Credit: Robert Spencer/Florida State
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As the Earth warms and glaciers all over the world begin to melt, researchers and public policy experts have focused largely on how all of that extra water will contribute to sea level rise.
But another impact lurking in that inevitable scenario is carbon.
More specifically, what happens to all of the organic carbon found in those glaciers when they melt?
That’s the focus of a new paper by a research team that includes Florida State University assistant professor Robert Spencer. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, is the first global estimate by scientists at what happens when major ice sheets break down.
“This is the first attempt to figure out how much organic carbon is in glaciers and how much will be released when they melt,” Spencer said. “It could change the whole food web. We do not know how different ecological systems will react to a new influx of carbon.”
Glaciers and ice sheets contain about 70 percent of the Earth’s freshwater and ongoing melting is a major contributor to sea level rise. But, glaciers also store organic carbon derived from both primary production on the glaciers and deposition of materials such as soot or other fossil fuel combustion byproducts.
Spencer, along with colleagues from Alaska and Switzerland, studied measurements from ice sheets in mountain glaciers globally, the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet to measure the total amount of organic carbon stored in the global ice reservoir.
It’s a lot.
Specifically, as glaciers melt, the amount of organic carbon exported in glacier outflow will increase 50 percent over the next 35 years. To put that in context, that’s about the amount of organic carbon in half of the Mississippi River being added each year to the ocean from melting glaciers.
“This research makes it clear that glaciers represent a substantial reservoir of organic carbon,” said Eran Hood, the lead author on the paper and a scientist with the University of Alaska Southeast. “As a result, the loss of glacier mass worldwide, along with the corresponding release of carbon, will affect high-latitude marine ecosystems, particularly those surrounding the major ice sheets that now receive fairly limited land-to-ocean fluxes of organic carbon.”
Spencer said he and his colleagues are continuing on this line of research and will do additional studies to try to determine exactly what the impact will be when that carbon is released into existing bodies of water.
“The thing people have to think about is what this means for the Earth,” Spencer said. “We know we’re losing glaciers, but what does that mean for marine life, fisheries, things downstream that we care about? There’s a whole host of issues besides the water issue.”
###
[UPDATE by Willis Eschenbach] Thanks for pointing out this nonsense, Anthony. I can’t express how much I despise this kind of “half the Mississippi” alarmism. Let’s put this all into some kind of context.
The Mississippi contributes only about 1.5% of the total global river discharge. So their “half the Mississippi”, which sounds so alarming, is actually less than 1% of the total organic carbon flowing every year into the world oceans. The idea that this is worth worrying about is a sick joke.
My regards to all, and don’t believe everything you read,
w.
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temperature rises, glaciers melt, CO2 goes up in that order. BIG SUPPRISE. 🙂
You forgot that a new website then goes up to push the real agenda http://www.ecoequity.org/
@ur momisugly Robin,
Global Governance by the unelected, for the ultimate benefit of ‘the few’, with Climate Change the stalking horse to achieve it.
Climate ‘scientists’, duplicitous elected representatives, paid propagandists and many others are, whether they know it or not, merely the paid-for, disposable cannon fodder on the road to the end of democracy.
Sounds cynical ?? Maybe, but I am not sure it is cynical enough.
In my mind the true threat and real aim is the end of democracy – and by that I don’t mean there will no longer be elections or elected representatives – but, following the EU model, nations will have elected representatives as we in the UK have Members of Parliament. They, as in the UK, provide the trappings, semblance and illusion of democracy whilst the vast majority of laws are made elsewhere and handed down to Parliament which has no choice but to implement them as if these were laws coming from elected representatives. The truth is that these laws (EU Directives) are made by unelected, and thus unaccountable, people that once in place the voter has no means of dislodging, removing or holding to account ; the very structure works to ensure that national politicians are left unable to determine or make laws that the people who elected them want.
In the UK that has been largely hidden by the strong desire of our career ‘politicians’, the majority of whom have never had a real job in their lives, to cede sovereignty to Europe (now accomplished where the UK is concerned – we are governed by the EU). Again, as has been clearly demonstrated within the EU, there are plenty in power both elected and unelected who do not trust the public, the voter, to make the ‘correct decision. They believe that only unelected specialists can make the ‘right’ decisions in the interests of the public. (EPA anyone ?).
