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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #550 on: April 23, 2018, 03:29:13 PM »
I like the ending in Dr. David Page's article (Mars Today - A 'Business-As-Usual' Model for Earth Tomorrow) as it speaks to the mental (and data) processing geologists use.
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A Question and an Answer

 Q: Why should the reader pay any heed to the words of an 'off-world' geologist when it comes to Arctic methane, particularly one who mentions Uniformitarianism? A: Because the methodology employed is not his own but one grounded in the geometrical principles of that science, honed over 200 years of inquiry¹. Using that methodology, the volatile-hypothesis for genesis of the martian mounds has been testing its own predictions observationally for over a decade now and has yet to falter, leaving others to explain-away the resulting inconsistencies in the established model (e.g., Jaeger et al., 2008; Dundas et al., 2010). In 2007, I suggested that the methane detected over this region was related to decadal-scale thaw-destabilisation of permafrost mounds, providing a mechanism for clathrate dissociation, and that "...unless thaw and the local methane enhancement over this region are unrelated, release of methane from within the permafrost is a consistent explanation" (Page, 2007). Ten-years on, and this destabilisation-geology and -chronology have been borne out in the discovery of widespread explosive mass-devolatilisation of frost mounds in that same region, paralleling the identical but otherwise new-to-science explosive phenomena in the Yamal (Page, 2018).

 This successful prediction is not self-advertisement, and is stated here for one reason alone² – in providing the only analogue for what is beginning in Siberian permafrost now, this past event on Mars provides a unique guide to how such degassing plays-out for real. It is one that we must not ignore – scaling this event to Earth yields 10s-of-millions of explosions in the Arctic and a terminal mass-emission of methane that will make 50 Gt look modest.

 It is said that the greatest contribution that Geology has made to human knowledge is the discovery of 'Deep Time'. More significant Today is its unique capacity to reconstruct the Past, and to apply that understanding to anticipating the Future.
_________________
¹ When I consider the landforms and surfaces of other planets I do not do so in terms of models, morphology, or hypotheses of origin, but their geometrical relations with one-another vis-à-vis relative-age, a method of inquiry that goes back two centuries to the very inception of geology as a science. In a traverse across the Scottish Highlands, James Hutton (1788) was able to piece together the history of the various plutonic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks based on the geometry of their intersections. He inferred that the Caledonian granites were younger than the “Primitive” (metamorphic) basement that they intrude, with the numerous faults and intrusive dykes younger than the Old Red Sandstone that they cut. By determining the age of one rock relative to another, Hutton produced a geological “history of events” for rocks whose origins he did not know, a history that remains unchanged to this day (Page, 2015). This directional, temporal logic is practiced by all geologists as a matter of course, whether they be determining the crystallization history of minerals under the microscope, the stratigraphy of an outcrop in the field, or the order of undefined events on a distant planetary surface. These relative-age relations are all defined geometrically, a straightforward reductio, such as Euclid's proof that two intersecting circles cannot share their centres, being the basis for much stratigraphical reasoning. By the same reasoning, two spatially coincident events (mound-formation and -explosion, in this case) cannot share the same point in time if they are separated by a third, intervening event of significant duration (e.g., dune-formation). This simple deposit geometry is what shows accepted explanation of the geology of mound-bearing terrain on Mars to be deficient, and something entirely different, the propositions of planar geometry matters of neither opinion nor interpretation.
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jai mitchell

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #551 on: April 23, 2018, 05:27:29 PM »
A new (open-access) dimension for sub-sea clathrate destabilisation - it seems to be tied to increased sedimentation rate, which is rather alarming.

http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03043-z?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20180214&spMailingID=55983380&spUserID=NjA4ODQzNzEzMTMS1&spJobID=1342054107&spReportId=MTM0MjA1NDEwNwS2

Of course, one of the major impacts of melting permafrost is dramatically increased erosion rates and sediment transport onto the shelves. Not sure about you folks, but this is a potential feedback that hadn't even crossed my mind...

A detailed offshore survey of the Lena Delta region by Dr. Igor Semiletov (around 2013) showed that the process was an extremely efficient carbon digester, with very little amounts of residual carbon remaining in the subsea deposits having been mixed with enough oxygen to allow for aerobic decomposition.
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bbr2314

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #552 on: April 29, 2018, 01:10:36 AM »

Cid_Yama

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #553 on: April 29, 2018, 11:01:43 AM »
Yes, methane causes mud volcanoes around the world.  Anywhere the pressure finds a path to escape.  He appears to be unfamiliar with the current research regarding subsea methane release in the Arctic, though that is what he is describing.

Magmatic warming is not necessary.   ::)

Though geothermal flux warms sediments from below without it being a magmatic event.

Researchers tend to frame phenomena within their own discipline.

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« Last Edit: April 29, 2018, 11:13:23 AM by Cid_Yama »
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gerontocrat

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #554 on: April 29, 2018, 12:52:02 PM »
Yes, methane causes mud volcanoes around the world.  Anywhere the pressure finds a path to escape.  He appears to be unfamiliar with the current research regarding subsea methane release in the Arctic, though that is what he is describing.

Magmatic warming is not necessary.   ::)

Though geothermal flux warms sediments from below without it being a magmatic event.

Researchers tend to frame phenomena within their own discipline. 

