EnviroLink Forum

"Weekend Edition May 15-17, 2015

Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better

Methane’s Accelerating Danger

by ROBERT HUNZIKER


Methane (CH4) is 25 times more efficient at entrapping solar radiation and effectuating global warming than is carbon dioxide (CO2).

As the Arctic becomes more and more ice-free, the release of methane entrapped for millennia in Arctic ice accelerates. This, in turn, increases the risks of a planetary catastrophe. Yet, the scientific community does not like using words like “catastrophe,” which is considered alarmist. So, forewarned, this is an alarmist article.

Not only is this article alarmist, it is an indictment of views about climate change held by most, if not all, of the Republican candidates for presidency. Regardless of their individual personal beliefs about climate change, they are beholden to fossil fuel interests and extremely rich right-wing whackos that clandestinely pour money into phony orgs and payoffs for weak-kneed, cowering scientists to disseminate “confusing information to the public about global warming/climate change.” Without a doubt, these are the nation’s top gun eco terrorists. Similar to Al Qaeda, they work in the shadows.

Over the past couple of centuries, the rate of increase of CO2 versus CH4 in the atmosphere is running askew as carbon dioxide’s increase of 40% is a far distant second place to methane’s 250% increase. There’s nothing confusing about those numbers.

As it happens, by all accounts, climate scientists are wringing their hands over the 40% increase in carbon dioxide. That’s understandable as CO2 remains in the atmosphere for up to hundreds of years, blocking solar radiation from bouncing back into outer space. Ergo, over time global warming consumes the planet in a dreadful event that is currently tracking headlong towards bright red flashing lights at the end of the tunnel of doom.

Thereby, CO2 blanketing the earth is similar to turning on an oven, the more CO2 is emitted, similar to turning up the oven, the more heat builds, as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter over time whilst the “CO2 blanket” traps solar radiation. In time, humanity is toast.

Considering the fact that scientists worry about CO2 in the atmosphere, they must be experiencing migraines, sleeplessness and outright gloominess about CH4 because, with gigatons of methane trapped under Arctic ice, only a fraction of that CH4 could turn the planet into something akin to an oven, assuming too much Arctic ice melts. And, that is precisely the point as Arctic melt is already occurring at an alarming rate!

It’s all about runaway global warming as the Arctic threatens to turn ice-free in September, during its minimal cycle, in an upcoming year. Some Arctic experts believe it could happen within a few years, some several years, some in decades or longer.

There is a lot of mystery behind the likely impact of an ice-free Arctic because it has never happened before in human history. Questions arise: How much methane is trapped under the ice and how quickly does it release into the atmosphere and how soon does agricultural land turn bad?

Of course, the process takes considerable time to play out because nature still follows a geological time clock, which is very slow. Nevertheless, human-induced climate change has already proven to speed up nature’s course, increasing the risks of a runaway global warming nightmare, maybe within current lifetimes, who knows?

After all, the proof is found in facts. As a result of excessive levels of greenhouse gases like CO2 in the atmosphere, the Arctic is warming up 2-3 times faster than lower latitudes, which fact shall be discussed further on.

Still, nobody knows how this will play out. After all, how many scrapes with extinction has humanity experienced? The answer is: None, this will be the first go-around.

Along those same lines, scientists have calculated approximately how much methane is buried under and within the ice, but in the interest of maintaining some decorum of sanity and in the spirit of forestalling outright public panic, that information will not be divulged. (See below)Arctic Update- Things Getting Worse, Not Better

“It appears that the rise of methane in the atmosphere is accelerating… Things look set to get worse… global methane levels have risen from a low of 723 ppb a couple of centuries ago to mean methane levels as high as 1,839 ppb in 2014. That’s a rise of more than 254%. The situation is dire….” (Source: Methane Levels As High As 2,845 ppb, Arctic News.org, April 26, 2015).

Not only that, unruly spikes of methane up to 2,845 ppb are becoming more commonplace in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the Arctic’s big spring melt down is now in full swing, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado, Boulder, as of May 6th, 2015: “During April, the decline in ice extent starts to accelerate… April 2015 was marked by a fairly rapid decline during the first week of the month, little change during the middle of the month, and then a steep decline over the final week.” Uh-huh.

