This is the press release sent out by NSIDC today (sans image below). Instead of celebrating a two year recovery, they push the “ice free” theme started last year by Marc Serreze. There’s no joy in mudville apparently. My prediction for 2010 is a third year of increase in the September minimum to perhaps 5.7 to 5.9 million square kilometers. Readers should have a look again at how the experts did this year on short term forecasts. – Anthony
Image source: NOAA News
Arctic sea ice reaches minimum extent for 2009, third lowest ever recorded
CU-Boulder’s Snow and Ice Data Center analysis shows negative summertime ice trend continues
The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.
Atmospheric circulation patterns helped the Arctic sea ice spread out in August to prevent another record-setting minimum, said Meier. But most of the 2009 September Arctic sea ice is thin first- or second-year ice, rather than thicker, multi-year ice that used to dominate the region, said Meier.
The minimum 2009 sea-ice extent is still about 620,000 square miles below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000 — an area nearly equal to the size of Alaska, said Meier. “We are still seeing a downward trend that appears to be heading toward ice-free Arctic summers,” Meier said.
CU-Boulder’s NSIDC will provide more detailed information in early October with a full analysis of the 2009 Arctic ice conditions, including aspects of the melt season and conditions heading into the winter ice-growth season. The report will include graphics comparing 2009 to the long-term Arctic sea-ice record.
NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and is funded primarily by NASA.
For more information visit http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/, contact NSIDC’s Katherine Leitzell at 303-492-1497 or leitzell@nsidc.org or Jim Scott in the CU-Boulder news office at 303-492-3114 or jim.scott@colorado.edu.
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RACookPE (22:08:42): “The world’s temperature has been gradually
increasing since about 1750 -without mankind’s assistance or
emissions.”
So it’s just an amazing coincidence that this period coincides exactly
with the Industrial Revolution and the resultant exponential growth in
atmospheric CO2?
“Since 1998, for 11 years, CO2 has increased and temperatures have
declined. we are now at the same temperatures worldwide as 1995. And
temperatures continue to decline.”
Not so. The world is still warming at 0.2°C per decade –
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/global-jan-dec-error-bar-
pg.gif
“Before 1973? CO2 was increasing, but temperatures declined by 3/10 of
one degree from 1940 through 1973.”
Well, only about 0.1°C… but that’s in the context of 100 years of
rising temperatures, and I’ve read that this is accounted for fairly well
by trends in anthropogenic aerosols. It doesn’t contradict the long-term
forcing of anthropogenic CO2… unless you know otherwise?
“Before 1940? Co2 was essentially constant, but temperatures were
increasing – by 1/2 of one degree.”
By the 1940s, atmospheric CO2 had been rising for about 150 years, and
was accelerating. Hardly ‘constant’. Is it not possible that the 150
years of rising CO2 was beginning to have a significant effect on global
climate?
“You claim that open water will absorb more heat than ice-covered
water, but that HAS NOT HAPPENED in the real world.
Ice coverage increased between 2007 and 2008.
Increased between 2008 and 2009.
Increased between 2005 and 2006.”
… and decreased between 2006 and 2007, decreased between 2004 and 2005,
decreased between 2001 and 2002… and the decreases outweigh the
increases, which is why there is a clear downward trend in ice coverage –
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png
If the open water is not absorbing more heat, then where is the heat
coming from? It could be coming just from the fact that the entire world
is warming by 0.2°C per decade, but the Arctic is warming faster than the
world as a whole, so that does suggest an amplifying mechanism going on
there. What could it be?
“Now, we see equal sea ice extents in 2009 as in 2005.”
Yes, and the trend is clearly downwards, despite interannual variability. Why is that?
RACookPE (22:08:42): “The world’s temperature has been gradually increasing since about 1750 – without mankind’s assistance or emissions.”
So it’s just a coincidence that this period coincides exactly with the Industrial Revolution and the resultant exponential growth in atmospheric CO2?
“Since 1998, for 11 years, CO2 has increased and temperatures have declined. we are now at the same temperatures worldwide as 1995. And temperatures continue to decline.”
Not so. The world is still warming at 0.2°C per decade –
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/global-jan-dec-error-bar-pg.gif
“Before 1973? CO2 was increasing, but temperatures declined by 3/10 of one degree from 1940 through 1973.”