 A quote from the article ( http://www.volcanocafe.org/the-goop-and-the-mudcano/ )

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The good part of this is that you most likely have a deposit with hydrocarbons in the vicinity, either as natural gas, or as coal or oil.

The climate change / AGW / Methane release thing hasn't reached that geologist / volcanologist (yet) ?
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solartim27

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #555 on: April 30, 2018, 04:08:42 PM »
Quite a jump in the trend line.  From https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/990802190913552384?s=20
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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #556 on: April 30, 2018, 05:03:10 PM »
I would love to see a graph like that but instead of global methane, NH methane or even better North of 60 methane.
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lurkalot

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #557 on: May 04, 2018, 11:30:13 PM »
A newly-identified positive feedback loop for methane generated by rotting bulrushes (cat-tails):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43990403

TerryM

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #558 on: May 05, 2018, 06:37:09 AM »
A newly-identified positive feedback loop for methane generated by rotting bulrushes (cat-tails):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43990403
Ouch!
I don't think that there is a puddle around here not surrounded with cat-tails.
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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #559 on: June 07, 2018, 11:50:34 PM »
Map of Arctic wells by 2015 year. Well-seen absence of wells in the Kara Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea (major part of the Arctic shelf).

Consequently, all estimates of the stocks of frozen greenhouse gases in the Arctic are very inaccurate.

ReverendMilkbone

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #560 on: July 04, 2018, 09:04:13 PM »

Gray-Wolf

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #561 on: July 04, 2018, 09:34:29 PM »
It's the Yamal to the west that has me twitched. Those 'over 1,000 hillocks' that sprung up there will surely not want to see a similar heat incursion?

Sadly I think that if any one area of the reserve destabilised then it may well set off a chain reaction into the rest of the free methane atop of the reserves?

I suppose we'd find out soon enough.
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gerontocrat

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #562 on: July 04, 2018, 09:46:26 PM »
Map of Arctic wells by 2015 year. Well-seen absence of wells in the Kara Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea (major part of the Arctic shelf).

Consequently, all estimates of the stocks of frozen greenhouse gases in the Arctic are very inaccurate.
Pardon me but  am totally confused - Arctic wells? What exactly is referred to by this? A link to the origin of that map would help a lot.
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ReverendMilkbone

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #563 on: July 04, 2018, 10:02:02 PM »
It's the Yamal to the west that has me twitched. Those 'over 1,000 hillocks' that sprung up there will surely not want to see a similar heat incursion?

Sadly I think that if any one area of the reserve destabilised then it may well set off a chain reaction into the rest of the free methane atop of the reserves?

I suppose we'd find out soon enough.

That too...

https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/crater-formed-by-exploding-pingo-in-arctic-erupts-a-second-time-from-methane-emissions/

SteveMDFP

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #564 on: July 05, 2018, 12:24:59 AM »
It's the Yamal to the west that has me twitched. Those 'over 1,000 hillocks' that sprung up there will surely not want to see a similar heat incursion?

Sadly I think that if any one area of the reserve destabilised then it may well set off a chain reaction into the rest of the free methane atop of the reserves?

I suppose we'd find out soon enough.

That too...

https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/crater-formed-by-exploding-pingo-in-arctic-erupts-a-second-time-from-methane-emissions/

I share the concern, but I think the shallow East Siberian Sea may merit greater concern.  Early ice clearance and greater warmth of waters there may have the potential to release orders of magnitude more methane, and possibly faster.

ArcticMelt1

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #565 on: July 06, 2018, 05:23:57 PM »
Map of Arctic wells by 2015 year. Well-seen absence of wells in the Kara Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea (major part of the Arctic shelf).

Consequently, all estimates of the stocks of frozen greenhouse gases in the Arctic are very inaccurate.
Pardon me but  am totally confused - Arctic wells? What exactly is referred to by this? A link to the origin of that map would help a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_drilling

Arctic Drilling Existing Wells - Royal Dutch Shell Investor Presentation

https://seekingalpha.com/article/3304575-royal-dutch-shell-is-arctic-drilling-the-best-idea

Forest Dweller

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #566 on: July 08, 2018, 10:34:24 AM »
Thanks for digging up that map ArcticMelt1, it's pretty mindblowing.
A lot of folks hearing the news about drilling plans in the Arctic aren't even aware it already happens on a massive scale, and it does release methane.
Enough to sink an entire Chinese platform in one case....

Gray-Wolf

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #567 on: July 17, 2018, 01:00:50 PM »
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Methane-Giving-Noctilucent-Clouds-Boost

Maybe a way of tracking releases?

More noctilucents visible = more CH4 releases?
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Lynn Shwadchuck

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #568 on: July 20, 2018, 08:28:46 PM »
Hi all, Long time no comment. But in my quick search on news re: Siberian methane, I found this very recent paper about measuring methane flux. They've realized that there are short duration bursts that get eliminated from steady-state measurements as 'outliers', so they've adapted  software from another application to include bits of bubbling-out and sweeping-up of permafrost methane. My point is that this as-yet-unreviewed paper is only proposing that this new method be implemented on all the measuring stations. That this is an indication to me that we really have so little information about how bad things are today. (Sorry if this is old news. I'm out of touch here.)

