Uhmmmm thanks for the backhanded compliment, I guess. Cid has his viewpoint and comes up with some worthy links to support it, dohboi, and dorlomin ask questions and debate the merits of the links various people put out there to support their viewpoints. You have a viewpoint and a web site you like to use to support your viewpoint, how does that make you any different from the rest of us on this thread?

Arctic Methane Time Bomb Starting to Go Off

Overview:

Recent research (reported in September 2008) shows that human-caused global warming is setting off the release of significant quantities of Arctic methane hydrates, indicating that we are close to the tipping point where the billions of tons of methane in the Arctic would be released. This could create a runaway positive feedback loop, in which the methane would rapidly increase global warming, which would further increase the release of more methane, which would increase the temperature even more.

As the IPCC has warned, and James Hansen, emphasized, If the present overshoot of this target CO2 [350 ppm CO2] is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects, passing the point of no return, a climate state beyond which the consequence is inevitable. This would result in a completely different planet, at least 10 degrees F hotter than now, eliminating many species of flora and fauna, and making life for any remaining humans and other species very difficult.

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Way back on page 19 of this thread I said


I meant it then and I still mean it now, if the hydrates get permeated we are screwed. Or at least we will be living in a different world.

Geochemical evidence indicates that sudden massive atmospheric releases of methane on this planet in the past have wrought abrupt and massive climate changes. Scientists previously had predicted that the melting of the Arctic tundra would release enough methane to add a punch to global warming. Until now, however, they hadn't been expecting this second punch from beneath the sea, where massive amounts of methane are stored in or beneath the frozen permafrost. What many are wondering is, could this accelerate to a massive release of methane?

Why is a sudden increase in atmospheric methane particularly frightening? The standard assumption until now has been: stop adding man-made greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and their levels will fall, eventually dissipating the global warming effect. We could control global warming by turning off the human spigot that emits greenhouse gases. Heat the planet up fast enough, however, and you could accelerate enough ecological positive feedbacks that not only accelerate global warming but drive it. That is, we would no longer be in control - nature would. The conceivable scenario would be that a massive release of methane would heat up the planet suddenly, further melting the permafrost, causing yet a further and more massive release of methane, which... well, you get the idea.

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When people first started discussing global warming, deforestation was seen as the main source of damage we could do to natures ability to scrub the atmosphere. Now we know of all these other factors.

We may have set off a domino effect on multiple fronts. Not just the methane time bomb but:

1) If emissions particulates results in beneficial global dimming that masks the impact of global warming, reducing CO2 emissions will temporarily (well, by geological timescales) make things worse. (This is in no way an excuse to continue business as usual. I am just illustrating a paradox.)

2) The oceans may have been acting as a secret CO2 sink all this time, grossly overestimating nature's total CO2 scrubbing potential. Once the ocean's CO2 'sponge' is saturated (as it appears to be) then just maintaining flat levels of CO2 output may have far worse consequences than when the ocean was sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

That's in addition to uncaptuerd methane output from livestock and other human-induced waste streams.

So Cid, I don't blame you for heading for the arctic. It's very plausible to think that global warming may go parabolic.

The documentary The Incredible Journey of Crude described the situation as clearly to me as anything. One of the scientists said that we were in effect reverse-terraforming the planet back to how it was in the earliest days of life when only the microbes that created the oil we're consuming could survive.

Natural variations in temperature have been severe enough on this planet, but to basically take gigatons of CO2 that had been naturally sequestered over billions of years and shoot it into the atmosphere is going to have obviously tragic results.

I have long felt that the progressive encroaching on the subtle dynamics of our planetary eco-bubble (to the magnitude that we are as a 6 billion strong species) was evidently foolhardy to most if not all and that in due course, sense would prevail.

I am clearly wrong given the strength of opinion at large that man is essentially in a position to pave the entirety of the planet from pole to pole with no adverse effect whatsoever other than the epochal variations. What can one say to that? Strange reasoning.

Alas, one must prepare to die with equanimity.

I guess myy question to you would be this.

Do you see any limits to the current capitalist growth paradigm in the context of the environment and if so, what would those limits be and why.