That is the underlying philosophy shaping the structure of the EU. It is why, when nations have voted not cede further sovereignty to the EU, the EU has then forced them to have repeated votes until their voters ‘get it right’ and vote as the EU insists, to give up that sovereignty. The EU have even forced the replacement of elected politicians heading up nation states who weren’t doing what the Eurocrats wanted.
That is not something I would expect to have penetrated the consciousness and understanding of the average voter in Europe, let alone elsewhere in the world. But just for a moment imagine the UN forcing an Obama or a Bush out of office for not doing what they require …… and then choosing his replacement – as the EU did in Italy and Greece.
Ceding democratic power over all environmental legislation from nation states to an unelected and unaccountable global body is what, in essence, was proposed in one of the Annexes to the Copenhagen Treaty. That aim and intent is as strong as ever within the UN and the IPCC.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that the EU has been testing out these approaches of creating an illusion of democracy whilst taking power from the voter to choose and hold accountable the people who really make their laws. It seems a logical way of developing and testing a format for a global government that hides the loss and the removal of democracy from the voter – and the EU has been highly successful at hiding the very real loss of democracy and national sovereignty from the public. (Btw – if I had ever worked for the EU I would now have my pension terminated for speaking against the EU)
Climate change is one of the key battlegrounds in what will be a long-running war to hold onto the democracy that was hard-won by our ancestors. To me that battle for democracy, to hold onto it and restore it where it has already been lost (such as in the EU) is the greatest challenge facing mankind in the 21st Century.
Cynical ? Perhaps. But a glimpse of the reality we face ? I think so.
The abstract of the paper is here or here.
I wonder if there is any coal we can mine underneath those glaciers? Looks like a big coal seam at the base of the photo. We could help add some more wonderful carbon (the building block of all life) to the environment.
Actually the answer is yes. There are “mineral” mines near the edge of glaciers. And some do have plans to expand if and when the glaciers recede.
And what about the carbon that is captured due to new growth on land exposed by the retreating glacier and fed by the now flowing water?
So what the hell is “organic carbon”, and how is it different from inorganic carbon ??
And we know from photographs that as the glaciers and other ice melt, a whole lot of carbon both organic and inorganic falls on the ground and stays there. We have pictures that show the carbon remaining AFTER the ice has become water, and run off. So most of that carbon sequestered by glaciers and other ice, becomes dirt.
And by the way, that carbon is not carbon dioxide, and you could add a shovel full of it to each bucket of water you dump in the ocean, and it would be gone, maybe even good riddance.
So just what are these folks talking about ??
Can one of the scientists here explain why the world at large is content to call CO2 simply Carbon? I can understand those with scare-mongering motives (it sounds so ‘icky don’t’ it) but why is a gas that is benign and vital to life on earth get lumped with the simplified text label “CARBON”?
cnxtim, there is a good reason to count everything as carbon: it is CO2 in the atmosphere, but it is only 1% CO2 in the oceans, the rest is 90% bicarbonates and 9% carbonates. In plants it is a host of organics: from sugars and starch to cellulose and other stuff.
To compare the CO2 movements in a mass balance, everything is calculated as carbon.
Which doesn’t make this article worth to give a second thought, as part of it is sooth that never will make it to CO2 again and the organics need a lot of time to get into CO2.
Exactly – and how come we didn’t notice it before – as I recall carbon exists in two forms, graphite and diamond. Graphite is dark, so surely we would have seen all that dark material in the glacier ice.
Diamond would be harder to spot right enough in a glacier, but I would doubt if the conditions in a glacier would be sufficient to transform carbon into diamond.
Or are they talking about carbon dioxide?
If this is a scientific endeavour, one of the most basic expectations is for it to be precise in meaning, Can we really believe the conclusion of a study where the authors cannot even get the name of the substance studied correct?
Surely this report is about actual carbon (C), not carbon dioxide (CO2), isn’t it?
Wrong there Paul! Five forms of Carbon, you’ve missed soot & “White Carbon” & Buckminster Fullerene !
Organic chemistry is the branch of chemistry that studies compounds made from carbon. This includes most molecules in living organisms as well as countless others made from petroleum (which itself came from living organisms). Since carbon can form 4 bonds and can bond with other carbons and dozens of other elements and can form double and triple bonds and rings of various sizes as well as aromatic bonds, there are an infinite number of compounds of carbon. If they are talking about organic material in the glaciers, they are talking about dead plant and animal debris, dirt with old compounds from living organisms (bacteria, fungi, worms, roots, etc.). So this organic material would have to be eaten or decomposed by other living organisms and converted to CO2, but some of it would go into cell walls, membranes, etc. and be fixed for awhile. Another factor is how long it takes for the glaciers to melt a bit and release an extra 1% of organic carbon. It could happen over 200 years which makes it even less scary.