Characterisation of short-term extreme methane fluxes related to non-turbulent mixing above an Arctic permafrost ecosystem

https://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/acp-2018-277/
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Apocalypse4Real

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #569 on: July 21, 2018, 07:15:31 PM »
Very interesting paper, depicts the short term activity which may impact daily spikes in CH4 in permafrost areas. That helps support the idea that longer term - monthly - means give a better idea of longer term increase and methane source increases.

wili

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #570 on: August 19, 2018, 07:06:59 AM »
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816143035.htm

‘Abrupt thaw’ of permafrost beneath lakes could significantly affect climate change models.

Aug16, 2018. University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Quote
The researchers found the release of greenhouse gases beneath thermokarst lakes is relatively rapid, with deep thawing taking place over the course of decades. Permafrost in terrestrial environments generally experiences shallow seasonal thawing over longer time spans. The release of that surface permafrost soil carbon is often offset by an increased growth in vegetation.

“Thermokarst lakes provide a completely different scenario. When the lakes form, they flash-thaw these permafrost areas,” said Walter Anthony, an associate professor with UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center. “Instead of centimeters of thaw, which is common for terrestrial environments, we’ve seen 15 meters of thaw beneath newly formed lakes in Goldstream Valley within the past 60 years.”

Emissions from thermokarst lakes aren’t currently factored into global climate models because their small size makes individual lakes difficult to include. However, the study’s authors show that these lakes are hotspots of permafrost carbon release. They argue that not including them in global climate models overlooks their feedback effect, which occurs when the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost increases warming. That feedback is significant because methane is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.

Existing models currently attribute about 20 percent of the permafrost carbon feedback this century to methane, with the rest due to carbon dioxide from terrestrial soils. By including thermokarst lakes, methane becomes the dominant driver, responsible for 70 to 80 percent of permafrost carbon-caused warming this century. Adding thermokarst methane to the models makes the feedback’s effect similar to that of land-use change, which is the second-largest source of human-made warming.

Unlike shallow, gradual thawing of terrestrial permafrost, the abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes is irreversible this century. Even climate models that project only moderate warming this century will have to factor in their emissions, according to the study.

“You can’t stop the release of carbon from these lakes once they form,” Walter Anthony said. “We cannot get around this source of warming.”

Ref: Katey Walter Anthony, Thomas Schneider von Deimling, Ingmar Nitze, Steve Frolking, Abraham Emond, Ronald Daanen, Peter Anthony, Prajna Lindgren, Benjamin Jones, Guido Grosse. 21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9

This sounds...kinda...bad...  :-\
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miki

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #571 on: August 19, 2018, 11:29:42 PM »
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816143035.htm

‘Abrupt thaw’ of permafrost beneath lakes could significantly affect climate change models.

Aug16, 2018. University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Quote
The researchers found the release of greenhouse gases beneath thermokarst lakes is relatively rapid, with deep thawing taking place over the course of decades. Permafrost in terrestrial environments generally experiences shallow seasonal thawing over longer time spans. The release of that surface permafrost soil carbon is often offset by an increased growth in vegetation.

“Thermokarst lakes provide a completely different scenario. When the lakes form, they flash-thaw these permafrost areas,” said Walter Anthony, an associate professor with UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center. “Instead of centimeters of thaw, which is common for terrestrial environments, we’ve seen 15 meters of thaw beneath newly formed lakes in Goldstream Valley within the past 60 years.”

Emissions from thermokarst lakes aren’t currently factored into global climate models because their small size makes individual lakes difficult to include. However, the study’s authors show that these lakes are hotspots of permafrost carbon release. They argue that not including them in global climate models overlooks their feedback effect, which occurs when the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost increases warming. That feedback is significant because methane is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.

Existing models currently attribute about 20 percent of the permafrost carbon feedback this century to methane, with the rest due to carbon dioxide from terrestrial soils. By including thermokarst lakes, methane becomes the dominant driver, responsible for 70 to 80 percent of permafrost carbon-caused warming this century. Adding thermokarst methane to the models makes the feedback’s effect similar to that of land-use change, which is the second-largest source of human-made warming.

Unlike shallow, gradual thawing of terrestrial permafrost, the abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes is irreversible this century. Even climate models that project only moderate warming this century will have to factor in their emissions, according to the study.

“You can’t stop the release of carbon from these lakes once they form,” Walter Anthony said. “We cannot get around this source of warming.”

Ref: Katey Walter Anthony, Thomas Schneider von Deimling, Ingmar Nitze, Steve Frolking, Abraham Emond, Ronald Daanen, Peter Anthony, Prajna Lindgren, Benjamin Jones, Guido Grosse. 21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9

This sounds...kinda...bad...  :-\

Link to the paper.
I've not even finished to read it and I'm already wondering what was I thinking, having two kids!?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05738-9

21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes

Abstract
Permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) modeling has focused on gradual thaw of near-surface permafrost leading to enhanced carbon dioxide and methane emissions that accelerate global climate warming. These state-of-the-art land models have yet to incorporate deeper, abrupt thaw in the PCF. Here we use model data, supported by field observations, radiocarbon dating, and remote sensing, to show that methane and carbon dioxide emissions from abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes will more than double radiative forcing from circumpolar permafrost-soil carbon fluxes this century. Abrupt thaw lake emissions are similar under moderate and high representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), but their relative contribution to the PCF is much larger under the moderate warming scenario. Abrupt thaw accelerates mobilization of deeply frozen, ancient carbon, increasing 14C-depleted permafrost soil carbon emissions by ~125–190% compared to gradual thaw alone. These findings demonstrate the need to incorporate abrupt thaw processes in earth system models for more comprehensive projection of the PCF this century.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #572 on: August 20, 2018, 01:38:04 AM »
...
I've not even finished to read it and I'm already wondering what was I thinking, having two kids!?
...
I don't know about you, but we were declaring hope in a nuclear world.  (Conveniently, my kids were born before '88 and the testimony that should have been heard around the world.  In '88, I was busy raising kids and teaching Algebra, and didn't know about the testimony for another 20 years or so.)
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Cid_Yama

