econdemocracy’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Did you misread, JR?

  You reminded folks of the difference between (net) annual emissions (NAEs) on the one hand, and CO2 concentrations (CC), on the other hand.

  You said also, "There isn't a global economic downturn big enough to stop the growth of carbon dioxide concentrations"

  But the article you quoted, you quoted as speaking NOT about "concentrations" but rather about "Emissions"

  Either you misread, or (if you're trying to make another point) your post, while appreciated (and while depressing), is very unclear, particularly in light or your sentence quoted in the second paragraph of this post, and the fact the quoted article you criticize, doesn't use the word "concentrations" (at least not as you quote it, I didn't go reaad the original) at all. Clarification?

  http://economicdemocracy.org

  On World carbon dioxide levels jump 2.3 ppm in 2008 to highest in 650,000 years posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Disturbing discoveries in Russia, redux

  "It's always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure -- could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will."

  ">In the permafrost bottom of the
  200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in
  mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the
  ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons."

  "This submarine hydrate was considered stable until now," says the Russian biogeochemist Natalia Shakhova, currently a guest scientist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks who is also a member of the Pacific Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok.

  The permafrost has grown porous, says Shakhova, and already the shelf sea has become "a source of methane passing into the atmosphere." The Russian scientists have estimated what might happen when this Siberian permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes. They believe the methane content of the planet's atmosphere would increase twelvefold. "The result would be catastrophic global warming," say the scientists. The greenhouse-gas potential of methane is 20 times that of carbon dioxide, as measured by the effects of a single molecule.

  "hakhova and her colleagues gathered evidence for the loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor in a measuring campaign during the Siberian summer. The seawater proved to be "highly oversaturated with solute methane," reports Shakhova. In the air over the sea, greenhouse-gas content was measured in some places at five times normal values. "In helicopter flights over the delta of the Lena River, higher methane concentrations have been measured at altitudes as high as 1,800 meters," she says.

  The methane climate bomb is also ticking on land: A few years ago researchers noticed higher concentrations of methane in northern Siberia. "

  ..No one can say right now whether that will take years, decades or hundreds of years," she said. But one cannot rule out sudden methane emissions. They could happen at "any time."

  One thing is clear, though: The thawing of the Arctic sea floor will create "new potential sources for methane ... which no one had reckoned with until now," said Laurence Smith, a professor for geography at the University of California in Los Angeles.."

  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,547976,0 ...

  http://economicdemocracy.org

  On More carbon in the Arctic than previously thought posted 1 year, 5 months ago 1 Response

• Click here to view comment in original post

  climateprogress

  just found his profile and from there the
  blog climateprogress.org looks like a good place (when there's more - ha! - free time) to follow-up :-)

  http://economicdemocracy.org

  On NASA says 2007 second-warmest year ever, with record warmth likely by 2010 posted 1 year, 11 months ago 7 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Either way, need a correction

  Thanks Falcon. I'm aware 1998 was El Nino influenced but we don't throw out all El Nino years of course, they are included. None of this is my point however. I'm just saying the grist pages need to be updated: from what I can tell 2005 probably makes sense but if so, then the grist article from only 4 months ago should be updated to either say "2005" instead of saying "1998" as hottest year or at least to indicate this is contested. You just wait and see some "skeptic" quoting the "wrong" or "two mutually contradictory page" ;-)

  I just double checked..both posts are by  Joseph Romm ...should I notify him or does the system automatically alert authors of articles to comments being posted on the system?

  -ED

  http://economicdemocracy.org

  On NASA says 2007 second-warmest year ever, with record warmth likely by 2010 posted 1 year, 11 months ago 7 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Hottest year

  Very solid article..and not the first great article on Grist which is why we just signed up for an account.

  One question/correction...near the bottom you link to an earlier story about ""at least half of the years after 2009 [will] exceed the warmest year currently on record.""

  That story (which is fairly recent, it was Aug 2007)  says 1998 was the hottest..yet this article
  (as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_since_188 ... indicate that 2005 was the hottest. Shouldn't a correction be posted to the Aug 2007 Grist story then?

  http://economicdemocracy.org http://economicdemocracy.org/eco

  On NASA says 2007 second-warmest year ever, with record warmth likely by 2010 posted 1 year, 11 months ago 7 Responses