Ferdinand gives the answer but it isn’t as good as he’d like to think. This is precisely why sciencey lites are caught up in soot. It is no big deal to call it CO2 and give compounds it makes a CO2 equivalent when we need to. We do it all the time anyway. Petroleum, coal and natural gas aren’t CO2 but we have no problem giving it an equivalent when we are burning it and, for forecasts, when we will be burning it and it is easy to give its equivalent as an agent causiing reduction in pH, forming wood, carbonates etc. Indeed, it separates out the active stuff from the long term sequestered stuff – forests, shellfish, precipitated carbonates, etc which are no longer a problem to the environment. A lot of natural gas goes into making a heck of a lot of plastics~1/4 of a gigatonne. The bigee is limestone and dolomite which – surely millions of years sequestration in rock is considered out of the danger zone. For 95% of the population who don’t know the difference, in fact it’s better to use CO2 and talk about how much goes in and how much is removed.
I have huge respect for Ferdinand Engelbeen as ‘the’ world’s expert on CO2’s behaviour and identification, but I disagree with is presenting it as carbon for the above reasons. He apparently is unaware that this happy terminology serves to allow the new world order types to lie to people in another of their many ways.
Well, organic carbon is grown without pesticides or harming any animals.
Frank “organic carbon” is the perfect example of the sort of fuzzy-mindedness that is found with respect to carbon. Carbon is an element. Organisms do not grow elements. They grow compounds such carbohydrates.
It is such fuzzy-mindedness that comprises most of the alarmist clamor.
You should pay respect to what is called “scientific rigor”.
I thought ‘organic carbon’ was the stuff my wife buys at the health food store and wants me to eat. I’d rather drink out of a ‘green slime’ pond … <>
Gary, I agree that the terminology is sometimes confusing, but counting all organic stuff as carbon has nothing to do with bad intentions, AGW or CAGW. In the case of fossil fuels, one can express them in CO2 equivalents, but in the case of plant organics that is lot more complicated: sugars, starch, cellulose still is easy stuff, but the thousands of other organics isn’t easy to translate.
If one makes a mass balance, it is carbon that can’t be destroyed or created from nothing. No matter in what form it is bound. It is a carbon balance, not a CO2 balance…
If the carbon is real elementary carbon (soot), it will show up in the balance as falling out of the carbon cycle and rests on earth forever. It will not be part of the cycle anymore. You can express that as “CO2 equivalents” dropping out of the balance, but that is rather odd…
Anyway, it doesn’t matter much as soot is a very small part of the carbon balance, be it that its impact on regional warming (like in India with its brown smoke) may be larger than of CO2…
“Organic carbon” etc is actually a pretty big and messy deal as many have noted. But for those who never did any water or wastewater work, Read this from Wiki (I mow, I know, but it’s easier than going into the basement to get my old textbooks out.)
Not the best reply, just to note the issue is complex.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_organic_carbon
Environmental
Since the early 1970s, TOC has been an analytic technique used to measure water quality during the drinking water purification process. TOC in source waters comes from decaying natural organic matter (NOM) as well as synthetic sources. Humic acid, fulvic acid, amines, and urea are examples of NOM. Some detergents, pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, industrial chemicals, and chlorinated organics are examples of synthetic sources.[4] Before source water is treated for disinfection, TOC provides an estimate of the amount of NOM in the water source. In water treatment facilities, source water is subject to reaction with chloride containing disinfectants. When the raw water is chlorinated, active chlorine compounds (Cl2, HOCl, ClO-) react with NOM to produce chlorinated disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Researchers have determined that higher levels of NOM in source water during the disinfection process will increase the amount of carcinogens in the processed drinking water.[citation needed]
With passage of the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act in 2001, TOC analysis emerged as a quick and accurate alternative to the classical but more lengthy biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) tests traditionally reserved for assessing the pollution potential of wastewaters. Today, environmental agencies regulate the trace limits of DBPs in drinking water. Recently published analytical methods, such as United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) method 415.3,[5] support the Agency’s Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules, which regulate the amount of NOM to prevent the formation of DBPs in finished waters.[6][7]
MeasurementEdit
To understand the analysis process better, some key basic terminologies should be understood and their relationships to one another (Figure 1).