On the other hand, if you are of the view that growth need not be restrained from the environmental perspective, could you please confirm that view and elaborate.

Thanks

Presumably your silence signifies that you are of the view that system induced climate destabilisation is bunkum and that we can grow our economies ad infinitum, tarmac the Amazon into megamall land, fish and plunder the oceans to oblivion and pollute this planet into a perpetual haze without any climate risks apart from the suns solar cycles.

Strange person.

I don't believe that he's not arguing that our sustainable natural resources are not infinite.

What is your proposition?

Wanker.

Rogo

Wow a triple negative!! What do you mean??

Just as a data point : Here in central Vermont this AM its -9C/ 18F, there is snow on the ground and the major ski areas are open though it may warm up and rain by Thanksgiving. As compared to 1972 where we had enough snow to plow and it rained on Thanksgiving day. In other words its essentially the same as it was 36 years ago and well within the normal year to year variation.

Making a correlation of two weather related data points in time is a rather dubious comparison when discussing climate change.

True , Thats why I qualified it as only a point. That you have two observations at the same location 36 years apart by the same observer was to me the interesting part. I have felt that we were experiencing some warming trend over the last decade or so but now it may be that my expectations are skewing my observations to a preconcieved conclusion. Recent spring snowfalls have been as high as any I remember (4ft. on the ground april 1) and heating degree days are within the normal range though I haven't enjoyed -40 for a few years.
I only remember the conditions of '72 precisely as I do because I had been driving just four months then and drove over a metal part that had fallen off the town snowplow and punched a hole in my mothers cars gas tank. I had a hot date with a pretty girl so had to hustle to change the tank only to go sking with her Thanksgiving day and got rained out.
You only tend to remember the extremes of weather, the three feet in a night in 68, the bare ground christmas eve with a foot on the ground christmas morning. And the six inches a day for ten days in feb. 73. All the routine stuff in between gets forgotten and as you get older what you consider routine also changes.
At any rate I am not to worried that the ice 9000 ft above sea level and north of the arctic circle in the middle of Green land will melt anytime soon or the ice 7000 ft above sea level surrounding the south pole for that matter.

Here is one reason why we face an uphill battle in obtaining any clarity from those who naysay GW. In a word...stupidity! Let me try an explain this imbecile what my point is, in simpleton's language.
What i would like to know my friend is this:

Does our present lifestyle pose any climate risk or not? If so, at what point will that risk arise and why? If not, elaborate with links to back up.

That aside, what then acounts for the current climate anomalies? Links again.

Keep your replies simple and to the point and lets put this baby to sleep. Oh, and understand this. Implicit as well as explicit in all GW models is a criticism of fossil fuelled cornucopia.

Cid et al,

I just stumbled across this tidbit. It is relatively short so I posted the whole story.

Link Here

It is not clear if +70% of species have disappeared or if +70% of their biomass has disappeared. Neither is good.

Does anyone have any further evidence or clarification on this?

Is this related to changing ocean chemistry?

And here is Richard Heinbergs comments on the report
Richard Heinberg link

Fall in tiny animals a ‘disaster’
Posted on July 11th, 2008

BBC News: Experts on invertebrates have expressed “profound shock” over a government report showing a decline in zooplankton of more than 70% since the 1960s.

The tiny animals are an important food for fish, mammals and crustaceans.

Figures contained in the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) document, Marine Programme Plan, suggested a fall in abundance.

Charity Buglife said it could be a “biodiversity disaster of enormous proportions”.

They said it could have implications for creatures all the way up the food chain, from sand eels to the seabirds, such as puffin, which feed on the fish.

Defra described the Marine Programme Plan as one of the department’s high impact programmes, reporting directly to the Defra board and used to guide policy.

Buglife director Matt Shardlow has written to Rodney Anderson, director of marine and fisheries at Defra, praising the level of information in the document but also expressing the organisation’s serious concerns.

In his letter, seen by the BBC Scotland news website, Mr Shardlow said: “The disappearance of butterflies, moth, bees, riverflies and other small animals is an environmental tragedy.

“But, despite this experience, we were profoundly shocked to read that zooplankton abundance has declined by about 73% since 1960 and about 50% since 1990.

