From the University of Massachusetts at Amherst , another highly speculative modeling based press release that doesn’t even bother to give the name of the paper or any resources connected to it. This “science by press release” without providing the science to go with it seems to be a trend. No need to provide details, simply “trust us”, it’s Rio + 20 season. I really grow weary of spending countless hours trying to locate the science papers that these press release writers could simply provide with a single citation. There needs to be some sort of standard guidelines for these things. – Anthony
Thawing permafrost 50 million years ago led to global warming events
Researchers propose new mechanism of past global warming
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  IMAGE:This is thawing permafrost on the North Slope along the Sagavanirktok River near Deadhorse, Alaska.Click here for more information. |
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AMHERST, Mass. – In a new study reported in Nature, climate scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events about 55 million years ago, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.
“The standard hypothesis has been that the source of carbon was in the ocean, in the form of frozen methane gas in ocean-floor sediments,” DeConto says. “We are instead ascribing the carbon source to the continents, in polar latitudes where permafrost can store massive amounts of carbon that can be released as CO2 when the permafrost thaws.”
The new view is supported by calculations estimating interactions of variables such as greenhouse gas levels, changes in the Earth’s tilt and orbit, ancient distributions of vegetation, and carbon stored in rocks and in frozen soil.
While the amounts of carbon involved in the ancient soil-thaw scenarios was likely much greater than today, implications of the study appear dire for the long-term future as polar permafrost carbon deposits have begun to thaw due to burning fossil-fuels, DeConto adds. “Similar dynamics are at play today. Global warming is degrading permafrost in the north polar regions, thawing frozen organic matter, which will decay to release CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. This will only exacerbate future warming in a positive feedback loop.”
He and colleagues at Yale, the University of Colorado, Penn State, the University of Urbino, Italy, and the University of Sheffield, U.K., designed an accurate model―elusive up to now―to satisfactorily account for the source, magnitude and timing of carbon release at the PETM and subsequent very warm periods, which now appear to have been triggered by changes in the Earth’s orbit.
Earth’s atmospheric temperature is a result of energy input from the sun minus what escapes back to space. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs and traps heat that would otherwise return to space. The PETM was accompanied by a massive carbon input to the atmosphere, with ocean acidification, and was characterized by a global temperature rise of about 5 degrees C in a few thousand years, the researchers point out. Until now, it has been difficult to account for the massive amounts of carbon required to cause such dramatic global warming events.
To build the new model, DeConto’s team used a new, high-precision geologic record from rocks in central Italy to show that the PETM and other hyperthermals occurred during periods when Earth’s orbit around the sun was both highly eccentric (non-circular) and oblique (tilted). Orbit affects the amount, location and seasonality of solar radiation received on Earth, which in turn affects the seasons, particularly in polar latitudes, where permafrost and stored carbon can accumulate.
They then simulated climate-ecosystem-soil interactions, accounting for gradually rising greenhouse gases and polar temperatures plus the combined effects of changes in Earth orbit. Their results show that the magnitude and timing of the PETM and subsequent hyperthermals can be explained by the orbitally triggered decomposition of soil organic carbon in the circum-Arctic and Antarctica.
This massive carbon reservoir at the poles “had the potential to repeatedly release thousands of petagrams of carbon to the atmosphere-ocean system once a long-term warming threshold was reached just prior to the PETM,” DeConto and colleagues say. Until now, Antarctica, which today is covered by kilometers of ice, has not been appreciated as an important player in such global carbon dynamics.
In the past, “Antarctica and high elevations of the circum-Arctic were suitable locations for massive carbon storage,” they add. “During long-term warming, these environments eventually reached a climatic threshold,” with permafrost thaw and the sudden release of stored soil carbon triggered during the Earth’s highly eccentric orbits coupled with high tilt.
The model described in the paper also provides a mechanism that helps to explain relatively rapid recovery from hyperthermals associated with orbital extremes occurring about every 1.2 million years, which had until now been difficult.
Overall, they conclude, “an orbital-permafrost soil carbon mechanism provides a unifying model accounting for the salient features of the hyperthermals that other previously proposed mechanisms fail to explain.” Further, if the analysis is correct and past extreme warm events can be attributed to permafrost loss, it implies that thawing of permafrost in similar environments observed today “will provide a substantial positive feedback to future warming.”