Total Carbon (TC) – all the carbon in the sample, including both inorganic and organic carbon
Total Inorganic Carbon (TIC) – often referred to as inorganic carbon (IC), carbonate, bicarbonate, and dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2).
Total Organic Carbon (TOC) – material derived from decaying vegetation, bacterial growth, and metabolic activities of living organisms or chemicals.
Non-Purgeable Organic Carbon (NPOC) – commonly referred to as TOC; organic carbon remaining in an acidified sample after purging the sample with gas.
Purgeable (volatile) Organic Carbon (VOC) – organic carbon that has been removed from a neutral, or acidified sample by purging with an inert gas. These are the same compounds referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and usually determined by Purge and Trap Gas Chromatography.
Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) – organic carbon remaining in a sample after filtering the sample, typically using a 0.45 micrometer filter.
Suspended Organic Carbon – also called particulate organic carbon (POC); the carbon in particulate form that is too large to pass through a filter.
Remember most of the CO2 is volcanogenic from underwater volcanoes.
Yep, file this under “ignorance of the carbon cycle.” And can someone please enlighten me about this primary productivity that occurs ON glaciers?!
@ur momisugly Ferdinand E
Remember there are two uses for terms like this – the scientific and the political. You’re talking scientific (you pedant, you!). Politicians are less scrupulous. When Julia Gillard was Prime Minister of Australia, she introduced a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. She continually referred it as a tax on “carbon pollution”. Now, that was either monumentally ignorant or deliberately deceitful. Given that she’s a politician, I favour the latter explanation. By her logic, we should refer to the floods we had in Queensland as “hydrogen pollution”.
Agreed…
The glaciers melting in Tallahassee have been of particular concern to me lately. The melting of the ice-age glaciers seemed to not have caused a great die off, and there was a mile of ice over what is now Toronto. I am afraid this is another yawner.
Yeah, didn’t glaciers “begin” to melt about 12,000 years ago or so.
they did.
The Tallahassee Glacier is gone already … 😉
“The Tallahassee Glacier is gone already”
Whoa, so this really IS happening,
I’m gonna buy a Volt today, and help the Tallahassee Glacier regrow.
As is sadly, Tallahassee Beach, all we got to show for it is a Cody Scarp.
I need some definitions here. They speak of organic carbon as including soot and other combustion products. I would have thought that soot was about as inorganic as they come. Has it come to the point that when someone wants to impress the audience, adding organic (as in organic foods) is an easy way to do it.
I don’t know about definitions, all definitions in Climate science are as vague and meaningless as possible.
What I do know is that organic Cheerios taste gross.
Are there inorganic foods?
Inorganic foods? Think : fast food chain.
On the issue of ‘food’ I read the following question.
Could melting ice sheets / glaciers actually be net beneficial? Did the authors miss these two papers from last year?
Supermarkets sell food-like substances. Is that what you are referring to?
I am lead to understand that iron from melting ice sheets stimulates Phytoplankton blooms which enhances co2 sequestration and boosts food source for marine animals. If glacier outflow increases, as stated above, I wonder what the net effect will be over the next 35 years?
It seems to me that much research nowadays is focused on negative impacts at the cost of negative feedbacks and desirable outcomes. Just my 2 cents.
There are inorganic nutrients like minerals (Fe and Ca ions for example), and things like phosphates.
I always try to find them in the supermarket, but when I ask for them the store clerks just given me a blank stare. I am not kidding I do sometimes do that, my sense of humor doesn’t seem to translate down to store clerks very well.
Organic carbon is almost any carbon excluding atomic carbon, graphene, diamond, buckyballs etc, carbon oxides, cyanide, carbonates and carbides.
So “soot” might be partly inorganic, but the division between organic carbon and inorganic carbon is somewhat unclear. According to Wikipedia,
I’d say it is one the least problems in the proposed glacier melt that the meltwater contains impurities. Life depends on those impurities.
Exactly.
The reported science seems interesting and believable. The numbers seem reasonable. But the idea that it is a lot of carbon or that it is negative in anyway seems like pure spin. Carbon is food.
Also, the rate of release of carbon is not mentioned. Ice doesn’t melt that quickly. So this carbon (that was locked up in the ice, once upon a time, long ago) is released back to its “natural” state.
You can see how it could be spun both ways.