Additionally, and of crucial interest: “April was marked by higher than average air temperatures (1 to 3 degrees Celsius or 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout the Arctic,” which is the evidence of Arctic temperature increasing 2-3 times faster than elsewhere on the planet, Ibid."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/15/ ... Q.facebook

According to Dr. Shakhova there is 50GT of CH4 ready to explosively release when there is insufficient ice left, very soon. Plus another 1000GTs in the oceans that is releasing now but will go explosive at a small temperature rise at deeper and deeper levels.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

3.3 billion years ago the oceans boiled, but not completely, and life went on. Most do not think we will end up like a version of Venus, but the oceans could boil. It could just go to the way it was then, with life recovering and evolving after millions of years.

"Asteroids boiled young Earth’s oceans, remnant rocks suggest
Early evolution may have been altered by high temperatures



BOILING SEAS Huge asteroid impacts around 3.3 billion years ago boiled Earth’s oceans, new research suggests. Condensing rock vapor from the impacts left spherical bits of rock the size of BB pellets in the rock record, shown.
Asteroid impacts around 3.3 billion years ago may have created hell on Earth.
Rocks left over from Earth’s adolescence suggest that giant impacts boiled the oceans billions of years ago, lowering the global sea level by tens of meters. The huge amounts of energy released during the impacts increased air temperatures to more than 500° Celsius for weeks and above water’s boiling point for more than a year, researchers report online May 7 in Geology. These dramatic events would have shaped the evolution of early life on Earth, says geologist Donald Lowe of Stanford University."
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ast ... ks-suggest

The entire accretion phase was also like hell on Earth. So it will be again, from human causes.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

The deepest hole ever drilled was about 8 miles, stopped by underground temperatures nearing 300*C, and it took 20 years or so to drill. The fact that the bottom of Yellowstone's upper magma chamber is about 12 miles, and the large lower one at 25 miles, and the temperatures involved, make 'blowing Yellowstone' impossible for humans. It is due to super erupt in 2K to 30K years, far too late to stop or even mitigate runaway CAGW.
If an event crashed the population to 5% within a decade, the survivors would still have to endure disastrous heat effects, even if warming is kept to around 1 3/4*C world average(which is zero emissions within a few years). That is still not a guarantee because open ocean warming is in runaway and will set off the tundra clathrate 'bomb' as early as the mid to late 2020s without some massive intervention or change. Shutting off the fossil fuel supply would immediately crash the population, but who will shut off the valves of wealth and power driven by greed? No one wants to die, but humanity must die off before totally destroying the future.
A giant meteor or comet strike is not really due for 13 millions years, but smaller ones could trigger collapse and a much lower emissions profile. Again with a time limit on it actually stopping the methane and CO2/H2O turnover process toward a different atmosphere and too much heat for too long for life.
The only thing to work will be the Power of God, if He so desires to save Earth's biosphere. People will not lower emissions enough in time or die off in time to stop the runaway to runaways. If people crash soon enough, then there is a chance the biosphere may recover in a lot of time.
Like in the scenario in the above article, thermal vent life could seed further life if the oceans only partially boil away and after many millions of years, advanced land life forms again.
However there could be as much as 5000GT of CH4 in dubious sequestration, and that is enough for the 'Venus Effect'.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Hope, though slim, is still there;
"1.5C climate goal still in reach, say scientistsLast updated on 21 May 2015, 9:29 am
World must embrace deeper emissions cuts, biofuels and carbon storage in last stab at limiting long term costs for planet, study says -
By Alex Pashley

Odds are long on the planet pinning down temperatures below a 1.5C rise on pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

While 100 nations – including those menaced by rising sea levels and droughts – support the lower bound of an internationally agreed aim, most are sceptical it will be met.

Even getting off the planet’s 4-5C warming trajectory to stay within 2C will be a Herculean task.

But the world hasn’t shot it just yet, according to a report published on Thursday; 1.5C remains “feasible”, albeit with radical conditions.

Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, German and Austrian researchers urge immediate curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and placing faith in carbon-stripping technology.

Report: Rethink 2C climate goal, urge world’s most vulnerable

It’s a call to negotiators crafting a global pact to keep under consideration a lower goal, reducing the severity of climate impacts like sea level rise, droughts and heat waves.

Though they set out the “substantial” obstacles in the way as countries wean themselves off fossil fuel-driven development.

“Actions for returning global warming below 1.5C by 2100 are in many ways similar to those limiting warming to below 2C,” said Joeri Rogelj at the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and a lead author of the report.