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Contact: Janet Lathrop
413-545-0444
UPDATE: Katherine in comments provided the missing link:
Would that be this letter:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10929.html
REPLY: Thanks – But they could have just as easily provided this link or the name of the paper, wouldn’t you agree? It’s like announcing a book with a book review and not giving the title, and how dumb would that be?
– Anthony
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Meanwhile, on planet Earth . . .
Atmospheric methane concentrations continue to stagnate.
Designed a accurate model, elusive up till now…..The press release is all, the quasi science article will only be linked if it is semi defensible. Me thinks this one does not even come close. Better the simple rule. No Data equals No science.Think Phil and the team, nac I’m still waiting for Nature to publish their retraction of all climate papers they have published without the data having been made available
Maybe like Harry, they just made it up !
Overall, they conclude, “an orbital-permafrost soil carbon mechanism provides a unifying model accounting for the salient features of the hyperthermals that other previously proposed mechanisms fail to explain.”
Is this similar to a dog chasing its tail? Or perhaps it’s more like the chicken-egg question. All three, the melting permafrost, a dog running around in a circle and a hen laying an egg could be considered “orbital”situations.
What errant nonsense!
Sounds like just another “models all the way down” kind of paper. Will we EVER get a verified and validated climate model?
Back when I wrote aerodynamic models, the first question my bosses always asked was “How are you going to validate the results?” Today this same question is always one of the first I ask regarding every model, simulation and computer program development effort that I help manage. But, I guess holding climate scientists to the same professional standards as engineers would be too belittling for them.
How long is the residence time of CH4 in the atmosphere, again? This sounds like rather a stretch.
where permafrost can store massive amounts of carbon that can be released as CO2 when the permafrost thaws.”
The problem that I have with this a similar ‘permafrost will release’ scenarios is that before the permafrost was permafrost is was swamp, sphagnum mosses and other such stuff, it was soft and releasing methane 24 hours a day. Then somehow it froze solid.
When if thaws is will not ‘start releasing’ methane it will ‘resume releasing’ methane; and the level of methane that it was releasing before it froze was not sufficient to prevent it from freezing.
So how did it manage to freeze in the first place, given that it was already out-gassing ‘massive amounts of’ methane?
“…the amounts of carbon involved in the ancient soil-thaw scenarios was likely much greater than today…”
If extreme warming events around 55 million years involved much greater amounts of carbon than today, why wasn’t the warming irreversible? They keep telling us that today’s warming will soon become irreversible if we don’t do something about it now. So how did we ever have ice ages again after the runaway warming of 55 million years ago with all those positive feedbacks going on?
Seems to me this paper explains everything. Well, there’s that little detail about how the CO2 caused the temperatures to rise 800 years before it got released into the atmosphere, but that’s minor.
wermet says: April 6, 2012 at 9:07 pm
[Back when I wrote aerodynamic models, the first question my bosses always asked was “How are you going to validate the results?”]
You: Simple boss, I will cross-reference my model with your model . Since your model was accepted as correct then my model can be deemed to be correct:-).
Boss: Good thinking! That is just what I did when my boss asked me the same question.
—
The problem is that the great-great-grand-bosses model contained these three lines of code.
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103
UMASS Amherst is a great party school. It’s nickname is the ZOO.
Nuff said. Not a serious scholarship university. It’s a state run diploma mill.
The model described in the paper also provides a mechanism that helps to explain relatively rapid recovery from hyperthermals associated with orbital extremes occurring about every 1.2 million years, which had until now been difficult.
So, that would be the silver bullet that explains why the temperature suddenly plummets despite the *gasp* runaway greenhouse effect caused by the ever-increasing parts-per-million of CO2 in the atmosphere?
I won’t hold my breath, but I will settle back to make popcorn. I *love* science fiction…
OK, asuming that 55,000,000 years ago, the permafrost thawed – where are the explanations to demonstrate how things froze in the first place? If Carbon Dioxide and/or Methane levels were so high – where is the computer model to explain the freezing process.
To suggest one without being able to account for the other is solving only half the problem.
If CO2 levels were higher than today, how come it froze? How do we know that our “artificially high” CO2 levels won’t start a massive freeze, rather than runaway warming? In fact, just which way is SOL going to jump?
Southern Hemisphere record cold last winter – now Autumn and counting – of course this will be “only weather” if massively cold, and “runaway global something” if massively warm.
Andy
What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Thank you.
One of the great Hitchslaps.
@Andrew30;
You don’t understand. All those olde-tyme abnormal climates are irrelevant. Only our current perfect state is to be defended at all costs, even if it ruins us!