“This is a biodiversity disaster of enormous proportions.”

A graph shown in the report charts a steady decline in zooplankton from 1990 to 2006.

Buglife Scottish officer, Craig Macadam, said climate change could be a factor.

He said: “Zooplankton is the basis of many food chains in the marine environment.

“Without them it is going to cause problems further up the chain.”

Over fishing the oceans is a product of human overpopulation and is a disaster in and of itself and may have no relation to climate change at all. Of course climate change May be magnifing the decline in fish stocks but how would you seperate one cause and effect from the other? The loss of Zoo plankton species is disturbing. Perhaps it is due to pollution from burning fossil fuels but could it be a counter intuative effect from over fishing? At any rate what if anything can we do about it. stop polluting? How? and even if we did would anybody else? China? India?

Newfie,

We saw the collapse of the food chain off the southern California coast in the mid '90's. It has now expanded throughout the world's oceans.

Collapse of the food chain

Fifty years ago, the waters off southern California teemed with life. In addition to the large marine mammals--whales, dolphins, and seals- -the ocean was filled with the microscopic animals called zooplankton and with the fish that eat them, such as anchovies, mackerel, and sardines. Seabirds, feeding on both the zooplankton and the small fish, flew above the ocean waters by the hundreds of thousands.

Today those same waters are much poorer. The fish stocks have declined dramatically; the seabird populations have declined or even crashed. The reason, say biological oceanographer John McGowan and physical oceanographer Dean Roemmich of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is that the zooplankton population has dropped a precipitous 80 percent since 1951. And the reason for that is that the surface waters of the Pacific off California have gotten slightly warmer.

McGowan and Roemmich don’t think the warming they saw--just 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the 43 years of testing--was a direct cause of the zooplankton decline. They believe instead that the warming caused a decline in phytoplankton--which are what zooplankton eat--by reducing the amount of nutrients available to the plants.

Ordinarily the supply of nutrients in the sunlit surface waters, where phytoplankton live, is constantly replenished by nutrient-rich water welling up from the deep. The water wells up to replace surface water that has been pushed out to sea by winds blowing off the California coast. The amount of water that comes up is purely determined by the strength of the offshore wind, explains Roemmich, but the depth the water comes from is determined by the strength of the density stratification of the ocean.

The depth is critically important: the water gets progressively richer in nutrients toward the ocean bottom because that is where dead plankton and other ocean debris accumulate and get broken down into nutrients again by bacteria. But as the sea surface has warmed off California, the ocean has become much more stratified--the surface water has become much less dense and more buoyant than the cooler water below-- and that, says McGowan, means it is much more difficult for the water to mix vertically. The effect is to have the upwelled water come from shallower depths. The water welling up off southern California, he estimates, is now coming from some 150 feet higher up in the water column than it used to. As a result, it is a lot less rich in nutrients.

Fewer nutrients mean fewer phytoplankton--and thus fewer zooplankton, fish, and seabirds. As the zooplankton population has dropped by 80 percent since the 1950s, the commercial catches of sardines, mackerel, and anchovies have dropped by more than 30 percent. Seabirds have fared even worse. McGowan and his colleague Richard Veit, a biologist from the University of Washington, have found that the number of sooty shearwaters, formerly the most abundant oceanic seabird off the California coast, has declined by an astonishing 90 percent just since 1986. The populations of most other seabirds have declined as well, McGowan says, except for ones like seagulls that live at least in part off the land.
link

This was all forseen in the movie Soylent Green .

Physorg.com News

"During the 1970s, there were on average 1.3 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- in the air."

This is a typo as the current concentration is 385 ppm.

The author of the article neglected to mention that he was referring to per annum growth of CO2. Wow...I'm surprised that got published.

http://www.fisherycrisis.com/
the thesis being that we've pulled so much biomass out of the oceans in the form of fish, that the oceanic ecosystems are starving to death. Debbie MacKenzie in Nova Scotia has been on this for many years, and has amassed a ton of excellent evidence and argument on her web site.

Familiar feeling to me mate.


2 degrees in our lifetime. And this coming from a former senior member of the Hadley climate institute?





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