“However, the more ambitious 1.5C goal leaves no space to further delay global mitigation action and emission reductions needs to scale up swiftly in the next decades,” Rogelj added.
- See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/21/1-5c-cli ... 4dj8I.dpuf

I know from my geological studies that 1.5*C in the past did not set off a thermal max event. However, with the .8*C rise and the .7*C in 'momentum', we are at that limit now. Although there is less methane as you go further into the past, so it is possible, that reduction to zero of HGHGs would still not stop runaway.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

"Though not being communicated, the alarming data above for 30 May 2015, looks like the state of the climate is set up for feedback runaway global climate.

​​From the very start the big concern about global warming has been the possibility of a 'runaway' global warming and climate change.

'Runaway' (self accelerating) global heating and climate change is the planetary tipping point of all the many tipping points combined and self reinforcing . ​​

This is the greatest single danger to the survival of humanity and also the survival of potentially almost all life on the planet. ​​A global heating runaway wiping almost most life we know is possible- because it happened 250 million years ago in the End Permian extinction event and 55 million years ago with the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). Current research confirms both of these extinction events were driven by very large emissions of carbon to the atmosphere.

​​The PETM is the closest distant past analog to our GHG emissions global warming situation today. Research published October 2013 by Morgan Schaller and James Wright leads to their definite finding that following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees centigrade – all in the space of about 13 years. Scientists had previously thought this process happened over 10,000 years."
"Right now we are in a runaway situation, meaning we are committing ourselves and all life to a rapid accelerating global heating that we could not possibly change. James Hansen has been warming about this for many years.

Runaway results from the combination of multiple triggered amplifying large feedbacks and climate change commitment. ​​

Runaway is largely about methane- especially the enormous stores of Arctic carbon as methane emitters. Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide feedback GHG sources are also huge. In runaway all three would be self reinforcing and accelerating.

Methane has a global warming effect of 72X CO2 for 20 years after emissions."
​​​​http://www.climateemergencyinstitute.com/runaway.html

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
screw fence sitters, the game is over............

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Extreme overpopulation in the USA, China, and India, is most responsible for HGHGs, but the rest put out a lot, also.
Only hope gives the illusion that the needed reductions can be done in time.
While most want to do that by 2050 or 2030, but that is far too late. Rapid depopulation of humans is really the only way to cut emissions enough.
How will that happen in 8 years? A nuclear war with ground blast aerosols? Cascadia, La Palma, Katla, or economic crash inducing an early population crash?
A miracle from God? All are possibilities.
Otherwise, it is the beginning of the end of this biosphere. The rocky planet will still be here with no biosphere, hidden by clouds, until absorbed by the red giant phase of our Sun.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Weekend Edition July 3-5, 2015

Methane Outbreak Nears

by ROBERT HUNZIKER
"“We’re really concerned about the Arctic offshore… the continental shelves of Siberia are very shallow waters. And up until recently there was always sea ice over those shelves, even in the summer… now, it retreats in the summer and it already disappears for 2-3 months off of those shelves. That allows the water to warm up. And, when the water warms up, it causes underwater permafrost to melt, which hadn’t melted since the last Ice Age, and that’s allowing methane to be released.”

According to Professor Wadhams, the East Siberian Sea is a lurking monster. He believes the effect of a methane outbreak could be as catastrophic as an asteroid collision into Earth. The amount of warming would be immediate and large. The probability it will happen: “I would say it is about 50% because we’re seeing the permafrost melting and we’re seeing the methane already being released.”

In fact, field scientists are already seeing sizeable increases of big plumes of methane in the summer whilst discovering new areas of methane release. Until only recently, the East Siberian Sea was monitored every year by one Russian ship. Whereas nowadays, and over the past couple of years, Swedish ships are going elsewhere in the Arctic, and “they’re seeing just as much methane coming out as in East Siberia.”

“So, it’s not a low probability, high catastrophic risk. It’s a high catastrophic, high probability risk.”
The only way to save civilization as it currently exist is to bring CO2 levels down, and that can only be accomplished by some drastic method of actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere. “We can’t do it by messing around with reducing our emissions, we can’t even do it by stopping our emissions because we’ve gone too far. We’ve got to actually take it out.”