“Similar dynamics are at play today. Global warming is degrading permafrost in the north polar regions, thawing frozen organic matter, which will decay to release CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. This will only exacerbate future warming in a positive feedback loop.”
And as per
Louis says:
@ur momisugly April 6, 2012 at 9:28 pm
– It’s the question the warmists/ alarmists never seem to want to answer…!
If the “runaway greenhouse” effect (which underpins the hypothesis of AGW and its political off-spring, CAGW) explains historical warming events (eg. 50,000 ya, the Permian ME event etc etcc.) how does the physics of runaway greenhouse explain the subsequent temperatur declines (eg. ice ages)?
Stephen Mosher, Hugh Pepper… anyone…?
Hey, here is a possibility – the climate warmed and this caused some permafrost to melt.
Would that be this letter:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10929.html
REPLY: Thanks – But they could have just as easily provided this link or the name of the paper, wouldn’t you agree? It’s like announcing a book with a book review and not giving the title, and how dumb would that be?
– Anthony
Emphasis mine. I just wish I could apply Walt Kelley lettering to further emphasize what they’re saying and how they describe their achievement, or lack of, in glowing self congratulatory terms.
Some cherry picked choice alarmist words…
Accurate?! By whose measure or certification.
Satisfactorarily account for whatever they think good for CAGW science? Oh yeah! Is this how alarmists get their satisfaction jollies? They design models that satisfy their intentions and then they call the model accurate? As I read their words, they designed a model that achieves results predetermined beforehand.
Oh, just because they’ve developed an accurate model and since climate models are, just too simple; these glorious authors have also included niceties such as earth’s tilt and orbit eccentricities.
High precision geologic record, wow, that really has a nice ring to it. High precision in relation to what? Geologic records in high latitudes?
They’ve reduced and simplified such incredible climate complexities that we simpletons would never understand the details. So, of course, we should just take their word for it.
I do wonder if they got around to including clouds, solar minima/maxima, plate tectonics, volcano eruptions (surely that high precision geologic record identified every eruption for the last 55 million years…), acidic oceans, flatulent birds and other dinosauroid survivors…
I really do hope that the IPCC uses all of these recent paper wasters as key points in their up and coming new greatest climate frenzy. No matter how the alarmists will shrill and scream, they’re just gonna cry wolf a thousand times too often. It’ll also make sure that the next report will be the last IPCC eco new world order flake job.
Has anyone ever measured that increased downward IR yet, compared to let’s say 1950? because this is still like a talk about Yetti.
How often do you try emailing/calling the contact listed at the bottom of such press releases for the citation, or better yet, a (p)reprint of the journal article?
At last…PROOF of AGW.
Examine the press release and see lots of man made hot air!
That’s typical ‘climate science’ for you – creating scary hard facts out of dubious, unfounded conjecture.
More likely, as reported by Nature on April 27, 2007, the culprit for causing PETM was massive underwater volcanic activity between Greenland and Europe, which released truly gigantic amounts of CO2 over a very short time period and, even more important, kept releasing the gas for almost 100,000 years.
Ocean acidification is reported at the same time – the alarmists will say that was caused by CO2, but the pragmatist would say “it was probably caused by sulphuric acid from the volcanic activity.”
If the physics behind the theory of GHG-driven global temperature change is unable to explain past global cooling events, where does this leave the theory of AGW/ CAGW?
And if one or more other physical phenomena was responsible for the past global cooling events (solar forcing, for example) would it not be more logical to assume that those phenomena were also responsible for the warming?
Logically-speaking, this position is indeed supported because we can reasonably invoke the law of parsimony or ‘Occam’s razor’:
“… as in Leibniz’s “identity of observables”… Isaac Newton stated the rule: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.”
See: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html
But even if it was the case that past periods of global warming were driven by GHG physics and each subsequent period of cooling was modulated by other mechanism(s) it is also unarguable that, in the absence of a credible GHG explanation for cooling, those other phenomena (or phenomenon) without fail always succeeded in stopping the “runaway greenhouse” warming before it, well, ran away…
The case for AGW for CAGW and thus for “the cause” grows weaker and weaker and weaker by the day…
Have you ever noticed that new AGW papers always seem to stress that they’ve fixed all those big errors everyone now admits were in the old papers, but when you go back to the old papers they also claim to have fixed all the major errors everyone really knew were in their predecessors positions. Of course, when you criticize them, the first thing that pops out of their mouths is that AGW must be right because there is a concenus of expert opinion.