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DocWatch permafrost meltdown Twitterit? News stories about "permafrost meltdown," with punchlines: http://apocadocs.com/d.pl?permafrost+meltdown Related Scary Tags: arctic meltdown  ~ methane release  ~ death spiral  ~ holyshit  ~ faster than expected  ~ feedback loop  ~ climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ carbon emissions  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ tipping point   Mon, Mar 14, 2016 from PhysOrg: Degrading ice wedges reshape Arctic permafrost and landscape The wedges, which can be the size of a house, gradually formed over hundreds or even thousands of years as water seeped into permafrost cracks. On the ground surface, they form polygon shapes roughly 15-30 meters wide--a defining characteristic of northern landscapes.... Ice wedge degradation has been observed before in individual locations, but this is the first study to determine that rapid melting has become widespread throughout the Arctic. "Here we're combining observations from people working in the field across the Arctic--Russia, Canada and Alaska--where we're seeing the same ice wedge melting phenomenon," said Liljedahl, the lead author of the study.... "It's really the tipping point for the hydrology," Liljedahl said. "Suddenly you're draining the landscape and creating more runoff, even if the amount of precipitation remains the same. Instead of being absorbed by the tundra, the snowmelt water will run off into lakes and larger rivers. It really is a dramatic hydrologic change across the tundra landscape." ... Wouldn't you expect a wedge to have a tipping point? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 23, 2015 from PNAS, in Washington Post: Bad news: Scientists say we could be underestimating Arctic methane emissions "...The fact that this was done not just at one site, but multiple sites, is a breakthrough in our ability to quantify [methane] budgets for tundra ecosystems." The researchers found that cold-season methane emissions are not only not negligible -- they're pretty significant. While emissions varied somewhat from one site to the next, Zona said that, overall, emissions from September to May accounted for about half of all the methane emitted from those sites throughout the entire year. This might seem a little baffling when you consider the fact that methane is generally released as Arctic soil thaws -- a process that should be most pronounced during the warmest part of the year. Zona said the key to understanding where cold-season emissions come from lies in the way Arctic soil is structured and how it reacts to changes in temperature. ... Oh, right: bacteria never sleep! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, May 2, 2015 from New Zealand Herald: Hundreds of methane gas flares found off coast of Gisborne, NZ "Preliminary indications are that methane is reaching the ocean surface - this is the first time this has been measured in New Zealand," he said. "However, to understand how much methane, and then what this means for atmospheric contributions, will require detailed analysis of the data."... The discovery of this high concentration of gas flares in shallow water depths - 100m-300m - on an active tectonic subduction zone was unique, as gas seeps usually occurred much deeper, at 600m to 1000m below the surface. The team identified methane gas in the sediment and in the ocean, and vast areas of methane hydrates - ice-like frozen methane - below the seafloor. This year's research voyage continued the work of an international project focusing on the interactions between gas hydrates and slow-moving landslides called SCHLIP - Submarine Clathrate Hydrate Landslide Imaging Project. ... You say "clathrate" as if it's a real word! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Oct 23, 2014 from University of Arizona, via ScienceDaily: As permafrost soils thaw soil microbes amplify global climate change Tiny soil microbes are among the world's biggest potential amplifiers of human-caused climate change, but whether microbial communities are mere slaves to their environment or influential actors in their own right is an open question. Now, research by an international team of scientists from the U.S., Sweden and Australia, led by University of Arizona scientists, shows that a single species of microbe, discovered only very recently, is an unexpected key player in climate change.... The new research nails down the role of the new microbe, finding that the sheer abundance of Methanoflorens, as compared to other microbial species in thawing permafrost, should help to predict their collective impact on future climate change.... "But we find that in thawing permafrost, most methane initially doesn't come from acetate as previously assumed, but the other pathway. This ratio then shifts towards previous estimates as the frozen soils are turned into wetlands and acetate becomes the preferred carbon source." ... Anything called Methanoflorens -- "Methane's Flower" -- scares the bejeezis out of me. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 12, 2014 from GuyMcPherson.com: Guy McPherson Sings Sad Songs without Solace ... American actress Lily Tomlin is credited with the expression, "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." With respect to climate science, my own efforts to stay abreast are blown away every week by new data, models, and assessments. It seems no matter how dire the situation becomes, it only gets worse when I check the latest reports.... I'm not implying conspiracy among scientists. Science selects for conservatism. Academia selects for extreme conservatism. These folks are loathe to risk drawing undue attention to themselves by pointing out there might be a threat to civilization. Never mind the near-term threat to our entire species (they couldn't care less about other species). If the truth is dire, they can find another, not-so-dire version.... Gradual change is not guaranteed, as pointed out by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in December 2013: "The history of climate on the planet -- as read in archives such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and ice cores -- is punctuated with large changes that occurred rapidly, over the course of decades to as little as a few years." ... This article changes my perspective entirely on my credit score. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Oct 1, 2013 from The Atlantic, on IPCC5: We Are Terrifyingly Close to the Climate's 'Point of No Return' What makes the IPCC so important is simple: They are required to agree. Last night, the group pulled an all-nighter to ensure that representatives from all 195 member countries agreed on every single word of the 36-page "summary for policymakers" (pdf). That instantly makes the report the world's scientific and political authority on what is happening to the climate, what will happen in the future, and what needs to be done to avoid the worst impacts.... According to the report, the world can emit about 300 gigatons more carbon (total, ever) before there is a 50 percent confidence the world will reach warming of 2 degrees Celsius, which is the previously agreed upon "point of no return" for the climate system. For reference, 531 gigatons was emitted from 1870 to 2011. On a continued "business as usual" trajectory, the world will burn through about 5 times that safety limit by 2100, putting the world on a path for warming of more than 4.5 degrees Celsius and about a meter of additional sea level rise. This idea of a 'global carbon budget' -- a precursor to a possible global price on carbon emissions -- was endorsed by the group for the first time. Without jumping up and down on the desks of their computer terminals, this forum of scientists has done about as much as they can do. With this report, they have proven humankind's impact on the climate, and confidently projected dire consequences should world governments fail to act immediately. ... Luckily, everyone listens to egghead scientists when they all agree! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jul 24, 2013 from BBC: Arctic methane 'time bomb' could have huge economic costs Scientists say that the release of large amounts of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have huge economic impacts for the world. The researchers estimate that the climate effects of the release of this gas could cost $60 trillion..., roughly the size of the global economy in 2012.... Previous work has shown that the diminishing ice cover in the East Siberian sea is allowing the waters to warm and the methane to leach out. Scientists have found plumes of the gas up to a kilometre in diameter rising from these waters. ... A trillion or two could put up a lot of solar panels. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jun 14, 2013 from NASA: Is a Sleeping 'Climate Giant' Stirring in the Arctic? ...Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850. Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface.... "Permafrost soils are warming even faster than Arctic air temperatures - as much as 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius) in just the past 30 years," Miller said. "As heat from Earth's surface penetrates into permafrost, it threatens to mobilize these organic carbon reservoirs and release them into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, upsetting the Arctic's carbon balance and greatly exacerbating global warming."... If climate change causes the Arctic to get warmer and drier, scientists expect most of the carbon to be released as carbon dioxide. If it gets warmer and wetter, most will be in the form of methane. The distinction is critical. Molecule per molecule, methane is 22 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale, and 105 times more potent on a 20-year timescale. ... Nothing stinks up the joint like melting permafrost. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Feb 11, 2013 from UMich, via PNAS, via PhysOrg: Sunlight stimulates release of climate-warming gas from melting Arctic permafrost, study says Ancient carbon trapped in Arctic permafrost is extremely sensitive to sunlight and, if exposed to the surface when long-frozen soils melt and collapse, can release climate-warming carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere much faster than previously thought.... They found that sunlight increases bacterial conversion of exposed soil carbon into carbon dioxide gas by at least 40 percent compared to carbon that remains in the dark. The team, led by Rose Cory of the University of North Carolina, reported its findings in an article to be published online Feb. 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... Tremendous stores of organic carbon have been frozen in Arctic permafrost soils for thousands of years. If thawed and released as carbon dioxide gas, this vast carbon repository has the potential to double the amount of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas in the atmosphere on a timescale similar to humanity's inputs of carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels. ... I, too, prefer to remain in the dark. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Nov 29, 2012 from Sydney Morning Herald: At the edge of disaster THE world is on the cusp of a "tipping point" into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday. "The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales," says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. "Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started." ... D'oha! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Nov 1, 2012 from PhysOrg: Not-so-permanent permafrost As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon stored in arctic permafrost, or frozen ground, could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century as a result of a warmer planet according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. This nitrogen and carbon are likely to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, and water resources including rivers and lakes. For context, this is roughly the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere today.... "While the permafrost of the polar latitudes may seem distant and disconnected from the daily activities of most of us, its potential to alter the planet's habitability when destabilized is very real." ... As we said in 2008, "It turns out permafrost ain't so perma, after all." ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Dec 18, 2011 from New York Times: As Permafrost Thaws, Scientists Study the Risks A bubble rose through a hole in the surface of a frozen lake. It popped, followed by another, and another, as if a pot were somehow boiling in the icy depths. Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the lake from the decay of plant debris. These plants last saw the light of day 30,000 years ago and have been locked in a deep freeze -- until now.... If a substantial amount of the carbon should enter the atmosphere, it would intensify the planetary warming. An especially worrisome possibility is that a significant proportion will emerge not as carbon dioxide, the gas that usually forms when organic material breaks down, but as methane, produced when the breakdown occurs in lakes or wetlands. Methane is especially potent at trapping the sun's heat, and the potential for large new methane emissions in the Arctic is one of the biggest wild cards in climate science.... A recent survey drew on the expertise of 41 permafrost scientists to offer more informal projections. They estimated that if human fossil-fuel burning remained high and the planet warmed sharply, the gases from permafrost could eventually equal 35 percent of today's annual human emissions. ... "Transitoryfrost" just doesn't have the same ring to it. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 30, 2011 from University of Alaska, via EurekAlert: Abrupt permafrost thaw increases climate threat As the Arctic warms, greenhouse gases will be released from thawing permafrost faster and at significantly higher levels than previous estimates, according to survey results from 41 international scientists published in the Nov. 30 issue of the journal Nature. Permafrost thaw will release approximately the same amount of carbon as deforestation, say the authors, but the effect on climate will be 2.5 times bigger because emissions include methane, which has a greater effect on warming than carbon dioxide.... The authors estimate that the amount of carbon released by 2100 will be 1.7 to 5.2 times larger than reported in recent modeling studies, which used a similar warming scenario. "The larger estimate is due to the inclusion of processes missing from current models and new estimates of the amount of organic carbon stored deep in frozen soils," Abbott said. "There's more organic carbon in northern soils than there is in all living things combined; it's kind of mind boggling." ... Tell it to DURBAN! ApocaDoc permalink Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish! Fri, Nov 18, 2011 from Telegraph.co.uk: Are lemmings turning the Arctic green? Researchers found that large populations of lemmings are turning the Arctic green as the herbivores graze on plants and fertilise the soils. But for all it appears the the retreat of Arctic the tundra is encouraging global warming it may actually cool down the climate as plants can grow bigger and store more carbon. The team from the University of Texas at El Paso found when lemmings are excluded from the Arctic environment in enclosures in Alaska there is an increase in certain plant types called lichens and bryophytes. However when the lemmings were present there were surprising increases in grass and sedge, the plant material that lemmings actually feed on.... Dr Johnson said the increasing plant matter could reduce global warming as bigger plants absorb more carbon. On the other hand soil decomposition increases with warmer temperatures meaning soil microbes are respiring and releasing carbon into the atmosphere and potentially increasing climate warming. "We still don't know the relative magnitude of these two feedbacks to warming...." ... And what we don't know could send us off a cliff! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Oct 26, 2011 from The Daily Climate: Yukon delivers a plug of mercury in response to a changing climate The Yukon River is delivering upwards of five tons of mercury a year to the Arctic environment, likely in response to a warming climate, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey announced Tuesday... Permafrost in the Yukon basin has been absorbing naturally occurring mercury - chiefly from volcanoes - since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Now those soils, as a result of changing climate conditions, are thawing at increased rates. That could be releasing a substantial reservoir of the metal into the marshes and streams feeding the Yukon River, the world's 19th largest river. More recently, industrial pollution has coated the basin. Prevailing winds from Europe and Asia funnel industrial pollution, including mercury, directly to interior Alaska and the Yukon River drainage, [USGS hydrologist Paul] Schuster said. "If we had funding, we could prove this. We could determine whether this comes from coal or volcanoes. But that's very expensive," he said. ... Maybe they can raise the money by selling the mercury. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Sep 2, 2011 from PNAS: Permafrost carbon-climate feedbacks accelerate global warming Permafrost soils contain enormous amounts of organic carbon, which could act as a positive feedback to global climate change due to enhanced respiration rates with warming. We have used a terrestrial ecosystem model that includes permafrost carbon dynamics, inhibition of respiration in frozen soil layers, vertical mixing of soil carbon from surface to permafrost layers, and CH4 emissions from flooded areas, and which better matches new circumpolar inventories of soil carbon stocks, to explore the potential for carbon-climate feedbacks at high latitudes.... Methane emissions from high-latitude regions are calculated to increase from 34 Tg CH4/y to 41-70 Tg CH4/y, with increases due to CO2 fertilization, permafrost thaw, and warming-induced increased CH4 flux densities partially offset by a reduction in wetland extent. ... See? Climate forcing occurs naturally! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Aug 10, 2011 from Lloyd: Climate change leads to rising subsidence risks in Europe News reports on climate change have focused on dire predictions of more hurricanes and increasing flooding due to rising sea levels. But subsidence caused by drought, which has already become a major problem across Europe, will also become much worse due to global warming.... Subsidence is one of the costliest but least known property risks. Unlike a roaring storm, the damage wreaked by subsidence takes years rather than hours, but it can be serious.... A prolonged heatwave may bake the ground, creating fissures that can tear apart the foundations of houses, bridges and factories. In some parts of Europe, subsidence claims are now the costliest natural hazard, comparable to serious flooding, says Swiss Re in its report "The hidden risks of climate change: An increase in property damage from drought and soil subsidence in Europe". In France, subsidence-related claims have risen by more than 50 percent in the past 20 years, costing the affected regions 340 million euros every year on average. ... OMG: PermaMoist breakdown! Who would have thought? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Aug 2, 2011 from AFP, via The Independent: Russia may lose up to 30 percent of permafrost by 2050: official Russia's vast permafrost areas may shrink by a third by the middle of the century due to global warming, endangering infrastructure in the Arctic zone, an emergencies ministry official said Friday. "In the next 25 to 30 years, the area of permafrost in Russia may shrink by 10-18 percent," the head of the ministry's disaster monitoring department Andrei Bolov told the RIA Novosti news agency. "By the middle of the century, it can shrink by 15-30 percent, and the boundary of the permafrost may shift to the north-east by 150-200 kilometres," he said.... Permafrost, or soil that is permanently frozen, covers about 63 percent of Russia, but has been greatly affected by climate change in recent decades.... Scientists have said that permafrost thawing will set off another problem because the process will release massive amounts of greenhouse gas methane currently trapped in the frozen soil. ... Splendid vacation homes now available in Omsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jul 31, 2011 from National Snow and Ice Center: 2011 Arctic ice melt tracking record 2007 ... Isn't all science just a theory, anyway? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jul 31, 2011 from BBC, thx to DesdemonaDespair: Huge 2007 Arctic tundra fire points to new climate feedback An exceptional wildfire in northern Alaska in 2007 put as much carbon into the air as the entire Arctic tundra absorbs in a year, scientists say. The Anaktuvuk River fire burned across more than 1,000 sq km (400 sq miles), doubling the extent of Alaskan tundra visited by fire since 1950. With the Arctic warming fast, the team suggests in the journal Nature that fires could become more common. If that happens, it could create a new climate feedback, they say.... But 2007 saw unusually warm and dry conditions across much of the Arctic - resulting, among other things, in spectacularly fast melting of Arctic sea ice. This created conditions more conducive to fire, and when lightning struck the tundra in July, the Anaktuvuk River fire ignited. "Most tundra fires have been very small - this was an order of magnitude larger than the historical size," said Michelle Mack from the University of Florida in Gainesville, who led the research team on the Nature paper and is currently conducting further field studies in Alaska. "In 2007, we had a hot, dry summer, there was no rain for a long period of time. "So the tundra must have been highly flammable, with just the right conditions for fire to spread until the snow in October finally stopped it."... Another impact of the fire that has yet to be fully assessed is that the blackened soil absorbs more solar energy than normally vegetated tundra. This abets melting of the permafrost layer below. "Once permafrost melts beyond a certain depth on a slope, then all of the organic layer slides down the slope like a landslide," Dr Mack told BBC News. "This whole issue of melting can lead to other huge changes in drainage, in areas of wetlands - releasing carbon that's been frozen since the Pleistocene [Epoch, which ended more than 10,000 years ago]." ... New concepts learned today: 1) Tundra fires. 2) Permafrost landslides. 3) omg ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jul 5, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Going beyond the IPCC 'worst case' In order to see how climate models react over a wide range of greenhouse gas concentrations, researchers in the US have modelled emissions scenarios that are significantly higher than the IPCC's "worst case" scenarios. They found - perhaps unsurprisingly - that the extent of climate change will be significantly worse than for the IPCC's A1FI scenario. "Relative to the A1FI scenario, our highest scenario results in an additional 2 deg C (3.6F) of global mean warming above A1FI levels by 2100, a complete loss of Arctic summer sea ice by 2070 and an additional 43 percent sea level rise due to thermal expansion above A1FI levels by 2100," said Ben Sanderson from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US.... The team also assumed that the shares of primary energy derived from different fuel sources remain fixed over time at 2000 levels; that is, the carbon intensity of energy supply is assumed to remain constant. In the second scenario (AllCoal), the researchers make more extreme assumptions. They maintain the A1FI per capita energy projection, but assume population follows the UN high scenario as implemented in the IPCC A2 scenario, reaching 15 billion by 2100. They also make the bounding assumption that all new demand for primary energy is satisfied by coal. "This assumption is not intended to represent a plausible future, but a useful thought experiment that could help inform the exploration of upper bounds on emissions," said Sanderson. "It is astounding, for example, that this combination of assumptions leads to emissions in 2100 that are about four times those in the A1FI scenario, or about 105 gigatonnes of carbon per year." ... "Astounding" only if you believe in common sense directing the actions of societies. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 30, 2011 from NOAA: State of the Climate for 2010 (PDF of slideshow) Global average surface temperature among the two warmest of the instrumental record ~~ Greenland's ice sheet lost more mass in 2010 than at any time in the past ten years ~~ Consistent and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the oceans ~~ Many extreme events at regional and local levels ~~ Trends in snow cover duration, permafrost, and vegetation continued or accelerated ~~ Record-setting temperatures along entire western Greenland, both near the ground and higher in the atmosphere ~~ 2010 report tracks 41 climate indicators. Long-term trends continue to show the world is warming. ... All that, in twelve slides?!? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jun 27, 2011 from Washington Post: Arctic sea ice headed for another major melt According to one measure of sea ice coverage - average ice extent - the decline in ice cover appears to be occurring slightly faster so far this year than in June 2007, but it's not clear that it will wind up below the extent measured in September 2007.... "It is important to note for context that all 2011 estimates are well below the 1979-2007 September climatological mean of 6.7 million square kilometers."... "We do not know if Arctic change is responsible for record cold outbreaks in Europe the past two years or the heavy snowstorms along the U.S. East Coast. All we know right now is that the behavior fits the current theory." ... Wasn't 2007's melt a once-in-a-century event? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jun 19, 2011 from Anchorage Daily News: Arctic warming even faster than predicted, scientists say Surface temperatures in the Arctic since 2005 have been higher than for any five-year period since record keeping began in 1880, according to a new report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an international group within the Arctic Council that monitors the Arctic environment and provides advice on Arctic environmental protection. The rate of sea-ice decline has accelerated and the decline rate in the past 10 years has been higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted in 2007, the report says.... Temperatures in the Arctic permafrost have risen by up to 3.5 degrees in the past two to three decades, and the southern limit of the permafrost has been moving north, with the limit having retreated by 80 miles in the past 50 years in the Canadian province of Quebec, for example, the report says.... And, in terms of mitigation, deep and immediate cuts are required in the emission of the greenhouse gases that most scientists blame for the high, observed rate of global warming, the report says. ... Like I've been saying for years, we've got Nature on the run! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, May 30, 2011 from Reuters: Ice melt to close off Arctic's interior riches: study Global warming will likely open up coastal areas in the Arctic to development but close vast regions of the northern interior to forestry and mining by mid-century as ice and frozen soil under temporary winter roads melt, researchers said. Higher temperatures have already led to lower summer sea ice levels in the Arctic and the melting has the potential to increase access for fishermen, tourists and oil and natural gas developers to coastal regions in coming decades.... But the warming also will likely melt so-called "ice roads", the temporary winter roads developers now use to access far inland northern resources such as timber, diamonds and minerals, according to a study published on Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. "It's a resource frontier where we don't even know what all is there and I'm beginning to think we never will," Lawrence Smith, a professor of geography at the University of California Los Angeles and a co-author of the study, said about the Arctic interior.... Oil and natural gas developers could lose access to some inland drilling, but the industry would gain access to coastal drilling and would benefit from easier shipping routes. Timber and metal mining, however, would suffer far more because it would be cost-prohibitive to build permanent roads leading to these resources. ... The boreal forests, somewhat protected by slush. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, May 13, 2011 from BBC: Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic. The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.... Tom Burke, who advises mining company Rio Tinto and the UK Foreign Office on climate change and business, told Newsnight that political tensions were rising because "the ice is declining much faster" than expected, so "everybody who thinks they've got a chance to get at those resources wants to get in there and stake their claim". Since the 1970s, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University has made repeated trips under the North Pole in Royal Navy nuclear submarines to measure the thickness of the ice. He told Newsnight the graph "has gone off a cliff" because the ice sheet has thinned as well as shrunk. The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979. Prof Wadhams says in summer "it could easily happen that we'll have an ice-free North Pole within a year or two". ... Sometimes it's the offhand comments that hit the hardest. ApocaDoc permalink You're still reading! Good for you! You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy): Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day! Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore. Sun, May 1, 2011 from Bloomberg: Disaster Needed for U.S. to Act on Climate Change, Harvard's Stavins Says The U.S. probably won't take significant steps to curb climate change until an environmental disaster sways public view and prompts political action, Robert Stavins of Harvard University said. "It's unlikely that the U.S. is going to take serious action on climate change until there are observable, dramatic events, almost catastrophic in nature, that drive public opinion and drive the political process in that direction," Stavins, director of Harvard's Environmental Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said today in an interview in Bloomberg's Boston office.... Stavins, an economist, is a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said in 2007 that scientists are more than 90 percent certain that humans are causing global warming.... "There's a legit reason for the public to be skeptical about climate change because they don't see it," Stavins said. Grabbing the public's attention would require a dramatic development, such as a "well-observed melting of parts of polar ice caps that result in some amount of sea-level rise," Stavins said. ... Yeah, whaddaya expect from the public, abstract thinking? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 18, 2011 from The Independent: Arctic coastlines recede by 'several metres' a year Arctic coastlines are crumbling away and retreating at the rate of two metres or more a year due to the effects of climate change. In some locations, up to 30 metres of the shore has been vanishing every year. The rapid rate of coastal erosion poses a major threat to local communities and ecosystems, according to a new report by more than 30 scientists from 10 countries. Rising temperatures are melting protective sea ice fringing the coastlines, leaving them more exposed to the elements, the experts say. The report, State of the Arctic Coast 2010, says 10-year average rates of coastal retreat are "typically in the one to two metres per year range, but vary up to 10 to 30 metres per year in some locations". Worst-hit areas include the Beaufort Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea.... The scientists stressed that the coastal habitats were the prime lifeline for Arctic communities, supporting a large population of fish, birds and mammals including an estimated 500 million seabirds. ... Are you saying the wildlife doesn't like fresh coastline every year? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Apr 17, 2011 from Hot Topic: The trillionth ton If we want to give ourselves a 75 percent chance of coming in below a 2 degree C rise in the global average temperature, then we (as in all humanity) can emit around one trillion tonnes of CO2 (for more see Meinshausen et al here, discussed in the context of emissions targets at HT in this post). It doesn't much matter when we do the emitting, because CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere for a long time, but stick to that limit we must if we're serious about avoiding damaging warming. I like that way of thinking about the issue, as I noted in my report on the Forum, but it seems that I may have been rather optimistic about the height of the ceiling we're living under, and our chances of hitting a 2 degree C target. A new study by a team of Canadian climate modellers, Arora et al, Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases in Geophysical Research Letters..., suggests that: "... we have already surpassed the cumulative emission limit and so emissions must ramp down to zero immediately. The unprecedented reduction in fossil‐fuel emissions implied by either of these scenarios suggests that it is unlikely that warming can be limited to the 2 degrees C target agreed to in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord." Bugger. ... Oh heck, stop worrying. Somebody'll think of something. Sometime. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Apr 5, 2011 from New Scientist: Gulf Stream could be threatened by Arctic flush Rapid warming in the Arctic is creating a new and fast-growing pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. Measuring at least 7500 cubic kilometres, it could flush into the Atlantic Ocean and slow the Gulf Stream, bringing colder winters to Europe. The water is mostly coming from melting permafrost and rising rainfall, which is increasing flows in Siberian rivers that drain into the Arctic, such as the Ob and Yenisei. More comes from melting sea ice, says Laura de Steur of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research in 't Horntje, who is tracking the build-up.... "Sea ice is melting quicker. It is thinner and more mobile, and could exit the Arctic faster. Also more of it will enter the Atlantic as liquid water rather than ice." A dramatic freshening of the North Atlantic could disrupt the engine of a global ocean circulation system called the thermohaline circulation, or ocean conveyor. This system, of which the Gulf Stream forms a part, is driven by dense, salty water in the North Atlantic plunging to the ocean bottom near Greenland. ... Thermohaline disruption just doesn't feel very catchy to me. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Mar 23, 2011 from AlaskaDispatch: Warmer Arctic could increase threat of disease for caribou, other foods Climate change in the Arctic could change the balance of power between humans, animals and the germs or pathogens that make them both sick, according to a paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks microbiologist Karsten Hueffer.... The rates of predicted climate change for the Arctic could spell disaster for this longstanding host-pathogen balance. A warmer Arctic could increase survival of organisms that carry disease and decrease survival of the animals they infect - including animals used as subsistence food by people living in the Arctic. "What happens when a caribou has its calf on ground warm enough to have pathogens the calf cannot fight off?" said Hueffer. "The same issue could face bears giving birth in dens." Muskoxen are affected by a lung worm known to develop much faster when it's warmer. "The faster the worm grows the more generations are born, which increases the disease pressure on the muskoxen," said Hueffer. Humans are at risk as well. A warmer Arctic and the prospect of an ice-free Northwest Passage is expected to drive an increase in development and other human activity in the North, all of which will increase contact among wildlife, humans and domesticated animals. ... Caribou, muskox, and bears -- they die! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 17, 2011 from NSIDC, via IPS: Permafrost Melt Soon Irreversible Without Major Fossil Fuel Cuts Thawing permafrost is threatening to overwhelm attempts to keep the planet from getting too hot for human survival. Without major reductions in the use of fossil fuels, as much as two-thirds of the world's gigantic storehouse of frozen carbon could be released, a new study reported. That would push global temperatures several degrees higher, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable. Once the Arctic gets warm enough, the carbon and methane emissions from thawing permafrost will kick-start a feedback that will amplify the current warming rate, says Kevin Schaefer, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. That will likely be irreversible. And we're less than 20 years from this tipping point. Schaefer prefers to use the term "starting point" for when the 13 million square kilometres of permafrost in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe becomes a major new source of carbon emissions. "Our model projects a starting point 15 to 20 years from now," Schaefer told IPS. The model used a 'middle of the road' scenario with less fossil fuel use than at present. Even at that rate, it found that between 29 and 60 percent of the world's permafrost will thaw, releasing an extra 190 gigatonnes of carbon by 2200. The study is the first to quantify when and how much carbon will be released and was published this week in the meteorological journal Tellus. ... That's the "starting point" of "we're finished." ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 30, 2011 from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Alaska seeing impact of climate change in its infrastructure, villages Climate change has already begun to make life difficult for state transportation managers. And they expect it to become a bigger and more expensive challenge if warming trends continue as predicted. "With over 6,600 miles of coastline and 80 percent of the state underlaid by ice-rich permafrost, you can certainly imagine we are at the forefront of climate change impacts," said Mike Coffey, maintenance and operations chief for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Coffey discussed the impact of climate change on transportation in a webinar last week, hosted by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. New challenges include warming permafrost, coastal erosion and the potential for more dramatic storms and flooding, he said. These could lead to more highways and facilities cracking, icing up or even washing away. The hardest-hit areas are northern, western and Interior Alaska, where roads and structures are built over permafrost and near the coast. ... Benefits of climate change include seeing Russia more easily from Alaskan windows. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 9, 2010 from The ApocaDocs: 2010 Year in Review from the ApocaDocs The shocking truth ripped from the headlines! An appalling sense of humor in full display! The TOP 100 STORIES selected from the 1600+ news items archived and bequipped by the ApocaDocs in 2010, our The Year in Review displays not just the most holy shit, death-spiral-ish stories of the year, but also many of our favorite quips ("holy shit" stories tend to bring out the quipsters in both of us). All displayed in staggering CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER to help recap the year. You'll find yourself asking "What, all this, and it's only June!?!" Groans, grimaces, and guffaws abound in this rollercoaster reprise of a most eventful year. ... How could you keep it to only a hundred? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Nov 29, 2010 from PhysOrg: Research highlights the 'human face' of climate change Barry Smit is the Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change, and since 2005 he's studied how Arctic communities have tried to adapt to the rising temperatures caused by major shifts in global weather patterns. The human dimension of climate change has long been understudied, says Smit, who is taking part this week in a panel discussion on the environment and economy at the first ever Canada Research Chairs conference in Toronto. Over the course of two research projects - one with ArcticNet and another with the International Polar Year project - Smit has seen first-hand how Canada's Inuit have dealt with changing ice levels, wind speed, migration routes, and so on.... Some communities are seeing their dietary patterns evolve because the animals they've traditionally hunted have shifted their migratory patterns, says Smit. That shift has caused those communities to rely on grocery stores for their food - and since the groceries found in Canada's arctic are often no better than "what we in the south would generally characterize as junk food," that's led to teeth problems and higher rates of diabetes, says Smit.... "The ice is their highway. And one of the thing they've noticed is that their highway is collapsing in places it's never collapsed before," he says. ... Accidental microcosmic phrases can make me weep. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: That 'other' climate problem Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - at a perilous rate. Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.... Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.... As the Earth warms, the summer thaw bites a bit deeper, awakening ice-age microbes that attack organic matter - vegetation and animal remains - buried where oxygen cannot reach, producing methane that gurgles to the surface and into the air. The newly released methane adds to the greenhouse effect, trapping yet more heat which deepens the next thaw, in a spiraling cycle of increasing warmth. ... Apocaiku: The ice-age microbes / reawaken. Can we wake / all the sleepwalkers? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 20, 2010 from Voice of Russia: Permafrost temp rise in Siberia: 3 degrees This year's anomalous heat has told also on the Arctic regions. The Murmansk forum will outline some guidelines for the study of its impact on the region's wildlife. Speaking on the subject Aleksandr Frolov, the head of hydrometeorology and environment monitoring said: "The anomalous heat on the European territories was felt in Siberia and the European parts of the Arctic, be it even with a lower amplitude. The western parts of the Arctic had no ice - and that's another anomaly. We monitor the climatic changes in the Arctis using our 49 research stations including 3 observatories that are quite well-equipped, and satellites. Another important goal is the study of permafrost in Siberia and Yakutia that was also affected last summer." "The rise of the upper temperature level of the permafrost amounted to 3 degrees, and that that's a serious thing given that houses there are built on pillars, and if permafrost starts to melt, the pillars may sink with cracks in the walls of the houses. Then there are oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure laid down in the permafrost. We are speaking about big cities - Norilsk, Dudinka and Vorkuta. Besides The world's northern areas and their southern extremities can also be affected by temperature rises, spelling trouble to up to 800 million people. If the temperatures rise above 2 degrees or the trend of their steady growth can in the coming two decades result in the 57 centimeter level rise of the world ocean," said Sergei Shoigu, the Minister for Emergency Situations and President of the Russian Geographic Society. ... Is that three degrees Fubar, or three degrees Collapse? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Aug 14, 2010 from Anchorage Arctic Sounder: Borehole network confirms, permafrost is thawing worldwide An expanded network of boreholes across the northern hemisphere has confirmed that permafrost throughout polar and sub-polar regions is thawing, say scientists who studied the topic during International Polar Year... Using information collected from 575 boreholes located throughout North America, Russia and the Nordic region, researchers found that permafrost temperatures during the International Polar Year were as much as 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than they were 20 or 30 years ago. ... My blood runs cold when I hear news like this. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Aug 9, 2010 from CBC: Record heat forces Northwest Territories folks to adapt Landslides and low water levels in the Northwest Territories in the wake of record-breaking warmth have prompted calls for changes in infrastructure planning. "It's really important that community decision-makers and government decision-makers are prepared to spend a little bit more to make sure that the design [of structures such as buildings and roadways], in terms of preparation for permafrost degradation, is as strong as possible," said Doug Ritchie, a spokesman for the environmental group Ecology North, in the wake of temperature changes that Environment Canada called "unprecedented." In the Northwest Territories this year, spring temperatures were almost six degrees warmer than average, surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by half a degree. Climatologist Dave Phillips said in his 40 years with Environment Canada, he's never seen such a rapid change in temperature. "In my business, you break records by a tenth or a hundredth of a degree, not by a full half-degree or a degree," he said. "This is unprecedented, this kind of warming that we've seen in the last six months."... The Yukon government is already spending millions fixing roads affected by landslides, erosion, and washouts caused by extreme weather such as heavy rainstorms, Ritchie said. ... You don't need even a high school degree, to understand six degrees. Centigrade! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from University of Alaska, via EurekAlert: Study finds widespread permafrost warming Permafrost warming continues throughout a wide swath of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of scientists assembled during the recent International Polar Year.... The article notes that permafrost temperatures have warmed as much as two degrees Celsius from 20 to 30 years ago. They also found that permafrost near zero degrees Celsius warmed more slowly than colder permafrost.... ... I wonder when we'll put the "im" in "impermafrost"? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, May 23, 2010 from Anchorage Press: A fragile past - Archaeologists are scrambling as accelerated erosion sweeps away artifacts on Alaska's Arctic coast The Colorado team has measured coastal erosion near the old whaling site for three years. Overeem says the area loses ground as fast as 30 meters per year, and consistently around 15 meters per year. Coastal erosion is constant everywhere the land meets the sea. But in Arctic and sub-Arctic terrain, where the bluffs are often composed of a mix of soft soil and ice, erosion has accelerated in recent years. Call it global warming or climate change or the faddish, freak storm-centered term "global weird-ing"--by any name, it spells doom for countless small artifacts like the boat in the photograph, and for old village sites, trading posts and hunting sites that link Alaskans to the past.... He says one of the problems with erosion is more contemporary. "There are not only a lot of archeological sites, but a lot of community cemeteries that are in danger," he says. He ticks off a list of communities where graves will likely be moved--Port Heiden Dillingham, Nanwhalek and Old Afognak--often the graves are unmarked and without surviving records of who is buried there. ... Losing the past doesn't bode well for the future. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 26, 2010 from PhysOrg.com: Ancient artifacts revealed as northern ice patches melt High in the Mackenzie Mountains, scientists are finding a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools being revealed as warming temperatures melt patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years.... Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and lead researcher on the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study, is amazed at the implements being discovered by researchers. "We're just like children opening Christmas presents. I kind of pinch myself," says Andrews. Ice patches are accumulations of annual snow that, until recently, remained frozen all year. For millennia, caribou seeking relief from summer heat and insects have made their way to ice patches where they bed down until cooler temperatures prevail. Hunters noticed caribou were, in effect, marooned on these ice islands and took advantage.... Andrews is currently in a race against time. His IPY funds have run out and he is keenly aware that each summer, the patches continue to melt. In fact, two of the eight original patches have already disappeared. "We realize that the ice patches are continuing to melt and we have an ethical obligation to collect these artifacts as they are exposed," says Andrews. ... Worldwide climate collapse does pinch just a wee bit, doesn't it? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Mar 3, 2010 from LA Times: Woolly mammoths resurfacing in Siberia The beasts had long lain extinct and forgotten, embedded deep in the frozen turf, bodies swaddled in Earth's layers for thousands of years before Christ. Now, the Russian permafrost is offering up the bones and tusks of the woolly mammoths that once lumbered over the tundra. They are shaped into picture frames, chess sets, pendants. They are gathered and piled, carved and whittled, bought and sold on the Internet.... The mammoth finds have been growing steadily over the last three decades as Russia's vast sea of permafrost slowly thaws. Russian scientists disagree over whether global warming is responsible. Some say yes, others are skeptical. But nobody argues that the permafrost is dwindling -- and they're glad to have the bones and tusks, especially when the increased yields coincide with bans on elephant ivory. ... Every methane cloud holds an ivory lining. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Feb 17, 2010 from Science Daily: Permafrost Line Recedes 130 Km in 50 Years, Canadian Study Finds In a recent issue of the scientific journal Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, Serge Payette and Simon Thibault suggest that, if the trend continues, permafrost in the region will completely disappear in the near future.... While climate change is the most probable explanation for this phenomenon, the lack of long term climatic data for the area makes it impossible for the researchers to officially confirm this. Professor Payette notes, however, that the average annual temperature of the northern sites he has studied for over 20 years has increased by 2 degrees Celsius. ... It doesn't sound quite so bad when you say "80 miles." Um, or does it? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Nov 21, 2009 from AFP: Permafrost thaw threatens Russia oil and gas complex: study According to the report by the environmental watchdog, up to 55 billion roubles (1.9 billion dollars) a year is spent on repairs to infrastructure and pipelines damaged by changes in the permafrost in western Siberia. "For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure," said Vladimir Chuprov, who heads Greenpeace's energy programme in Russia.... Russia's main raw export industries are spread across the Siberian permafrost, which makes up over 60 percent of its territory and includes 20 cities and several hundred thousand people. The permafrost thaw has accelerated in recent years.... In a complex cycle, permafrost melts at the edges of lakes that previously were iced over year-round, he explained. Organic material -- the remains of rotted plants and long-dead animals -- then melt into the lake from the soil and decompose to form methane. With the thaw, the methane bubbles to the surface and is released into the atmosphere. ... It's so sad when nomenclature leads to a death spiral. Tempofrost would have changed everything. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Oct 11, 2009 from Reuters: Russian climate goal weak as 'methane bomb' ticks The snows are late in coming on the Arctic Yamal peninsula where moist, dark permafrost entombed for 10,000 years crumbles into the sea at the top of the world. Western scientists and environmentalists say collapsed river banks, rising tide waters and warmer winters in northwest Russia are clear signs of climate change, but they add Russia is in denial, ignoring a potentially disastrous "methane bomb". "We are appealing to world leaders as this issue is overlooked in Russia... there is a carbon, or methane bomb embedded in our earth," Vladimir Chuprov, head of the Russian energy unit at environmental group Greenpeace, told Reuters. He added that Russia -- which has permafrost covering 60 percent of its land -- most likely holds the world's biggest methane threat. By 2050, vast amounts of methane will "explode into the air" from Russia's melting permafrost, Chuprov said. ... There's something Strangelovian about this time bomb. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Aug 6, 2009 from CBC: 'Balmy' High Arctic broke heat record in July Temperatures soared to record highs in the High Arctic in July, stunning Environment Canada's senior climatologist. David Phillips said a heat record was broken last month in Eureka on Ellesmere Island. A similar record was almost broken further up the island at Alert, Canada's most northerly place. "Boy, there are some real head-shakers. I look at Eureka -- I mean, it is probably almost as far north as you can get -- and we saw temperatures of, you know, up to almost 21 C [70 F]," Phillips told CBC News. "It's been just absolutely balmy." Phillips said Eureka went up to 20.9 C on July 14, breaking the record of 20.7 C from July 23, 2007. Environment Canada started recording weather at the Eureka weather station in 1947. ... How can I get in on the coming boom in far-north summer cottages? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Mar 10, 2009 from eTaiwanNews: Norwegian monitors show rising methane levels The concentrations of methane gas measured at the remote islands of Svalbard rose by 0.6 percent in 2007 compared to the previous year, according to a statement by the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority. The latest figure was also 1 percent higher than in 2004. A sharp rise in methane levels could dramatically increase global warming, the authority said. Similar increases were noted at other monitoring stations in Ireland and northern Canada. The cause has yet to be determined but preliminary figures suggest the trend continued in 2008, the statement said.... "That is a relatively large increase, especially since methane levels were virtually stable from 1999 until 2005," said Myhre. "The increases being bigger at Svalbard than other areas can be an indication that the source is in the far north." ... It could also be Santa's reindeers, or something. Let's not jump to conclusions. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 19, 2009 from Science Daily (US): Permafrost Is Thawing In Northern Sweden "At one of our sites, permafrost has completely disappeared from the greater part of the mire during the last decade," she says. In areas where permafrost is thawing the ground becomes unstable and can collapse. This can be a local and regional problem in areas with cities and infrastructure. Moreover, the thaw can cause increased emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from the ground. Roughly 25 percent of all land surface in the northern hemisphere are underlain by permafrost. The thawing of permafrost that occurs today is likely to continue, in Margareta Johansson's view. She regards it as probable that there will be no permafrost in lowland areas around Abisko in 50 years. ... Thank goodness it's only happening in Sweden! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from New Scientist: Burp of Arctic laughing gas is no joke It seems the Arctic['s melting permafrost] is belching out nitrous oxide -- commonly known as laughing gas. Unfortunately, the punchline is that it is a powerful greenhouse gas. Previously, emissions of N2O were thought to enter the atmosphere mainly from tropical forests and intensively managed farmland, with only a negligible amount from northerly environments.... Although this means N2O remains a small contributor to the greenhouse effect, compared with methane and carbon dioxide, the gas persists unaltered in the atmosphere for over 110 years, compared with around 10 years for methane -- which is also periodically released by the tundra. ... Yo! Permafrost! We're doing the punchlines around here! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Feb 2, 2009 from Popular Science: The Big Thaw Nowhere is global warming having as obvious an impact as in the Arctic, and people living in Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia and Siberia have front-row seats. Some experts say that temperatures in these regions have risen by 3 to 5 degrees F over the past 30 years. And the temperature in the Arctic has warmed at twice the global average rate in the past century, according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Permafrost is ground that maintains a temperature below freezing for at least two years. In some areas, that frozen layer is thawing, causing roads to collapse, runways to crack, and homes to sink, split apart, or even fall into the sea. But inside that icy ground is a threat more dangerous than crumbling infrastructure: massive amounts of greenhouse gases that, if released into the atmosphere, have the potential to quickly intensify climate change. ... The scientists have been saying this for awhile. But now that it's in Popular Science, maybe I should start considering it. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 18, 2008 from Science Daily (US): Scientists Find Increased Methane Levels In Arctic Ocean A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking.... Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the seafloor. "The concentrations of the methane were the highest ever measured in the summertime in the Arctic Ocean," Semiletov said. "We have found methane bubble clouds above the gas-charged sediment and above the chimneys going through the sediment."... The new data indicates the underwater permafrost is thawing and therefore releasing methane.... Methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, is thought to be an important factor in global climate change. ... Said the Permafrost to his mother: "I can't hold it in any longer!" ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 17, 2008 from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert: Some climate impacts happening faster than anticipated A report released today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest.... While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative -- as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted -- others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm.... The "overarching" recommendation of the report is the need for committed and sustained monitoring of these climatic forces that could trigger abrupt climate change, the researchers concluded. ... "Sustained monitoring" is all well and good -- but let's also do some "sustained remediation," shall we? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 16, 2008 from AP News: More than 2 trillion tons of ice melted in Arctic since '03 More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming. More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.... A second study suggests even larger amounts of frozen methane are trapped in lakebeds and sea bottoms around Siberia and they are starting to bubble to the surface in some spots in alarming amounts, said Igor Semiletov, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In late summer, Semiletov found methane bubbling up from parts of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea at levels that were 10 times higher than they were in the mid-1990s, he said based on a study this summer. ... Don'tcha hate it when they use numbers you can't understand? I mean, who can get their mind around "eleven Chesapeake bays"? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Nov 11, 2008 from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Alaska permafrost study reveals larger global warming problem Alaskans should watch where they step. University of Alaska professor Chien-Lu Ping and a team of researchers have dug more than 100 holes around the state, taking permafrost samples for a paper published in the October issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. In the paper, Ping concluded frozen Arctic soil contains nearly twice as much organic material and greenhouse gases as previously thought. He based his conclusions on the information collected in Alaska and more than 10 years of research. ... This story gives me a permachill! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Oct 9, 2008 from University of Alaska Fairbanks via ScienceDaily: Arctic Soil May Contain Nearly Twice Greenhouse-Gas Producing Material Than Previously Estimated Frozen arctic soil contains nearly twice the greenhouse-gas-producing organic material as was previously estimated, according to recently published research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences professor Chien-Lu Ping published his latest findings in Nature Geoscience... Ping predicted that a two- to three-degree rise in air temperatures could cause the arctic tundra to switch from a carbon sink -- an area that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it produces -- to a carbon source -- an area that produces more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. ... Now there's the horror story of our times: from carbon sink to carbon source. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Oct 8, 2008 from PhysOrg.com: Arctic soil reveals climate change clues Frozen arctic soil contains nearly twice the greenhouse-gas-producing organic material as was previously estimated, according to recently published research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists.... Wielding jackhammers, Ping and a team of scientists dug down more than one meter into the permafrost to take soil samples from more than 100 sites throughout Alaska. Previous research had sampled to about 40 centimeters deep. After analyzing the samples, the research team discovered a previously undocumented layer of organic matter on top of and in the upper part of permafrost, ranging from 60 to 120 centimeters deep. This deep layer of organic matter first accumulates on the tundra surface and is buried during the churning freeze and thaw cycles that characterize the turbulent arctic landscape. ... Surprising what you find when you dig deeper. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Sep 23, 2008 from London Independent: 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... its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane. ... The "death spiral" has just entered the phase of "hellish, inescapable vortex." ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 15, 2008 from Russia Infocenter: Permafrost Bogs of Siberia Thaw Too Fast Joint Russian and French scientific ecological expedition detected very fast thawing of permafrost in frost mound bogs of Western Siberia. The international project on studying frost mound bogs Kar-Wet-Sib united eight Russian researchers -- ecologists, microbiologists and biogeochemists -- and four French scientists from Midi-Pyrenees National Observatory. Researchers said that they were nearly shocked with the rate of bog permafrost thawing. Their estimations show that during last three years melting rate added 20 percent to its normal values. ... I hate all this bad news. Maybe it's time to declare war on scientists. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Sep 2, 2008 from American Institute of Biological Sciences via ScienceDaily: Thawing Permafrost Likely To Boost Global Warming, New Assessment Concludes "A new assessment more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in permafrost ... The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes, which greatly increases microbial decomposition of carbon compounds in soil, will dominate other effects of warming in the region and could become a major force promoting the release of carbon dioxide and thus further warming ..." ... It turns out permafrost ain't so perma, after all. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Aug 25, 2008 from AFP: Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday. The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated. This is roughly equivalent to one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere. And that is just for North America. ... Feedback is only fun in rock concerts. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jul 30, 2008 from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Melting permafrost poses threats to infrastructure, Alaska economy "...By definition, permafrost is any ground that’s been frozen for at least two years. It can be dry soil or nearly all ice, and it can start an inch below the surface or many yards below. It can go down a few feet or a few thousand. Now, as temperatures warm across Alaska, the temperature of the frozen ground is warming, too. In some places, it’s warmed to its own tipping point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it stops being permafrost and starts being water and soil." ... It stops being permafrost and starts being tempofrost! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jul 28, 2008 from Kansas City Star: Researchers investigate tundra's steady awakening "TOOLIK LAKE, Alaska ... Ground here that for tens of thousands of years was frozen solid is terra firma no more. Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom -- dumping a bonanza of nutrients into a top-of-the-world environment that swirls from months of midnight sun to deep-freeze dark." ... This no-more-terra-firma is makin' us terra-squirma! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jun 3, 2008 from Chicago Tribune: Reminder: Siberian permafrost and feedbacks Among Zimov's findings: The release of greenhouse gases — particularly methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide—from thawing permafrost underneath Siberian lakes could accelerate global warming and represents an especially worrisome trend in the battle to slow climate change.... Melting permafrost awakens dormant microbes that devour thousands of tons of organic carbon, creating methane as a byproduct if no oxygen is present. ... Time to declare war on microbes. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 17, 2008 from OC Register: Research tracks arctic warming "As much as a third of the warming trend in arctic regions is caused by "dirty snow," not by greenhouse gases, UC Irvine researchers say, a finding that could have implications for pollution control efforts across the Northern Hemisphere. Because darker surfaces absorb more heat from sunshine, [climate researcher Charlie] Zender said, soot is making a significant contribution to Arctic warming, which is melting permafrost, increasing spring runoff and causing a variety of woes for the people who live in these regions. Better control of pollution sources that emit large amounts of soot -- coal-fired power plants in China, for example -- could be a relatively easy way to reduce arctic warming, he said." ... Apocaiku: And if people stop pissing their names into the snow that'll help, too! ApocaDoc permalink Copyright 2009 The Apocadocs.com