Professor Wadhams claims climate change research must, front and center, become the major thrust of a worldwide scientific effort, and it must be done urgently, similar to the Manhattan Project (ironically.) Society will be forced to use some technology, which is not yet proven, to remove CO2 to prevent a catastrophe. Accordingly, there is no time to tinker around.

He believes in a worse case scenario, “by ten years time, we’ll really be in the soup.”
“With temperatures as high as the 37.1°C (98.78°F) recorded on July 2, 2015, huge melting can be expected where there still is sea ice in the waters off the coast of Siberia, while the waters where the sea ice is already gone will warm up rapidly. Note that the waters off the coast of Siberia are less than 50 m (164 ft.) deep, so warming can quickly extend all the way down to the seabed, that can contain enormous amounts of methane in the form of free gas and hydrates.”

Also, on July 1, 2015, a temperature of 36°C (96.8°F) was recorded near the Kolyma River that flows into the East Siberian Sea.

The Arctic is hotter than Miami!"
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/03/ ... eak-nears/
"Really in the soup"? Precursor to the human (over)population crash? Too late to stop the methane monster without massive CO2 scrubbing of the Earth's atmosphere. We are in runaway, obviously. Plus, ahead in a decade is the start of mass death on a global scale, and including other species. Then we have all the other stuff like devalued dollar, Cascadia, La Palma, and Katla volcano, also in the picture to help crash the human population.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

I have nothing against Hunziker and maybe he is on to something but he is an economist not a scientist. When I see a lot of scientists who are expert in the field and/or the IPCC start worrying about a methane runaway then I will take it seriously. As of now I see it as an incremental problem like CO2, with no sudden blast of methane waiting to take us into instant runaway mode.

Here you can see a graph showing the actual increase in methane. It definitely is contributing to global warming but the rise is slow and steady and I suspect will continue in that fashion as long as we remain addicted to fossil fuel.

The Hawaiian measurements are not close to the Arctic's.

The field scientists in the Arctic are the ones most worried.
You must have missed this; According to Professor Wadhams, the East Siberian Sea is a lurking monster. He believes the effect of a methane outbreak could be as catastrophic as an asteroid collision into Earth. The amount of warming would be immediate and large. The probability it will happen: “I would say it is about 50% because we’re seeing the permafrost melting and we’re seeing the methane already being released.”

In fact, field scientists are already seeing sizeable increases of big plumes of methane in the summer whilst discovering new areas of methane release. Until only recently, the East Siberian Sea was monitored every year by one Russian ship. Whereas nowadays, and over the past couple of years, Swedish ships are going elsewhere in the Arctic, and “they’re seeing just as much methane coming out as in East Siberia.”

“So, it’s not a low probability, high catastrophic risk. It’s a high catastrophic, high probability risk.”
The only way to save civilization as it currently exist is to bring CO2 levels down, and that can only be accomplished by some drastic method of actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere. “We can’t do it by messing around with reducing our emissions, we can’t even do it by stopping our emissions because we’ve gone too far. We’ve got to actually take it out.”

Professor Wadhams claims climate change research must, front and center, become the major thrust of a worldwide scientific effort, and it must be done urgently, similar to the Manhattan Project (ironically.) Society will be forced to use some technology, which is not yet proven, to remove CO2 to prevent a catastrophe. Accordingly, there is no time to tinker around.

He believes in a worse case scenario, “by ten years time, we’ll really be in the soup.”
“With temperatures as high as the 37.1°C (98.78°F) recorded on July 2, 2015, huge melting can be expected where there still is sea ice in the waters off the coast of Siberia, while the waters where the sea ice is already gone will warm up rapidly. Note that the waters off the coast of Siberia are less than 50 m (164 ft.) deep, so warming can quickly extend all the way down to the seabed, that can contain enormous amounts of methane in the form of free gas and hydrates.”

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

The fact that an economist predicts doom and gloom does not impress me. I've read up on the subject of methane, principally from Real Climate, the site of choice for climate scientists and they doubt the sudden catastrophic release scenario. It doesn't mean it won't happen, just that most of the folks with scientific credentials find that the evidence for that scenario is presently quite weak.

Want methane in the arctic? How about Barrow Alaska.



I totally support studies on possible catastrophic scenarios for sudden massive release of methane. It just doesn't seem responsible to run around making catastrophic predictions without hard evidence.

Experts Warn of "Cataclysmic" Changes as Planetary Temperatures Rise
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3044 ... tures-rise

http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2015/ ... -wave.html
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein