if you don't agree with their reasons, believe that the science is clear on the critical points, and try to persuade people to that end. But instead you are choosing to attack their character because they have not reached the same conclusions you have. BIG MISTAKE. If you believe that some sort of united action has to be taken, then first and foremost you need a lot of people seeing things the way you do. Insulting them won't achieve that.
Victory in Pattani
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amazingdrx Posted 5:07 pm
26 Sep 2008
They may believe they have reasons. But it is delf deception based on disinformation. The old informal fallacy talking point for instance.
Liberals lie. liberals believe in climate change. Therefore climate change is a lie. This is not reasoning, no matter how much they think it is.
Actually the math indicates it is probably far worse than scientists are ready to admit. My feeling is that they are softballing this to save their careers. they have kids to put through college and mortgage payments.
If they told the truth their funding would evaporate.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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MAD MAC Posted 5:57 pm
26 Sep 2008
I don't agree with that. I believe that the risk has to be taken for two reasons:
a. The climate
b. The running account deficit, which is tied directly to petroleum imports.
We need energy that comes from native sources, not imports. Otherwise we will continue to run ridiculous account deficits.
Nevertheless, there are other people out there who have a differing point of view - and here's the thing - they could be right. And you know that as well as I do. Predictive analysis on the climate or anything else there is always a decent margin for error. The Climate is very complex, we do not understand it, there is room for error.
Again, it seems to me you want to break this discussion down into good guys and bad guys, and that is a counter-productive approach.
Victory in Pattani
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Billhook Posted 6:45 pm
26 Sep 2008
My efforts (as an ageing farmer & campaigner) are focussed via this site:
http://www.gci.org.uk
No doubt bringing the C&C framework to unfocussed campaign groups is also needed.
Regards,
Billhook
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Billhook Posted 7:40 pm
26 Sep 2008
"decent scientific arguments that Climate Change is not a serious issue yet - not serious enough to risk dislocating the global economy."
This ignores the current impacts of climate destabilization on rural subsistence-farming communities,
let alone the IPCC's warnings that, for instance,
some African countries are on track to lose half their farm yields to drought by 2020.
Am I right in thinking that, if the children starving were (white) Americans,
then any claim that
"Climate Change is not a serious issue yet"
would get ripped apart here on Grist ?
The post's tangential claim that effective response risks dislocating the global economy
is of course just special pleading for US decadence to be allowed to continue,
even though its biofuels-mandate and other policies are already dislocating various nations' economies.
This is an issue of US-led genocide, and the record of paid denialists of this fact
goes back even before the scams of the fossil fuel industry set up the "Global Climate Coalition" in the early '90s.
Pretending that trained denialists are just honestly mistaken,
when there are many millions of lives at stake,
is not only a classic propaganda ploy,
it also culpably ignores the duty of care that underlies the Precautionary Principle.
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