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #573 on: August 20, 2018, 04:10:36 AM »
Quote from: miki
Link to the paper.
I've not even finished to read it and I'm already wondering what was I thinking, having two kids!?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05738-9

Sounds like a Star Trek NG Inner Light episode moment.

Picard's comment is that his grandchild deserves a full life but isn't going to get it.

My take is, you don't need a long life to have a full life.

I mean, look at his daughter, she already knew the soil was dead BEFORE she had the child.  Almost as if the child was an Affirmation of Life much like the tree in the square.

I feel fortunate that I had neither the time nor the inclination to have children.

But if you have children, help them have that full life regardless how long it lasts.  (And have one yourself, while you're at it.)

See this as an opportunity, as all the things that used to seem to matter fall away.

 

   
« Last Edit: August 20, 2018, 04:34:45 AM by Cid_Yama »
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #574 on: August 20, 2018, 05:23:14 AM »
Quote
But if you have children, help them have that full life regardless how long it lasts.  (And have one yourself, while you're at it.)
Yup.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #575 on: August 20, 2018, 08:27:46 AM »
I am glad this topic is finally being discussed.  I started following this forum to watch the ice over the ESAS where Natalia Shakova has conducted her research.  That area has been absolutely scorched this summer!  Potentially, it could be the biggest news of the melting season.

I say "potentially" because there is a lot of controversy over her findings.  But I have never found a legitimate scientific study that says she is wrong.

I also follow Katey Walter Anthony's research.  I love her youtube videos burning the methane from the ice.  Unfortunately, she gave an interview not long ago about the holes on the yamal peninsula that I thought was pretty weak and ignored a lot of the facts. 

However, I use to work in science and I understand the importance of being politically correct when you depend on grants to fund your research.   




kassy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #576 on: August 20, 2018, 06:47:47 PM »
Well the thread itself dates back to 2013.  ;)

The problem with methane is that it is all about feedbacks (in the Arctic) so it is just watching consequences slowly unfold....which is interesting in itself. Why haven't we seen more Siberian blowholes this year?

To decrease the risk get rid of the CO2 firstand foremost.

Then go vegan (or vegetarian all little bits help). Ruminants are a source of methane and meat production is a waste of feed stocks and water (in scarce environments).

And then you can go hardcore and change out the rice in your diet since paddies are another big methane source but globally this is of course not an option.

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Cid_Yama

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #577 on: August 21, 2018, 01:39:30 AM »
Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing—Even in Winter
Quote
Cherskiy, Russia—Nikita Zimov was teaching students to do ecological fieldwork in northern Siberia when he stumbled on a disturbing clue that the frozen land might be thawing far faster than expected.

Zimov, like his father, Sergey Zimov, has spent years running a research station that tracks climate change in the rapidly warming Russian Far East. So when students probed the ground and took soil samples amid the mossy hummocks and larch forests near his home, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Nikita Zimov suspected something wasn't right.

In April he sent a team of workers out with heavy drills to be sure. They bored into the soil a few feet down and found thick, slushy mud. Zimov said that was impossible. Cherskiy, his community of 3,000 along the Kolyma River, is one of the coldest spots on Earth. Even in late spring, ground below the surface should be frozen solid.

Except this year, it wasn't.

Every winter across the Arctic, the top few inches or feet of soil and rich plant matter freezes up before thawing again in summer. Beneath this active layer of ground extending hundreds of feet deeper sits continuously frozen earth called permafrost, which, in places, has stayed frozen for millennia.

But in a region where temperatures can dip to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the Zimovs say unusually high snowfall this year worked like a blanket, trapping excess heat in the ground. They found sections 30 inches deep—soils that typically freeze before Christmas—that had stayed damp and mushy all winter. For the first time in memory, ground that insulates deep Arctic permafrost simply did not freeze in winter.

"This is a big deal," says Ted Schuur, a permafrost expert at Northern Arizona University. "In the permafrost world, this is a significant milestone in a disturbing trend—like carbon in the atmosphere reaching 400 parts per million."


Eleven miles downriver from where the Zimovs’ started their drilling, Mathias Goeckede with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry spends weeks each summer traversing crumbling boardwalks over spongy Siberian ground. He tracks carbon exchange between the earth and the atmosphere.

Measurements at his site show that snow depth there has roughly doubled in five years. When excessive snow smothers the ground, warmth below the surface may not dissipate during winter. Data from a drill hole on Goeckede's site appears to capture that phenomenon: In April, temperatures 13 inches below ground there increased roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit in that same five-year period.

Thousands of miles away, Vladimir Romanovsky saw something similar. Romanovsky, a permafrost expert at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, runs some of the most extensive permafrost monitoring sites in North America, with detailed records going back 25 years, and in some cases longer.

