From the American Chemical Society.
I wonder if they studied how much methane comes from sediment loads dropped by rivers naturally and compared them? The Mississippi Delta alone must be a terrible offender.
Sediment trapped behind dams makes them ‘hot spots’ for greenhouse gas emissions
With the “green” reputation of large hydroelectric dams already in question, scientists are reporting that millions of smaller dams on rivers around the world make an important contribution to the greenhouse gases linked to global climate change. Their study, showing that more methane than previously believed bubbles out of the water behind small dams, appears in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Andreas Maeck and colleagues point out that the large reservoirs of water behind the world’s 50,000 large dams are a known source of methane. Like carbon dioxide, methane is one of the greenhouse gases, which trap heat near Earth’s surface and contribute to global warming. Methane, however, has a warming effect 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The methane comes from organic matter in the sediments that accumulate behind dams.
That knowledge led to questions about hydroelectric power’s image as a green and nonpolluting energy source. Maeck’s team decided to take a look at methane releases from the water impoundments behind smaller dams that store water less than 50 feet deep.
They describe analysis of methane release from water impounded behind six small dams on a European river. “Our results suggest that sedimentation-driven methane emissions from dammed river hot spot sites can potentially increase global freshwater emissions by up to 7 percent,” said the report. It noted that such emissions are likely to increase due to a boom in dam construction fostered by the quest for new energy sources and water shortages.
The authors acknowledge funding from the German Research Foundation.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
See also:
An alarmist prediction so bad, even Gavin Schmidt thinks it is implausible
and
An alarmist prediction so bad, even Gavin Schmidt thinks it is implausible
Oh, and this methane (CH4) projection versus reality from the IPCC AR5:
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What, is the methane from organic matter in sediments NOT released if not impounded by a dam?
Snork… another miserable prediction failure.
According to the Scientific method, hypotheses whose predictions fail to come to pass are to be revised or rejected.
Yet nothing seems to have improved moving from one AR to the next.
Changed, yes, but not improved.
Do they think that bacteria don’t eat that sediment if it had continued on down the river? Maybe they just haven’t figured out how to measure methane emitted from moving water, so they ignore it.
ridiculous
Igor Semiletov has responded to Gavin here:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2017089/arctic_methane_catastrophe_scenario_is_based_on_new_empirical_observations.html
in it he says, “Yet in my interview with Prof Peter Wadhams, co-author of the Nature study and head of Polar ocean physics at Cambridge University, he told me that the scientists who rejected his scenario as implausible were simply unacquainted with the unique dynamics of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, the nature of permafrost melting there, and its relationship to ongoing releases of methane in recent years which have been wholly unexpected within established models based on reconstructions of Earth’s historical climate:
“Those who understand Arctic seabed geology and the oceanography of water column warming from ice retreat do not say that this is a low probability event. I think one should trust those who know about a subject rather than those who don’t. As far as I’m concerned, the experts in this area are the people who have been actively working on the seabed conditions in the East Siberian Sea in summer during the past few summers where the ice cover has disappeared and the water has warmed. The rapid disappearance of offshore permafrost through water heating is a unique phenomenon, so clearly no ‘expert’ would have found a mechanism elsewhere to compare with this… I think that most Arctic specialists would agree that this scenario is plausible.”
————–
in your article you mention the mighty Mississippi.
The Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf has 3 main rivers, all feeding sediments that are riche in permafrost laden with trapped carbon, deposited into the ESAS under the ice and kept at or very close to freezing.
The sediment layer, put in place since the glaciers melted at the beginning of the Holocene is now over 150 feet deep, full of methane and warming from exposure to sunlight and a warming ocean current.
At this point it should be stated that, even if the probability is low, this is a clear and present danger.
Sorry, continued. . .
One of those Siberian rivers, the LENA is 7% larger than the Mississippi in flow rate, The OB river has a drainage basin second only to the Amazon and all three of these rivers have produced the largest and longest lasting (due to restricted current flow rates previously under the ice) sediment strata in very shallow waters anywhere in the world.
So will environmental activists now oppose rather than protect wetlands? What better way to restrict methane than to pave over bogs, swamps & marshes?
Does that mean I can blow up any Beaver dam I come across?
jai mitchell says:
July 31, 2013 at 10:58 am
Please explain why the clear & present danger exists now, yet the “danger” didn’t occur during the prior Holocene intervals lasting longer & warmer than now, let alone the Eemian & previous interglacials so much hotter for so much longer than our present one. Thanks.
Dam!
Dammed Methane!
“With the “green” reputation of large hydroelectric dams already in question, scientists are reporting that millions of smaller dams on rivers around the world make an important contribution to the greenhouse gases linked to global climate change.”
Over the years, hydroelectric power has gone from the darling of the greens to a villain that must be eradicated. That dams cut off entire watersheds to fish migrating upstream, that dams shred fish migrating downstream, that dams damage a river’s riparian zone and floodplain morphology and vegetation by manipulating the natural hydrograph – these things were all known or easily predictable when the first dams were being erected. Only a hundred years later do people find they care enough about these things that they are willing to do anything – including telling these “global warming” lies – to justify removing dams from the power grid.
These evil dams, they demand be replaced with holy windfarms. Windfarms that, as they are being erected, are known to shred migrating birds, disrupt local temperature and rainfall, fill the environment with infrasound, sully landscapes with their sheer numbers (let alone the stroboscopic light pollution), and fail to produce anywhere near the amount of power they are advertised to provide. What lies will their children tell to justify tearing down the windfarms in favor of solar plantations, while fossil fuel continues to drive the world?
