"feedbacks, there are a whole bunch of them."
Yeah, ya think?
Here's a partial, abbreviated version of a list I have been collecting for a while. I have (often several) references at hand for most of them in the long version. Some of course are more certain than others. But together they make up a rather frightening sum, especially considering that each one reinforces all of the others, as well as itself:
“Positive”--exacerbating
charney = “fast” feedbacks:
--albedo change with loss of land and sea ice and snow (stops when all snow and ice gone)
--water vapor
--cloud (both ways?)
--“lapse rate”
non-charney “slow” feedbacks:
carbon feedbacks
--forests, grasslands, peat dry up and burn/die>CO2
--“ “ get bugs/diseases, die>termites>methane; die>burn
--soils, already weakened from above, wash away with increasingly extreme downpours, leaving no medium for plant that could absorb CO2 to grow
--terrestrial soils dry up>CO2 methane “If the bank of carbon held in the world’s soils were to drop by just 0.3 percent, the release would equal a year’s worth of fossil fuel emissions”
--permafrost melts—release CO2&methane from new bacterial activity/ free methane from deeper reservoirs, starts to (net) release rather than absorb (sink) C
--melting Greenland and Antarctic icecap uncovers same
--feedback combo: Each extreme weather event leads to less CO2 absorption, leads to more warming, leads to more extreme weather events, leads to....
--sea bed permafrost, clathrates, free methane
--sea surface increased activity of methanogens
--newly flooded areas from sea level rise become new swamps—more methane
--as atmospheric humidity increases with global warming, the amount of high troposphere ice particles will increase, and as these ice particles generally serve to reduce the rate of methane oxidation; this implies that with increasing global warming, the global warming potential, GWP, of the methane in the atmosphere over the Antarctic will increase.
--Rising CO2 In Atmosphere Also Speeds Carbon Loss From Forest Soils
--newly ice-free Arctic ocean erodes islands and coastlines releasing carbon in soils
--warming ice encourages dark cryophilic bacteria which alters albedo
--Trees excude CO2 rather than taking it in
--Sudden switch from a three cell NoHem system to a one cell system because of loss of temp differential between equator and No Pole. One cell will transport heat from equator to pole much more efficiently.
-- Stripping of Oxygen from the Oceans
Other:
--drought, an expected outcome of GW, can increase intensity of heatwaves
--end of change of state--when all ice gone in a region, no more heat sucked up by its melting
--newly open Arctic Ocean evaporates more H2O (a GHG) (but open ocean can also absorb more CO2)
--warmer ocean absorbs less CO2
--warmer oceans kill phytoplankton that otherwise sequester CO2
--melting permafrost releases NOX
--accelerating albedo shift with black carbon (soot) concentrating on surface as melt goes on
--accelerating albedo shift with more trees growing in the tundra; now happening faster than once thought, since many ‘shrubs’ native to and widespread throughout the tundra grow into trees as conditions warm
--uplift from isostatic rebound as Gr icesheet melts changes angle to greater slope down which ice slides faster
--similar activity could cause local earthquakes which may increase collapse of fragile ice
--Loss of GIS accelerating as highest areas melt down to lower, warmer areas, not only increasing sea level (see above), but also hastening the time when there will be no more ice cap to absorb hundreds of quintillions of joules of energy as it melts (see above)
--More wild fires also means more soot in the air which further changes albedo of ice and snow, leading further to the effects mentioned immediately above
-- Bigger storms from GW cause updrafts to carry moisture all the way into the stratosphere, reducing ozone and creating more ghg (water vapor) into part of the atmosphere that has very little of it.
--“ If the Hadley cells do shift so that air is being pulled along the earths surface from mid latitudes towards the Arctic, then one would expect that more soot and dust will accumulate on the remaining ice including on Greenland.”
--“ Reversal of the Polar Vortex
Putting together the above information, we see what powers the polar vortex. As the Arctic air radiates heat into space, it sinks, sucking high altitude air toward the poles. Coriolis effect skews this flow of air to the right so at high latitudes, on the surface of the earth there are North East winds (flowing towards the South West) With more and more heat being absorbed by an ice free Arctic ocean and transmitted to the air, this circulation pattern should reverse. This would be expected to bring a huge flux of warm air from the south which would exacerbate the effect and cause sudden extremely warmer conditions in the Arctic for the months in question. These will be South West winds (flowing toward the North East)”
--As beetles and other diseases move north aided by GW, the number of sick trees increases rapidly. The levels of methane these emit can be high enough to ignite
--if methane reaches a big enough level in the atmosphere, its average time aloft starts going up, because saturation point is reached to where there's not enough OH around in the atmosphere so that methane can be split apart that way
-- mixing has an immediate effect upon ice through churning rather than the longer term greenhouse effects” from bubbling methane, which of course opens up more water which, through albedo, warms up the water, which radiates down to liberate more methane…
--draw downs behind damns during (CC induced) droughts increases methane release
Human responses:
--war
--AC
--denial
--geo—engineering attempts gone bad
--meat based diets (more a forcing than a direct feedback)
--more and more people moving to avoid consequences of GW--refugees
--aerosol—see below
--rush to ever dirtier sources with lower EROEI—tar sands, low grade coal, deepwater oil…
--Rivers dry, barges can’t haul material—more sent by more ff intensive truck and rail
--newly ice-free Arctic leads/has lead to more ff extraction/burning as well as new oil spills, and perhaps activity that further accelerates methane hydrate (and other methane) release