"For all years before 2014, the complete freeze-up of the active layer would happen in mid-January," he says. "Since 2014, the freeze-up date has shifted to late February and even March."

But this winter, Fairbanks, too, saw extremely heavy snow. And for the first time on record, the active layer at two of Romanovsky's sites didn't freeze at all.

"This is really a very important threshold," he adds.


"This really is astounding," says Max Holmes, an Arctic scientist with Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.

"It's worrisome," says Sue Natali, a permafrost expert, also with Woods Hole, who saw an active layer not re-freeze recently during a research trip to Alaska's Yukon region. "When we see things happening that haven't happened in the lifetime of the scientists studying them, that should be a concern."




« Last Edit: August 21, 2018, 01:57:44 AM by Cid_Yama »
"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry

Avalonian

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #578 on: August 21, 2018, 09:13:26 AM »
Was just about to post this as well, Cid_Yama. So, another feedback: increased snow cover blanket prevents permafrost formation. Lovely.  :P

Juan C. García

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #579 on: August 21, 2018, 08:02:47 PM »
Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing—Even in Winter
Quote
Cherskiy, Russia—Nikita Zimov was teaching students to do ecological fieldwork in northern Siberia when he stumbled on a disturbing clue that the frozen land might be thawing far faster than expected.
...
Hi Cid_Yama:
Seems that you did not put the link to the article:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/08/news-arctic-permafrost-may-thaw-faster-than-expected/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Science_20180820::rid=704973665
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

kassy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #580 on: August 22, 2018, 06:16:00 PM »
So they are in the Kolyma area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park

How much of Siberia got unusual snowfalls like these?
And how much has a similar profile (in the ground)?



Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

vox_mundi

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #581 on: September 18, 2018, 07:56:33 PM »
Storegga submarine landslides may be more common than originally thought.

Scientists Closing In On Source of Shetland Tsunamis
Quote


Shetland Island (north of Scotland) has been hit by at least two more tsunamis in the past 10,000 years than previously thought, and scientists are working to identify where the giant waves originated.

Around 8,200 years ago, the Storegga  off the coast of Norway caused a 20m-high tsunami to sweep across Shetland. Sands found at various points across the isles, and in mainland Scotland, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, proved the tsunami's towering height, and the event has been well-reported.

Scientists funded by NERC have identified sands on Shetland that they say prove additional tsunamis hit Shetland 5,000 and 1,500 years ago. This could mean that tsunamis are a more common occurrence than previously thought in the UK.
Quote
... We found sands aged 5,000 and 1,500 years old at multiple locations in Shetland, up to 13 meters (42 feet) above sea level. These deposits have a similar sediment character as the Storegga event and can therefore be linked to tsunami inundation.
... Submarine landslides can occur on slopes of just one or two degrees, and we still don't know exactly how they are set in motion, except that earthquakes are considered to be the most common trigger. It is critical that we learn more.

The research is part of the Landslide-Tsunami project, ongoing research that forms a key element of NERC's Arctic Research Programme. The project aims to discover what causes enormous submarine landslides, what the impact of slides in different locations and of different magnitude would be on the UK, and what the likelihood of such an event might be, given the significant scale of Arctic climate change.


https://nerc.ukri.org/planetearth/stories/1906/
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #582 on: September 25, 2018, 01:47:21 AM »
This Hissing, Bubbling Alaska Lake is Frightening Scientists
https://www.adn.com/arctic/2018/09/24/across-the-arctic-lakes-are-leaking-dangerous-greenhouse-gases/



ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, ALASKA - Katey Walter Anthony has studied some 300 lakes across the tundras of the Arctic. But sitting on the mucky shore of her latest discovery, the Arctic expert said she’d never seen a lake like this one.

The first time Walter Anthony saw Esieh Lake, she was afraid it might explode - and she is no stranger to the danger, or the theatrics, of methane.

At first, the sheer volume of gases at Esieh Lake was slightly terrifying, but as Walter Anthony grew accustomed to the lake's constant spluttering, her fear gave way to wonder.

Her sounding devices picked up huge holes in the bottom of the lake. Pockmarks, she called them, “unlike anything I’ve ever seen in any Arctic lake.”

Most of Esieh is quite shallow, averaging only a little over three feet deep. But where the gas bubbles cluster, the floor drops suddenly, a plunge marked by the vanishing of all visible plant life.

Measurements showed that the lake dips to about 50 feet deep in one area and nearly 15 feet in another. When they first studied them, Walter Anthony and her graduate student Janelle Sharp named these two seep clusters W1 and W2, short for "Wow 1" and "Wow 2."

The next discovery came from the lab. ...
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Reallybigbunny

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #583 on: September 26, 2018, 03:34:39 AM »
It is an interesting article, if it is found to be happening more widely... Doesn't methane break down into CO2 and water? If so even though the methane disperses relatively quickly compared to CO2 it then adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere!