I wonder how much carbon was released after the Termination of the Last Glacial Maximum? We are told that atmospheric co2 today at 400ppm has not been higher for 100s of thousands of years.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig68.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Holocene_Sea_Level.png
PS: Sea level has risen by 120 metres since the end of the last glaciation. The initial rise was rapid. Should I be worried now.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/slr.jpg
“to put that in contest, that is about half the amount of organic carbon in half of the Mississippi being added each year to the ocean from melting glaciers”
To put the above in contest there are on the the earth thousands of rivers that run into the sea — big ones small ones, dribbles off the sloping land. etc.. The contribution of carbon from the Mississippi is only a tiny percentage of that whole. Therefore the significance of carbon from all the melting glaciers in the world must be only half of a tiny percentage.
i make no claim to being a scientist. Am I wrong about this???
Eugene WR Gallun
Measuring carbon in terms of half the flow of the Mississippi is like measuring heat in terms of H-bombs. Scare tactics and meaningless.
Eugene WR Gallun.
The Ganges Delta is the world’s largest delta. I wonder what the outflow of carbon is from the Ganges–Brahmaputra Delta compared to the Mississippi? If the authors had compared glacial / ice sheet carbon output to this Delta.
Does this answer your question?
“Rivers are one of many bodies of water that cover the Earth’s surface. Rivers make up, believe it or not, only one millionth of the water on Earth (1.7 × 103 km3 out of 1.35 × 109 km3).”
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/KerllyBernabe.shtml
I read a report the other day on underground water. It said that the total underground water was hundreds of times the earth’s surface water. That report might even have been on WUWT.
George, regarding underground water. I’m not a geologist, but I understand that a bi-product of underground calcification (stalactites and stalagmites) is naturally occuring CO2. Calcium carbonate is re-deposited as calcite and the carbon dioxide is lost to cave atmosphere. Some cave systems can show CO2 readings as high as 3,600 ppm.
See link for an interesting CO2 study on the Scoska cave system:
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/7134/1/7134.pdf
george e. smith, I think you are referring to this WUWT report.
Abstract: Dehydration melting at the top of the lower mantle
Jimbo,
No that wasn’t the report I was referring to. The article I saw described huge reservoirs of water underground and it said they were hundreds of times the total volume of all surface water.
G
GeeJam, not so much. CO2 dissolved in water forms a mild acid (carbonic acid). That acid – H2CO3 – reacts with calcium carbonate thus: CaCO3 + H2CO3 —> CaCO3 + H2O + CO2. But, since the carbonic acid is the product of water and CO2: CO2 + H2O H2CO3, there’s no net excess production of CO2. The CO2 is brought to the party in aqueous solution and leaves again as the gas. The CO2 is simply what was in solution when the water reached the cave system. The result is that carbonic acid will attack say limestone, dissolve it so that the CaCO3 is transported, but then is simply redeposited, thus creating both caves and dripstones.
george e. smith, the only thing I can think of now is maybe you saw one of my comments with this link. I have posted it before regarding arguments over water wars.
Yes, you’re wrong, because you [typed] “contest” instead of “context”.
“organic carbon”. Sounds like someone needs a grant.
Organic Carbon is a common term in science. It’s not an advertising term.
Most chemistry courses are split in to physical, inorganic and organic chemistry. Organic carbon is carbon that would be covered under organic chemistry.
Simplistically, organic carbon is carbon bonded to hydrogen (with oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen etc. as well) – it is the stuff that living things are made of.
Inorganic carbon would be carbon oxides and pure allotropes (C60, diamond graphite) and other relatively inert (tied up) carbon that won’t make sugars or fats or all those interesting things that biology uses.
The wording of the paper implies that someone got a grant (or grants) to vacation near some glaciers and is requesting further grants to vacation near glaciers elsewhere.
I was thinking the same thing. I’ve noticed that sometimes ice cores dark layers, where it appears the surface melted down and concentrated the “whatever” particles into layers? Does surface melting drive those particles lower, or does it run off in the melt water?
BTW, I bet colored flags in the pic above are what put the M&M colors into the Yak “cookies”?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/16/breaking-science-news-yak-dung-burning-pollutes-indoor-air-of-tibetan-households/
To put that in context, that’s about the amount of organic carbon in half of the Mississippi River being added each year to the ocean from melting glaciers.
To complete the context, when your numbers are so small as to be meaningless, quantify them via a metric like Hiroshima bombs or fractions of a major river. That way it sounds big even when it isn’t.
