Evidence Continues to Mount for Ticking 'Methane Time Bomb'

[marmar]

Published on Monday, May 21, 2012 by Common Dreams
Evidence Continues to Mount for Ticking 'Methane Time Bomb'

- Common Dreams staff


New research that utilized both ground-based measurements and aerial surveys in specific sub-arctic regions in Alaska and Greenland has discovered approximately 150,000 'methane seeps' - a phenomenon where methane gas previously held in the frozen permafrost beneath tundras or under arctic sea ice, is steadily released when warming causes melting.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, second only to CO2, but the sheer amount of naturally existing methane -- some of it trapped under ground for hundreds or thousands of years -- would dwarf the impact of man-made emission levels if it was released at a rapid rate. This new research, performed by the the new Arctic project, led by Katey Walter Anthony from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF), and published in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that the methane stores could have a dramatic and fast-occurring impact on overall global warming and runaway climate change.

"The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, and has many methane sources that will increase as the temperature rises," Prof Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway, University of London, also involved in Arctic methane research but not with this project, told the BCC in an interview. "This is yet another serious concern: the warming will feed the warming." ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/21-3

[longship]

1. Waiting for media to discover the albedo connection

Yet another positive feedback. (Wiki it.)

I have not heard of any research on albedo's contribution to warming in the press. But, with the Arctic being so significantly effected, it invites the question, How does the reduction of Arctic ice relate to global warming?

The deal here is that the geologists and the climate scientists have known about this stuff for decades. For that period they've included them in their models of global climate. Yet something that science has known for a long time is just now reaching the world's press? And nobody is talking about the reduction of albedo due to Arctic ice melt.

We have to face it. We have few science journalists left. The rest neither understand science, let alone its history. The latter are who is reporting. They don't make the connections do they don't report it.

Shame on us. But, did you read the story about the latest American Idol winner?

[cthulu2016]

5. I would think cloud albedo might more than offset

The two ice caps certainly increase albedo, but those polar areas receive much less solar energy in any event.

A warmer atmosphere would be cloudier (I would guess) and at latitudes that would otherwise contribute more solar energy to the overall system, so it may be offsetting.

I don't know. Just a thought.

[longship]

6. Okay. Consider this.

The Arctic has (basically) 6 months of daylight (summer) and six months of night (winter). No! It isn't just like that, but the closer you get to the pole, the more it is like that.

The polar ice caps certainly get less solar energy than, for instance, the tropics. But during northern hemisphere summer, the further north you go, the longer the continuous sunlight. And the less ice and snow there, the more energy absorbed by the oceans. The deal is that the Arctic float ice is disappearing. That reduces the albedo, which increases the solar energy absorbed by the Arctic Ocean which increases the melting of the Arctic ice cap.

My only point was that it's yet another positive feedback mechanism connected to global warming. As a frustrated, rinky-dink amateur astronomer with a BS in physics, I know about albedo. I just wanted to contribute to the thread because it is yet another positive feedback mechanism.

BTW, I generally like your posts on DU.

[cthulu2016]

9. Thanks

I have no idea which way the albedo thing would go... positive or negative. Just thinking aloud.

Those things are so often surprising.

For instance, Venus has the highest albedo of the planets and people used to think that would be a moderating effect, despite the closeness to the sun. But then we found that the bright cloudy atmosphere was a greenhouse and the planet was much hotter than its proximity to the sun would imply.

(I usually write to include thread readers. I'm sure you know that about Venus, for instance, but not everyone does.)

Hell... how did he have atomic weaponry for 30-40 years before the nuclear winter idea came up? (And we don't buy it... the archetypal science fiction movie post apocalyptic landscape is still hot and sunny because nuclear winter doesn't feel right.

If it turns out the methane releases will kill everyone we will have to evacuate poor Australia and have every nation empty its nuclear storehouse on her. It's probably the only emergency way of cooling he planet with existing resources that we have.

(It might be even more efficient to try to blow wide-open some south pacific volcanoes with that many megatons, but I don't think we could know whether we could... any the risk of going too far seems higher, since the result could be something that kept going for a thousand years.)

[longship]

10. No! We'll save Australia!!!!

Nobody'd want to hurt a kangaroo.
We'll build an All American amusement park there.
They have surfing, too.



Boom goes London.
Boom Paree
There's more room for you
There's more room for me

They hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now.

(Thanks, Randy Newman.)

[Mojorabbit]

2. k&r nt

[cthulu2016]

3. Folks expect gradualism, but the universe tends toward catastrophe and critical mass

For instance, ice melts at 0 degress centigrade, not along a smooth slope of temperature.

The methane thing is a real concern.

[mmonk]

4. I didn't realize someone knew I have gas.

Scary stuff but I don't know how it can be reversed at this point.

[Earth_First]

7. I'm sure the energy industry has a solution to this...

[Pisces]

8. The time to combat global warming has come and gone. All efforts should be on how to live with or

combat carbon emission in the atmosphere. I am all for lower auto emissions etc, but we need to put the best minds to work on how we can clean up what is in the atmosphere. Catastrophe is near and all of the wind turbines in the world can not undo what we
have already done to ruin the planet.