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #584 on: September 26, 2018, 05:13:22 AM »
RBB,
Yes methane 'breaks down into CO2', but with methane's atmospheric concentration being on the order of 2 ppm (wikipedia), this source of CO2 is quite minor compared with CO2's 410 ppm that is growing by 2-3 ppm/year due mostly to more direct emissions (burning, cows and rice, etc.).  [At least, this is what I've learned on these threads.]
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Reallybigbunny

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #585 on: September 26, 2018, 09:03:40 AM »
Thanks Tor, still seems to be a general belief that methane just disappears rather than continues to be a long term contributor to green house gases in the atmosphere. 

morganism

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #586 on: September 27, 2018, 01:16:26 AM »
Methane's effects on sunlight vary by region

https://phys.org/news/2018-09-jove-methane-effects-sunlight-vary.html

Their analysis showed that methane forcing is not spatially uniform whatsoever, and exhibits remarkable regional patterns. The most striking finding from the first comprehensive calculations of methane forcing is that because desert regions at low latitudes feature bright, exposed surfaces that reflect light upwards to enhance the absorptive properties of methane, there can be a 10-fold increase in the localized methane shortwave forcing.

This effect is most pronounced in locations such as the Saharan Desert or Arabian Peninsula. These regions receive the most sunlight due to their proximity to the equator and feature exceptionally low relative humidity, which helps to further enhance the effects of methane.

Cloud cover was also shown to influence the gas' radiative effects. Increased forcing for methane overlying clouds was found to be up to nearly three times greater than global annualized forcing, and were associated with the oceanic stratus cloud decks west of southern Africa and North and South America and with the cloud systems in the Intertropical Convergence Zone near the equator. High-altitude clouds can reduce the solar flux incident on methane in the lower troposphere, reducing its forcing relative to clear-sky conditions, but over nearly 90 percent of the Earth's surface, cloud radiative effects enhance methane radiative forcing."

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaas9593

Juan C. García

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Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

litesong

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #588 on: September 28, 2018, 03:12:07 AM »
Some news from the Washington Post:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/arctic-lakes-are-bubbling-and-hissing-with-dangerous-greenhouse-gases/
Good you posted this article, Juan! I'd seen the same article, but my computer decided to flip out for a while. Anyhow, from the article:
"Katey Walter Anthony has studied some 300 lakes across the tundras of the Arctic. But sitting on the mucky shore of her latest discovery, the Arctic expert said she’d never seen a lake like this one. (look at picture)
..... the lake, about 20 football fields in size, looked as if it were boiling. Its waters hissed, bubbled and popped as a powerful greenhouse gas escaped from the lake bed. Some bubbles grew as big as grapefruits, visibly lifting the water’s surface several inches and carrying up bits of mud from below.

This was methane."
///////
If Dr. Walter Anthony had used some of her methane concentrating techniques & ignited the gas, she might have created a 100 yard(greater?) methane fire-wall!

Archimid

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #589 on: September 28, 2018, 04:33:58 PM »
I saw this too but that little voice in my head told me: "nothing to see here, move along, I'll be fine"
and I did.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Sleepy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #590 on: September 28, 2018, 09:06:11 PM »
We on the other side of the pond sometimes have trouble reading sites over there thanks to GDPR.

Ah well, there's always science to read, even if it's a couple of years old.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871174X16300488
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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Cid_Yama

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #591 on: October 16, 2018, 04:22:40 PM »
IPCC Admits End of the World as we know it
Quote
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just come out with its latest report on the Earth’s ecosystemic health, and even in its gussied up findings — what many are calling “hopium” these days — it is, if read carefully, a prediction of the end of civilization.

According to the U.N. report, the only way to avoid this disaster would require “rapid and far-reaching” changes in the capitalist system that is the substructure of civilization, East and West. What must be changed, it says, are energy systems, land use, urban design, transportation, and building design — at a minimum. Changed so they contribute no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — and can you imagine a world where transportation, for example, doesn’t pollute the air and we get along without cars, airplanes and cargo ships?

Though “energy systems” looks like a mild phrase, it actually implies the end of coal, gas and oil in the near future, the very fuels upon which industrial capitalism is based. There is no way that so-called “renewable” sources (which of course are not renewable because solar panels, windmills and batteries have finite lives and must be replaced) could ever replace those carbon-based fuels.

No wonder that most scientists — and anybody else who knows how politics works — say that this sort of wholesale economic change will not come about. There’s not a political system of any stripe anywhere in the world that is prepared to, or even knows how to, transform a society out of our modern way of life. That’s why one scientist has said in response to the U.N. report that it is nothing more than an academic exercise in “what would happen if a frog had wings.”

Quote
A decade ago, the “father of global warming”—the first scientist to sound the alarm on climate change in the 1980s to the US Congress—announced that we were too late: the planet had already hit the danger zone.

In a landmark paper, James Hansen, then head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, along with seven other leading climate scientists, described how a global average temperature above 1°Celsius (C)—involving a level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of around 450 parts per million (ppm)—would lead to “practically irreversible ice sheet and species loss.” But, they added, new data showed that even 1°C was too hot.

At the time the paper was issued in 2008, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were around 385 ppm. This is “already in the dangerous zone,” explained Hansen and his colleagues, noting that most climate models excluded self-reinforcing amplifying feedbacks which would be triggered at this level—things like “ice sheet disintegration, vegetation migration, and GHG [greenhouse gas] release from soils, tundra, or ocean sediments.”

Such feedbacks constitute tipping points which, once triggered, can lead to irreversible or even runaway climate change processes.

According to Hansen and his co-authors, these feedbacks “may begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less.” The only viable solution to guarantee a safe climate, they wrote, is to reduce the level of greenhouse gases to around 350 ppm, if not lower.