There’s enough water in a 5 gallon pail to drown all of humanity. True, and completely meaningless. Half a river… (snort of derision).
We are doomed! More positive feedback! Tipping point will be sooner!
You said it funnier than i did!!!!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
But how much half a Mississississippi is in beer bottles? (I can spell Mississippi, just I can’t stop spelling it. -Pratchett)
Oh my goodness, we do not know. I’ll panic now.
Come to think of it — I have never seen — “There’s enough water in a 5 gallon pail to drown all of humanity” — before. If yours, that is very very good. Ever think about taking up poetry??
Eugene WR Gallun
I don’t know about drowning everybody on earth in a five gallon bucket of water but this I do know.
In the United States, more children and toddlers are drowned in five gallon buckets of water each year than are accidently killed by guns in the house.
Parents leave empty buckets around the yard, and rain fills them. The toddler leans over to play with the water, and topples head first into the bucket. The amah is too busy watching the T&V or texting to notice the kid is missing.
And the pair that gave birth to the child are off at work, letting a stranger take care of their child. (they think)
I cannot take credit for that line
I just use it, from time to time
There’s an x-rated version, that is mine
Haven’t managed, to make it rhyme
And the mods would snip it, every time
davidmhoffer
you are on a roll
Eugene WR Gallun
george e. smith
Bucket drowning deaths average 10 a year. Accidental child gun deaths a hundred a year. See https://www.mjc.edu/instruction/fcs/documents/cfoc3.pdf p. 69 and http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/25/death-child-unintentional-shooting/11324717/
Ralph
They are talking about toddlers. There aren’t may 17 year olds drowning in 5 gallon buckets. 5 gallon buckets pose a greater risk to a 3 year old than hand guns do. That’s the point.
One hand clapping.
It sounds like “cl”.
The other hand makes the “ap”.
JLC,
Thanks for that.
It is a net zero. The loss of glaciers affect the eco systems in the close environment where they exist, but the carbon they free will be offset by the carbon the now liquid water will absorb.
Now, I’m really scared.
tales from the HImalayas –
Aug 2013: Himalayan Times: Dust linked to Himalayan glaciers melting
DAVOS: The International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) proposes to set up a working group to study the impact of dust and black carbon from forest fires on the accelerated melting of snow and glaciers on the Himalayas.
The decision was taken at a recent meeting in Davos, Switzerland…
While analysing the satellite data, Singh noticed during the winter season a vast pool of atmospheric pollution over the Indo-Gangetic plains reaching to the Himalayan foothills.
“The dust which is very common in the western parts of India almost every year (during April-June) reaches to the western parts of the Himalayas,” Singh told IANS.
He said the dust also enhanced water vapour and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere resulting in the warming up of the troposphere, especially in the western parts of the Himalayan region accelerating the melting of glaciers.
He added that pollution in the Indo-Gangetic plains from industrial activities, biomass burning and sometimes forest fires further contributed to the warming of troposphere and the Himalayan snow/glaciers…
In the eastern parts of the Himalayan region, black carbon from the forest fires in countries on the eastern India “deposits on the snow/glaciers of the Himalayan and Tibetan region”, Singh said.
According to Singh, it is difficult to say which one affects the glaciers most — black carbon or the dust.
“In theory, black carbon is a lot more effective but generally the dust concentration is much higher than black carbon and therefore dust can have larger impact,” he said.
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Dust+linked+to+Himalayan+glaciers+melting&NewsID=386642
Oct 2014: Himalayan Times: What prevents Karakoram glaciers from retreating?
“It has been a source of controversy these glaciers have not been changing while other glaciers have,” said Sarah Kapnick, a postdoctoral researcher at the Princeton University.
Glaciers have exhibited mass stability or even expansion in the Karakoram region contrasting with the glacial mass loss across the nearby Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, a pattern that has been termed the Karakoram anomaly.
For the study, the researchers collected data on recent precipitation and temperatures from the Pakistan Meteorological Department and other sources, including satellite data.
They compared a set of high-resolution climate model simulations from 1861 to 2100 to focus on the distinct seasonal cycles and resulting climate change signatures in three regions of the Himalayas: the Karakoram; the central Himalayas; and the south-east Himalayas which included part of the Tibetan Plateau. They found a new model that simulates climate down to an area of 19 square miles was able to match the observed temperature and precipitation cycles seen in the Karakoram.
Karakoram region gets most of its extra moisture in the winter, when westerly winds bring snow to the mountains. The central and south-east Himalayan regions get most of their moisture from monsoons in the summer. Because summer is warmer, most of this precipitation falls as rain.
Previous models overestimated temperature of the Karakoram, and underestimated the amount of snow in the region, the researchers found. “The total amount of rain is increasing during summer months. But since the temperatures are rising above freezing, they’re not translating to increased snowfall; they’re translating to decreased snowfall in those two regions,” said Kapnick. “In Karakoram, snowfall is decreasing in summer but increasing in winter,” Kapnick pointed out…
http://thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=What+prevents+Karakoram+glaciers+from+retreating%3F&NewsID=430705
Do they have any ice core data to support their claims? Are they sure that a glacier melt has the same composition as a Mississippi water? How about green plants colonizing new habitats?
Where have these academics been? Cloistered in academia? For starters, when glaciers begin to melt? And what have glaciers been doing for thousands of years … throwing a wild party?
They’ve been melting for thousands of years and, according to these scientists, also releasing carbon … and we’re still here … and people pretending to be scientists still have no idea what they’re talking about.
sounds like a science fiction movie in the making. Never mind Sharknado, next up is – shudder – CARBON-NADO.!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonado,_Washington
Funny you should mention Carbonado Washington. (USA) …it’s near the Carbon river… which is fed by the Carbon Glacier of Mount Rainier. The Carbon River runs quite cloudy with particulate matter. Carbonado is what’s left of a small coal mining community. ( However the river has only been running for a week or two now that global warming is taking over / Sark)
Bruce Cobb
“As the Earth warms and glaciers all over the world begin to melt”
“It was a dark and stormy night”
Well, we certainly know what school of literature our author comes from.
Eugene WR Gallun
CARBONARA !!
http://www.taste.com.au/images/recipes/del/2008/05/19537_l.jpg
The Carbonaro Effect!
http://www.trutv.com/shows/the-carbonaro-effect/index.html
So how much carbon is added by annual snowmelt, worldwide? And how much more carbon do the glaciers add? And what portion of that is due to accelerated glacier retreat?
Concerning snowmelt, the Lena at it’s max rate in mid summer discharges ~ 250,000 cubic meters/sec into the Arctic Ocean, and it’s mostly snowmelt. This is a bucket of reeking feces and the researchers are trying to cash in on the carbon bugaboo. Disgusting.
But, glaciers also store organic carbon derived from both primary production on the glaciers and deposition of materials such as soot or other fossil fuel combustion byproducts.
Primary production? Is that a mealymouthed way of saying the trees and other vegetation that had gotten covered up by the glacier? In other words, it was warmer before, warm enough for the “primary production of organic carbon,” and then it got colder and the glaciers formed?
So why worry when the glaciers recede to allow more primary production again?
Nope, actually quite a few algae and bacteria grow on glaciers in summer. Most of that organic material is probably washed away with the meltwater, but a part is also frozen into the glacier. Compared to the glacier as a whole it is of course minute. This paper is pure junk-science.
junk-science ? science-fiction ? junk-fiction 🙂
Plant life can’t grow on a chunk of ice.
“Plant life can’t grow on a chunk of ice”
Snow algae can.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snow_Red_with_Algae_Cyanobacteria_(4896474273).jpg
There are entire forests growing on glaciers in Alaska. All it takes is a massive eruption and mega-tons of ash falling on the ice…
Seldom reported by the sea level rise scarers is the important contribution of shallow water volcanoes which produce new islands as they erupt. e.g…. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-16/tonga-volcano-creates-large-new-land-mass/6022094
Of course, eruptions of this type disrupt water volume and hence contribute to rising sea level. To what effect is volcanic displacement taken into account in sea water volume calculations?
Could Maldive’s ‘drowning’ displaced people be resettled on Hunga Ha’Apai?
I’d guess lava moving under seabed and coming up at a volcano does not really make any net effect. Don’t give them a hint though, they’ll make a model which proves that volcano driven sea-level rise has been reduced lately which means the rise is accelerating.
What do they mean by “a lot”. I would be surprised if a typical alpine glacier held more carbon per square metre than a forest does for instance. If so then melting those glaciers would not contribute more carbon than clear cutting a forest of the same area. Yes that is “a lot” from the point of view of a human being; but on a global scale when you consider the huge areas of forest that burn each year, it is just a footnote. And of course such glaciers melt only slowly so the amount released each year is going to be quite small. Finally consider what is going to happen on the land the glacier melted from. If you plant hardy alpine pine on that land so that what was glacier becomes forest then the contribution to the global carbon budget is zero.