Wouldn’t releasing water from the bottom of the dam flush this out? The dam at the west end of Lake Powell does a sediment flush annually. Another moot ‘clear and present danger’?
Every government researcher on the planet who works with a 3 atom or more molecule, i.e. a molecule that absorbs and re-emits LWIR, tries the CO2AGW meme to get funding.
While I understand the greed, I am by now of the opinion that all of them are scoundrels.
Anytime you take a fast-moving water source and replace a section of it with a slow moving reservoir, you will get a local increase in methane production. The organic material in the sediment will break down differently depending on the quantity of oxygen available, and in low-oxygen environments (such as, at the bottom of a reservoir), it will anaerobically produce methane. This is well established.
However, what matters on this study is whether the insertion of a dam, which stops the flow of sediment down the river, creates a local increase that is greater than the non-local decrease due to less sediment farther down the stream/river. The process of water flowing and pulling sediment with it will probably be significantly reduced with the dam, as small dams provide an effective first line of flood magnitude reduction, and floods are a major cause of river-borne sediment. On the other hand, with the shallow stream/river flowing freely, some of that organic sediment will break down aerobically and not end up as methane, reducing the amount of methane produced per unit of sediment.
Unless that trade-off is evaluated, this is a narrow slice of a complex picture, with the world being no better informed about the consequences of the small dams as a result.
This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries regarding a pond on his property.
It was sent by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania .
This guy’s response is hilarious, but read The State’s letter before you get to the response letter.
State of Pennsylvania ‘s letter to Mr. DeVries:
SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.. A review of the Department’s files shows that no permits have been issued Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations.. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2010.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
Here is the actual response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File No.. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr..Price,
Your certified letter dated 11/17/09 has been handed to me. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .
A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood ‘debris’ dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials ‘debris.’
I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
These are the beavers/contractors you are seeking. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. (Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.)
I have several dam concerns. My first dam concern is, aren’t the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation — so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.
The Department’s dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names.
If you want the damed stream ‘restored’ to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers — but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers’ Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2010? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice by then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your dam step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
THANK YOU,
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS
It appears to me that if these reservoirs of methane are such ticking timebombs we should be mining them for the methane so we can safely contain it or use known thermal processes to convert it to a less deadly (GHG) form.
So the trapping and near extinction of beavers in the mid to late 19th century was good for the environment?
@Mike Smith
Dam right!
jai mitchell says:
July 31, 2013 at 10:58 am
jai, have you taken a look at the units of the methane graph above. It is under 2 ppm and is going nowhere fast. Okay, even though its an illegitimate study, lets add 7% and we see it still is below 2 ppm. In the case of the methane in sediments behind the dams, were it not stopped there, it would continue downstream and deposit in a lake or the ocean where it would simply give off methane there. Think of the Mississippi delta – an enormous deposit of mud and organic material – its swamps are pretty gassy.
I know you are fairly immovable at this time from your position on the CO2 scare science, but you seem to me to be an intelligent person and can see through the ‘dam’ dangers of methane. What doesn’t look good for the mainstream thinker and skeptic alike, is to accept everything, no matter how implausible, just because it supports the meme of one side or the other. Gavin Schmidt was praised here for this reason on the Arctic methane scare story, not because we think he has abandoned his very strong CO2 climate control position, but because he was not prepared to accept something preposterous just because it adds to the GHG story (you probably have no idea how rare is the criticism from your camp of partisans who have it grossly wrong – Gavin’s criticism was noteworthy for this reason). It’s really okay to criticize your own side, too. Here on WUWT we rip apart skeptic partisans who say illogical or insignificant things (or heaven forbid, stupid things). No one is safe here. Even the wisest among us, for example Willis Eschenbach, Anthony Watts and many others have had strips taken off them on many occasions by skeptics here. Also witness the Guardian columnist on environment who blew everyone away with uncharacteristic praises of Anthony Watts and WUWT for taking on the ultra anti CAGW folks at Principia Scientific International and doing a Facebook experiment to prove them wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/30/im-gobsmacked/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/principia-scientific-international/
milodonharlani
The methane sediments began to be deposited around that time. before that the area was above water.
Another Oh?
With all of the impoundments and other drainage obstacles being removed yearly; why did they have to rely upon some sediment methane releases in Europe? They could’ve tested the silt sediments directly here..
It’s also curious that they’re claiming the “…Maeck’s team decided to take a look at methane releases from the water impoundments behind smaller dams that store water less than 50 feet deep…” is an abnormal methane release? The only thing abnormal about the methane is that dams cause debris to settle behind the dam. In a natural process, these same debris and sediments would settle elsewhere in the drainage’s slow waters and then release methane there. With the end result of this study only dealing with a concentration point in the drainage, not an unusual methane source nor unusual amounts of methane.
Many impoundments that release water over the dam’s top also build up quite a lot of hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs which is also the main odor of swamps and estuary bottom exposed during low tide).
Apparently there isn’t a “Carbon Cycle for Dummies” yet?
jai mitchell says:
July 31, 2013 at 12:09 pm
milodonharlani
The methane sediments began to be deposited around that time. before that the area was above water.
That particular area may have been above water at that time, but those *methane sediments* were being deposited somewhere…milodonharlani’s question still requires an answer.
Methane-consuming archaebacteria in marine sediments
Large amounts of methane are produced in marine sediments but are then consumed before contacting aerobic waters or the atmosphere1.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v398/n6730/abs/398802a0.html