Today, we are well in breach of the 1°C upper limit. And we have breached this limit at a much lower level of atmospheric CO2 than Hansen thought would be necessary to warm this much—as of May 2018, the monthly average atmospheric CO2 had reached 410ppm (the August measurement puts it at 409ppm.) This is the highest level of CO2 the earth has seen in 800,000 years.

The IPCC says that this would just be the beginning: we are currently on track to hit 3-4°C by end of century, which would lead to a largely unlivable planet.

Quote
They STILL haven’t dropped the other shoe. The “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C” contains terrifying forecasts about what will happen when we reach an average global temperature 1.5 degrees C higher than the pre-industrial average. (We are now at +1C.) But it still shies away from talking about the feedbacks, the refugees and mass death.

The report is a bracing dose of realism in many ways. It effectively says we can’t afford to go anywhere near +2C. It talks bluntly about the need to end all fossil fuel use, reforest vast tracts of marginal land, and cut down on meat-eating. It even admits that we will probably have to resort to geoengineering — “solar radiation management,” in the jargon.

So far, so good. At least it’s being honest about the problem — but only up to a point. “Not in front of the children” is still the rule for governments when it comes to talking about the mass movements of refugees and the civil and international wars that will erupt when the warming cuts into the food supply. And they still don’t want to talk openly about the feedbacks.

The governments take climate change very seriously these days, but they worry that too much frankness about the cost in lives of going past 1.5C will create irresistible pressure on them to take radical action now. In the ensuing struggle between the scientists and the politicians, the executive summary always gets toned down.

What got removed from the summary this time was any mention of “significant population displacement concentrated in the tropics” at +2C (i.e. mass migrations away from stricken regions, smashing up against borders elsewhere that are slammed shut against the refugees, the real reason for Trump's wall).

Even worse, “tipping points” are barely mentioned in the report. These are the dreaded feedbacks — loss of Arctic sea ice, melting of the permafrost, carbon dioxide and methane release from the oceans — that would trigger unstoppable, runaway warming.

They are called “feedbacks” because they are self-reinforcing processes that are unleashed by the warming we have already caused, and which we cannot shut off even if we end all of our own emissions.

If you don’t go into the feedbacks, then you can’t talk about runaway warming, and going to 4, 5 or 6 degrees C higher average global temperature, and hundreds of millions or billions of deaths. And if you don’t acknowledge that, then you will not treat this as the emergency it really is.

Quote
Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed — initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world’s most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands’ representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming “genocide.”

The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 — echoes the charge. “Amplifies” may be the better term. Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares, should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure. Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.”

If you are alarmed by those sentences, you should be — they are horrifying. But it is, actually, worse than that — considerably worse. That is because the new report’s worst-case scenario is, actually, a best case. In fact, it is a beyond-best-case scenario. What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future. The question is how much worse than that it will get.
 
Barring the arrival of dramatic new carbon-sucking technologies, which are so far from scalability at present that they are best described as fantasies of industrial absolution, it will not be possible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius — the level the new report describes as a climate catastrophe. As a planet, we are coursing along a trajectory that brings us north of four degrees. The IPCC is right that two degrees marks a world of climate catastrophe.

But the real meaning of the report is not “climate change is much worse than you think,” because anyone who knows the state of the research will find nothing surprising in it. The real meaning is, “you now have permission to freak out.”

At two degrees, the melting of ice sheets will pass a tipping point of collapse, flooding dozens of the world’s major cities.  Four hundred million more people will suffer from water scarcity, and even in the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands each summer. It will be worse in the planet’s equatorial band. In India, where many cities now numbering in the many millions would become unliveably hot, there would be 32 times as many extreme heat waves, each lasting five times as long and exposing, in total, 93 times more people. This is two degrees — practically speaking, our absolute best-case climate scenario.

At three degrees, southern Europe will be in permanent drought. The average drought in Central America would last 19 months and in the Caribbean 21 months. In northern Africa, the figure is 60 months — five years. The areas burned each year by wildfires would double in the Mediterranean and sextuple in the United States. Beyond the sea-level rise, which will already be swallowing cities from Miami Beach to Jakarta, damages just from river flooding will grow 30-fold in Bangladesh, 20-fold in India, and as much as 60-fold in the U.K. This is three degrees — better than we’d do if all the nations of the world honored their Paris commitments, which none of them are. Practically speaking, barring those dramatic tech deus ex machinas, this seems to me about as positive a realistic outcome as it is rational to expect.

Quote
Key dangers largely left out of the IPCC special report on 1.5C of warming are raising alarm among some scientists who fear we may have underestimated the impacts of humans on the Earth’s climate.

The IPCC report sets out the world’s current knowledge of the impacts of 1.5C of warming and clearly shows the dangers of breaching such a limit.

Tipping points merit only a few mentions in the IPCC report. Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said: “The IPCC report fails to focus on the weakest link in the climate chain: the self-reinforcing feedbacks which, if allowed to continue, will accelerate warming and risk cascading climate tipping points and runaway warming.”

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"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry

Shared Humanity

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #592 on: October 17, 2018, 02:56:34 AM »
Thanks Cid_Yama. Not going to be able to sleep tonight.

Archimid

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #593 on: October 23, 2018, 04:57:27 AM »
1. I'm everyday more convinced that the day of the first BOE will be the end of humanity. I don't think anyone will record it tho. By that time the humans that remain will be too busy fighting each other over scraps to even notice the BOE. The BOE will just mop up whoever is left on the surface of this beautiful rock. The Putins and Trumps living in underground bunkers will die in misery, kings of the mole people. 

