Arctic Seafloor Methane Releases Double Previous Estimates

[bhikkhu]

Source: Science Daily News

Nov. 25, 2013 — The seafloor off the coast of Northern Siberia is releasing more than twice the amount of methane as previously estimated, according to new research results published in the Nov. 24 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
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The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is venting at least 17 teragrams of the methane into the atmosphere each year. A teragram is equal to 1 million tons.

"It is now on par with the methane being released from the arctic tundra, which is considered to be one of the major sources of methane in the Northern Hemisphere," said Natalia Shakhova, one of the paper's lead authors and a scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "Increased methane releases in this area are a possible new climate-change-driven factor that will strengthen over time."

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131125172113.htm

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The "clathrate gun" hypothesis is what to google, if you really want something to worry about over the holidays. But in any case, its good to keep up on how this is playing out. It doesn't look good, and we probably can't do much at this point, but one may as well know what's happening.

[Kip Humphrey]

1. The trigger has already been pulled; the turning point has already turned. There is no going back.

Jut saying.

Happy Thanksgiving to all DUers!

[Berlum]

2. "How can we make megaprofits off of this. Sneer." - RepubliWankers, Inc. (R - GlobalStyle)

[truebrit71]

3. I googled it...wish I hadn't now...

....

[CrispyQ]

4. Last Hours, a mini-documentary on the subject, mentions the E word.

http://lasthours.org/

Just over 10 minutes. Worth the time. Very sobering.

[valerief]

5. Extinction?

[AverageJoe90]

8. Some decent info, but also some inaccuracy. Was a little heavy on fear as well.

A decent and noble effort, but could have been better.

[Delphinus]

10. Sobering.

The problem is so big I don't know how to even think of what to do (or not do) that we (or some of us) are already doing. (Sorry, early in the morning and I must not be cogitating well.)

[CrispyQ]

11. I don't see any political will to address this issue.

Seriously, is the entire human species so caught up in acquiring stuff that we're going to tune this out as we go into the dustbin of history? I don't see us pulling our collective head out of our collective ass soon enough to survive. What's it going to take? The poster above states that we have the science to fix it. First off, I'm not sure we do & they provided no links, but even if we did, we sure don't have the will to use it. I don't have a lot of faith in our 'superior intellect.' It's what got us here in the first place.

Have you seen Chasing Ice? Whoa. It is an incredible documentary with stunning visual evidence that the Arctic is melting. They capture a calving event that is difficult to grasp the scope of, until they superimpose a graphic of Manhattan over it. It is simply mind-boggling! Netflix has it.

I don't think it's looking too good for the human species.

On that happy note, have a happy t-day.

[Delphinus]

13. Yes, Chasing Ice was incredible too.

You're right - the political will seems to be absent. I was just talking with my husband yesterday about the climate talks that happened recently in Warsaw and how nothing significant was achieved - and this after Hainan in the Philippines. I wonder if they recognize that we're already over our heads and that's why they want to do nothing.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. I wish I could find my denial.....

misplaced it somewhere along the way.

Maybe the Neo-cons are better off in their ignorant bliss.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Good article, but one quibble.

It doesn't look good, and we probably can't do much at this point,

Umm....you do realize there is a boatload of scientific evidence that says otherwise, right?

[bhikkhu]

9. True, and in any case - we could stop making it worse

"not much we can do" goes for the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is on about a 50 year timer. What we do now stays done for 50 years or so, and what was done 50 years ago is currently affecting the climate now. Clathrate release suggests that the tipping point may have been some years ago, but we can still make a difference in how it is for our grandkids.

Of course, anyone with kids should be able to see that far down the road, and see the value of not making things worse for people who might be unborn now, but who will still remember our names then.

[magical thyme]

12. thank you for linking to the countering data

oh, wait a minute....

Also thank you for telling us it's already too late anyway. Not much we can do, so why bother trying.

[AverageJoe90]

14. "Also thank you for telling us it's already too late anyway." Um, what?

That was the complete opposite of what I said.

Also, there are numerous cases of such. In fact, I shouldn't have to bring up any of this stuff; if you know what you're doing, you can find it yourself without too much trouble.

[NickB79]

15. What do you propose we do, exactly?

It appears we've reached a point where positive feedback mechanisms are now driving some of the climate change themselves, without requiring human inputs. And in the meantime, naturally occurring negative feedback cycles that would counter this have so far been woefully inadequate.

We've added so much carbon to the atmosphere that, even if we stopped ALL carbon emissions tomorrow, the carbon load in the atmosphere will keep us warming for decades to come. Future warming is already "baked into the cake" so to speak: http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/climate-effects-already-baked-in-united-nations-report.html

If we're already seeing methane releases in multiple parts of the globe this large at current elevated temperatures, we will see even larger releases as the climate warms further, which will trap even more heat, etc, etc. And this is just ONE of many positive feedback cycles that have been identified to date that will amplify global warming's effects.

Since it's clear we're not going to be cutting our carbon emissions to zero anytime this century, the only scalable options left to us are geoengineering solutions, which come with a whole host of unknown, potentially harmful side-effects of their own.

[AverageJoe90]

16. Geoengineering won't really work.....

Nor have the natural cycles been totally "woefully" inadequate *by themselves*(do note the asterisks, please); a large part of why these can't keep up anymore is because of the *rate* of carbon being spewed, and perhaps, even more importantly, continued deforestation and waste dumping into the oceans(Exxon Valdez, anyone?). If we could slow down *all* of these, then at least some of these processes would have a significantly lightened burden to deal with.

If we're already seeing methane releases in multiple parts of the globe this large at current elevated temperatures

None of which have largely exceeded the norm, by the way.

Since it's clear we're not going to be cutting our carbon emissions to zero anytime this century,

Not really so clear. Big Fossil will, of course, fight this(and so, btw, will a certain section of "it can't be done, let us all fail" climate doomsday advocates), but it's clear to me now that the tides have begun, even if slowly at first, in our favor.

[NickB79]

17. Yeah, those neg. feedbacks are working smashingly

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/11/global-warming-since-1997-underestimated-by-half/comment-page-5/

A new study by British and Canadian researchers shows that the global temperature rise of the past 15 years has been greatly underestimated. The reason is the data gaps in the weather station network, especially in the Arctic. If you fill these data gaps using satellite measurements, the warming trend is more than doubled in the widely used HadCRUT4 data, and the much-discussed “warming pause” has virtually disappeared.

And really, methane releases are CLEARLY well within normal levels, right?

As if Arctic methane releases weren't bad enough:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/25/us-methane-study-emissions_n_4339308.html

The study estimates that in 2008, the U.S. poured 49 million tons of methane into the air. That means U.S. methane emissions trapped about as much heat as all the carbon dioxide pollution coming from cars, trucks, and planes in the country in six months.

That's more than the 32 million tons estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration or the nearly 29 million tons reckoned by the European Commission.

[AverageJoe90]

18. "Yeah, those neg. feedbacks are working smashingly" You clearly missed my point.

At this point, I'm not going to bother with anymore responses, since you can't be bothered to read statements in their proper context.