I found it quite troubling when I read an item in The Independent a couple of days ago about Swedish scientists who had come across methane "chimneys" bubbling up through the waters of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Russia. The researchers tracked these chimneys both seismically and with echo sounders (sonar). At the surface they found the water frothing. Their conclusion was that the permafrost on the ocean seabed had melted. There was nothing remaining to trap the ancient methane which was now coming up fast enough and in such volumes that it was no longer simply dissolving in the saltwater.
As I read the article, the immediate question became "perspective." What did this actually mean? Was this an isolated or localized phenomenon or did it signify something much greater? What volume of methane could be expected to reach the surface and when? What effects could this have on the global warming problem?
When I saw that Gwynne Dyer had written about this yesterday I went to his column in search of answers. Surely he had the resources and connections to get answers to questions I could merely ask.
I tend to place a lot of stock in Dyer's opinions. He's highly educated, very well informed, unusually perceptive and he brings cool-headed logic and powerful, typically understated analysis to his work.
So just what does Dyer make of this? Here are some excerpts from his column in the online Canadian journal, Embassy:
"Gustafsson's preliminary report, published in The Independent of Sept. 23, is a development far more frightening than the current financial crisis, although it will get only one-thousandth of the coverage. The worst that the financial crisis can bring is some years of recession. The worst that massive methane releases in the Arctic can bring us is runaway, irreversible global warming.
There are thousands of megatonnes of methane stored underground in the Arctic region, trapped there by the permafrost (permanently frozen ground) that covers much of northern Russia, Alaska and Canada and extends far out under the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. If the permafrost melts and methane escapes into the atmosphere on a large scale, it would cause a rapid rise in temperature—which would melt more permafrost, releasing more methane, which would cause more warming, and so on.
Climate scientists call this a feedback mechanism. So long as it is our emissions that are causing the warming, we can stop it if we reduce the emissions fast enough. Once feedbacks like methane release start to drive the warming, it's out of our hands: we might even cut our emissions to zero, only to find that the temperature is still rising."
So, what to do? Dyer says we have to mobilize our resources now and begin instituting short-term technological fixes while pulling our fingers out and getting on with slashing carbon emissions.
"There is a way to cheat, for a while. Several techniques have been proposed for holding the global temperature down temporarily in order to avoid running into the feedbacks. They do not release us from the duty of getting our emissions down, but they could win us some time to work on that task without running into disaster.
These techniques are known as "geo-engineering," and discussing them has been taboo in most scientific circles because of the "moral hazard": the fear that if the public knows you can hold the global temperature down by direct intervention, people will not do the harder job of cutting their emissions. But if large-scale methane releases are getting underway, the time for such subtle calculations is past.
Starting now, we need a crash program to investigate the feasibility of these and other techniques for geo-engineering the climate. Once the thawing starts, it is hard to stop, and we may need them very soon."
When a guy like Dyer writes of crash programs and immediate action, maybe it's time we put our ideological biases aside stopped dismissing this issue as a hoax. Wouldn't it be great to get an evaluation of this discovery and the threat, if any, it poses from our own environmental experts? That would be great. The problem is our Furious Leader has them gagged.
As I read the article, the immediate question became "perspective." What did this actually mean? Was this an isolated or localized phenomenon or did it signify something much greater? What volume of methane could be expected to reach the surface and when? What effects could this have on the global warming problem?
When I saw that Gwynne Dyer had written about this yesterday I went to his column in search of answers. Surely he had the resources and connections to get answers to questions I could merely ask.
I tend to place a lot of stock in Dyer's opinions. He's highly educated, very well informed, unusually perceptive and he brings cool-headed logic and powerful, typically understated analysis to his work.
So just what does Dyer make of this? Here are some excerpts from his column in the online Canadian journal, Embassy:
"Gustafsson's preliminary report, published in The Independent of Sept. 23, is a development far more frightening than the current financial crisis, although it will get only one-thousandth of the coverage. The worst that the financial crisis can bring is some years of recession. The worst that massive methane releases in the Arctic can bring us is runaway, irreversible global warming.
There are thousands of megatonnes of methane stored underground in the Arctic region, trapped there by the permafrost (permanently frozen ground) that covers much of northern Russia, Alaska and Canada and extends far out under the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. If the permafrost melts and methane escapes into the atmosphere on a large scale, it would cause a rapid rise in temperature—which would melt more permafrost, releasing more methane, which would cause more warming, and so on.
Climate scientists call this a feedback mechanism. So long as it is our emissions that are causing the warming, we can stop it if we reduce the emissions fast enough. Once feedbacks like methane release start to drive the warming, it's out of our hands: we might even cut our emissions to zero, only to find that the temperature is still rising."
So, what to do? Dyer says we have to mobilize our resources now and begin instituting short-term technological fixes while pulling our fingers out and getting on with slashing carbon emissions.
"There is a way to cheat, for a while. Several techniques have been proposed for holding the global temperature down temporarily in order to avoid running into the feedbacks. They do not release us from the duty of getting our emissions down, but they could win us some time to work on that task without running into disaster.
These techniques are known as "geo-engineering," and discussing them has been taboo in most scientific circles because of the "moral hazard": the fear that if the public knows you can hold the global temperature down by direct intervention, people will not do the harder job of cutting their emissions. But if large-scale methane releases are getting underway, the time for such subtle calculations is past.
Starting now, we need a crash program to investigate the feasibility of these and other techniques for geo-engineering the climate. Once the thawing starts, it is hard to stop, and we may need them very soon."
When a guy like Dyer writes of crash programs and immediate action, maybe it's time we put our ideological biases aside stopped dismissing this issue as a hoax. Wouldn't it be great to get an evaluation of this discovery and the threat, if any, it poses from our own environmental experts? That would be great. The problem is our Furious Leader has them gagged.
8 comments:
This "urgency" has been going on since the Kyoto Accord was signed. And guess what? During the Liberal tenure emissions went up 35%. Now there's a sense of "urgency" again and Liberals have an answer? Where the hell was this answer 15 years ago when the first "the world is coming to an end" signal was sent?
PK, open your eyes. An outpouring of seabed methane is a significantly different matter than the carbon reduction focus of Kyoto. Before you dismiss this out of ignorance, take some time to look into it.
Just wondering why the earth cooled 0.7 degrees last year, the coolest year on record since 1930.
What say you?
Still wondering why the earth cooled 0.7 degrees in 2007 according to all 4 of the major institutions that monitor climate.
What say you?
How is there global warming when the earth as a whole is actually cooling.
Maybe you can fill in the blanks for me.
I'll fill the blanks for you. Go to www.realclimate.org and they have everything necessary to fill the obvious gaps in your understanding. The nice thing about their format is they have the information in "user friendly" categories. Everything from highly scientific to street talk. If you're interested in learning instead of jousting, you'll go there and learn what you plainly don't grasp. Somehow I doubt you'll be spending much time there.
I looked at the NASA Goddard stats that prove the earth cooled by 0.7 degrees last year.
How is that possible if the world is heating up?
I dont need to go to realclimate.org, I just want to hear it from you.
SO , let me hear it.
Funny Anon, the NASA Goddard stats here state that 2007 was the second warmest year on record.
My source, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
Which is the Goddard Institute webpage, as of Aug 12, 2008.
What's your source?
Actually, Anon, you really do need to go to realclimate.org or any of the other climate sites to really educate yourself on this subject. It's apparent that you cannot distinguish between weather and climate which puts you, roughly speaking, in the highly uninformed category. There was certainly cool summer weather this year, largely attributable to the La Nina conditions in the Central Pacific. Despite that, August showed record Arctic ice loss which wasn't expected given these relatively cool months. Even the doubters are now figuring out that phenomenon, such as the Arctic ice melt, are being climate-driven, not weather-driven.
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