2. Fear and Hope. The ultimate motivators. We should fear climate change with every fiber of our being. But there is hope. There is real hope, but it requieres much work and sacrifice, and doing some very risky tasks.

3. I'm everyday more convinced that humans could control the earth's climate and avoid the worst of climate change, maybe even take advantage of climate change, if we wanted to. It is obvious that we already have a huge influence on the climate but that influence is mostly incidental to modern human behavior and energy use.  If humans can have incidental influence over the climate system then that influence can be harnessed to exert the changes that we want.

 It can be done, but only if we take the threat serious.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

sark

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #594 on: October 29, 2018, 09:49:33 PM »
http://tass.com/economy/1028373

Russian scientists find new greenhouse gas sources in the Arctic

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/. Russian scientists during an expedition on board the Akademik Keldysh research vessel found new sources of methane emissions in the Arctic, the Ministry of Education and Science’s press service said on Friday.
Experts say thawing of the Arctic Ocean’s underwater and coastal permafrost causes massive emissions of greenhouse gases - methane and carbon dioxide. The growing emissions may affect the planet’s climate system.
"Russian scientists have found a new big area in the East Arctic’s seas with big emissions of greenhouse gases," the press service said. "They also saw that emissions in earlier found areas had become more active."

no word on the investigators or where to find out more

RK

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #595 on: November 04, 2018, 09:15:25 PM »
Professor Semiletov works from the Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) and they recently published 2 articles about the latest expedition that expands upon the TASS report. They can be found via the following weblinks:

(All credits are properly due to the TPU)

https://news.tpu.ru/en/news/2018/09/24/33719/

https://news.tpu.ru/en/news/2018/10/18/33829/

Significant amongst the notable takeaways is the indication that:
while on the one hand, the reduction of the Arctic Sea coverage might open up the wider Arctic sea route north of Russia;
on the other hand, the apparent instability of the more widely spread gas hydrates may give rise to "enormous material damage" and "geological catastrophes" and so limit the range of activity in the region?

It would be useful to monitor the literature for the papers/articles that should follow from this recent expedition. I commend Prof Semiletov and all his fellow scientists and colleagues who work in this  (vitally) important field. 

gerontocrat

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #596 on: November 04, 2018, 10:03:47 PM »
http://tass.com/economy/1028373

Russian scientists find new greenhouse gas sources in the Arctic

no word on the investigators or where to find out more

Lots of posts in this thread around this time last year. e.g. from A-Team
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.msg132298/topicseen.html#msg132298

And a paper -
Current rates and mechanisms of subsea permafrost degradation in the East Siberian
Arctic Shelf - Natalia Shakhova Igor Semiletov
file:///D:/Matt/Environment/CO2%20&%20Methane/ESAS%20Methane%20N%20Shakhova%20paper%20from%202017.pdf

Quite scary.
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Serrara Fluttershy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #597 on: November 11, 2018, 06:35:10 PM »
So, I joined this forum due to a relevant subreddit about climatology, and recently many people over there are questioning Natalia's work.

Could someone give me a short summary of whether or not the ESAS is a threat, and if so, how urgent is it?

The sheer length and amount of discussion on this thread gives me a headache, even though I really do want to learn more. :/

Also: http://earth-chronicles.com/science/russian-scientists-have-discovered-new-sources-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-in-the-arctic.html

vox_mundi

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #598 on: November 11, 2018, 07:59:11 PM »
More and Bigger Sinkholes on Yamal Tundra
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2018/08/more-and-bigger-sinkholes-yamal-tundra
http://www.ikz.ru/yamalskaya-voronka-prirodnyj-fenomen

Quote
... One of the biggest formations is located only about four kilometers from a gas pipeline leading from the huge Bovanenkovo field, a project operated by Gazprom. This formation is now growing and has reached a diameter of more than 60 meter and a depth of about 200 meters.

The first sinkholes were discovered in 2014 and since then at least ten big-size holes have been mapped. In addition, there are indications that several more major holes are in the making. Researchers told RIA Novosti that they on the two Arctic peninsulas have discovered several small hills which they believe could be «gas bubbles» ready to burst.
https://ria.ru/science/20180124/1513201345.html (use google translate)

According to researchers at the Institute of Earth Cryosphere in Tyumen, there is methane gas seeping out from the formations.
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"Tyumen scientists on the two peninsulas of the Arctic region - Yamal and Gydan - are investigating special tufts of heaving that precede the explosion and the appearance of the famous Yamal craters. But the gas release can be predicted," the university said.

According to Anatoly Gubarkov, an associate professor at the Department of Earth Cryology at Tyumen Industrial University, such hillocks "mature" for about three years.

At the same time, according to Tyumen scientists, the real risk of new explosions is only in the fields of the Bovanenkovo ​​group.

https://ria.ru/science/20180124/1513201345.html


Saudi Aramco wants to buy 30% of Novatek’s Arctic LNG-2

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Russia’s energy minister welcomes Saudi Arabia’s state energy company as key commercial partner to the second gas plant on the Yamal Peninsula.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

kassy

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Re: Arctic Methane Release
« Reply #599 on: November 11, 2018, 10:31:24 PM »
Welcome Serrara Fluttershy (big family you´ve got  ;) ) i suggest you read post 501 in this thread.



Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.