The accounting may be different for the several kilometer thick glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic. But those are not melting any time this millenium. And if they did melt then the amount of carbon they currently sequester would be the least of our problems.
Yeah – they need to quantify “a lot”: megalot, gigalot, teralot, etc
You forgot Merlot.
From – Biomass burning record and black carbon in the GISP2 ice core
http://w3.pppl.gov/~pdamiano/publications/Chylek_et_alGRL1994.pdf
The current snow (1989 and 1990) from the GISP2 site shows an average black carbon concentration of about 2.0 µg/kg suggesting that the rate of black carbon deposition at the GISP2 Greenland site during 1989-1990 was about the same as 1670 years ago.
The results of the black carbon analysis (top panel in Fig. 2) confirm the usefulness of the ECM to identify periods of suspected extensive biosphere burning. The average black carbon concentration found in the 320 to 330 A.D.decade is 2.1 µg/kg with the standard deviation of 1.7 µg/kg. Two black carbon peaks around the years of 324 and 326 A.D. show an elevated black carbon concentration which is by more than 2.5 times the standard deviation above the average decadal value. When these two peaks are removed from the average calculation, the decadal black carbon average is 1.7 µg/kg with the standard deviation of 0.9 µg/kg.
µg/kg = 10−6 g micrograms
So not a lot of the black stuff in Greenland.
“To put that in context, that’s about the amount of organic carbon in half of the Mississippi River being added each year to the ocean from melting glaciers.”
I see others have gotten here first. It isn’t much of a context since I have absolutely no idea how much organic carbon is in half the Mississippi River (or which half — the east half or the west half?).
Boy, I hadn’t had any reports to scare me for a few days, so I’m glad the media came out with this. Did you notice all that carbon from melting glaciers on the NASA carbon satellite pictures?
Hi Mark, really pleased you mentioned the NASA carbon satellite photos. I’ve been thinking about them quite a bit lately. We have been having some very typical Queensland weather lately – they call it a “heat wave” but its been the same every year since Creation.
The point though is that I noticed that the CO2 was coming off the oceans as well, so when I go out fishing next & I’m only fishing in 10 m water here in Hervey Bay, I really hope we don’t experience ‘Algae Fires’, the marine equivalent of the common but dreaded ‘Bush Fires’.
You just never know & we have some amazing contributors to the Global Warming nonsense here, The Great Barrier Marine Park Authority especially. I wish they would look at the alternative interpretations to some of the misguided ‘Science’ ??? they try to peddle on CAGW.
… whilst it has been snowing in Tasmania, as it does.
Watch out Streetcred, if there’s any carbon in that white ‘Global Warming Powder’ it may catch alight too. Scary stuff!
More phytoplankton blooms?
Is “organic carbon” (OC) about the same as Yak dung (YD)?
Would dung beetles be as interested in OC as they are in YD?
Beetles are high in protein and are said to have a flavor that is not unlike scallops. Also, the UN thinks you ought to eat more of them.
Problem solved.
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/07/07/eco-friendly-protein-edible-bugs/
“Also, the UN thinks you ought to eat more of them.” JFH
Are they serving them at all their cocktail parties? Maybe in the UN canteen?
Or in Paris?
Glacial melting has the potential to add an enormous 1 ton of Carbon to the global Carbon Cycle annual sources of 242,000,000,000 tons …
… or an increase of 0.00000000041%
It could have a significant impact and, therefore, further grant-funded studies and modelling are required.
Few people realize that when it’s raining cats and dogs down in the valleys it’s snowing cats and dogs in the mountains. When you consider that the flow-through of an ice-field might be four hundred years, you start to appreciate how many missing house-hold pets could be locked up in the world’s glaciers.
+1
mebbe,
Yes, you have great future ahead of you in the global warming industry. You will go far.
Eugene WR Gallun
The real question is, is there is organic carbon in ice cubes? If so we need an immediate ban on providing drinks on the rocks. I would not be surprised if a heavy drinker over the course of their life could release up to 1/4 of the organic carbon in the Mississippi river.
Alx
hahahahahahhahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What else can I say!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
One hopes so: http://alpen.sac-cas.ch/html_d/archiv/2004/200406/ad_2004_06_12.pdf
Just checked the link: it was an old one and fail. I’ll try and post via WUWT.