Well, only about 0.1°C… but that’s in the context of 100 years of rising temperatures, and I’ve read that this is accounted for fairly well by trends in anthropogenic aerosols. It doesn’t contradict the long-term forcing of anthropogenic CO2… unless you know otherwise?
“Before 1940? Co2 was essentially constant, but temperatures were increasing – by 1/2 of one degree.”
By the 1940s, atmospheric CO2 had been rising for about 150 years, and was accelerating. Hardly ‘constant’. Is it not possible that the 150 years of rising CO2 was beginning to have a significant effect on global climate?
“You claim that open water will absorb more heat than ice-covered water, but that HAS NOT HAPPENED in the real world.
Ice coverage increased between 2007 and 2008.
Increased between 2008 and 2009.
Increased between 2005 and 2006.”
… and decreased between 2006 and 2007, decreased between 2004 and 2005, decreased between 2001 and 2002… and the decreases outweigh the increases, which is why there is a clear downward trend in ice coverage –
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png
If the open water is not absorbing more heat, then where is the heat coming from? It could be coming just from the fact that the entire world is warming by 0.2°C per decade, but the Arctic is warming faster than the world as a whole, so that does suggest an amplifying mechanism going on there. What could it be?
“Now, we see equal sea ice extents in 2009 as in 2005.”
Yes, and the trend is clearly downwards, despite interannual variability. Why is that?
Re: Icarus (12:45:37)
Are you trying to suggest that the majority of energy input to the Arctic is happening in the Arctic (as opposed to being a result of transport from warmer latitudes)?
Paul Vaughan (11:34:06): “I get the impression you haven’t spent much time on ice. If it suddenly gets very cold and it does _not snow ice will freeze rapidly & become very strong. Once the snow falls on the ice, it acts as an insulator. Ice comes in a lot of different forms. A wise & respected oldtimer used to warn me of “rotten” ice and instruct me on how to look out for it. Ice contains visible air bubbles, but it is snow on top of ice that traps a substantial amount of insulating air.”
Thanks for the explanation Paul. I didn’t know that, and it makes a lot of sense. It must work the other way too, though, when the atmosphere is warmer than the water – i.e. the absence of insulating sea ice would allow surface water to warm up faster. That, combined with lower albedo, would presumably tip the balance towards a positive feedback (‘polar amplification’).
Paul Vaughan (14:09:40): “Are you trying to suggest that the majority of energy input to the Arctic is happening in the Arctic (as opposed to being a result of transport from warmer latitudes)?”
I don’t know enough about it to claim that, but the maps of global temperature anomalies do show the Arctic warming even faster than the rest of the planet, so there must be some kind of amplification effect going on there, almost by definition. It seems reasonable to me that warmer atmosphere and oceans are causing the ice to decline, which in turn is causing greater warming because of this positive feedback effect. Is that not the case? It’s what the data suggests –
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png
Re: Icarus (15:08:31)
Have you spent much time in cold maritime climates? My impression is that your comments are based on speculation-from-afar rather than upon first-hand experience with ice & icy-water. Understand that ice & icy water pose very serious threats to human life. That is why the wise & respected oldtimer I mentioned upthread spent so many hours conveying to me all that he knew about safety on & around ice.
Re: Icarus (15:21:50)
3 questions – Are you:
1) familiar with the Northern Annular Mode (NAM)?
2) aware of the 1976 climate shift?
3) aware of the step-changes in northern hemisphere sea surface temperatures following the major El Ninos of 1987 & 1998?
Many here blame the melt on ice flowing south via the Fram Staight.
But just how much actually does?
This animation from Jaxa:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
shows 2008 and 2009 up to 19th Sept. Most melt seems to be the other side o the Fram.
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3709/seaice0809i.gif
Icarus said:
“Is that not the case? It’s what the data suggests –
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png
***
The data suggests you should look at a much longer time scale than thirty years.
The NSIDC seem reluctant to accept the concept of natural cycles of cooling and warming. The start of Satellite measuring in 1979 coincided with peak ice, which is why they always speak of subsequent decline;
Link 1
http://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml
Ice extent maximum- Depends if you are talking winter or summer but ‘decline’ starts around 1979 from a high point.
Link 2 This also shows the same;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
link 3
The IPCC report confirms this p351/2 figures 4.8 4.9 4.10
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter4.pdf
Link 4
The concerns over global cooling in the 70’s did have some basis in fact. There were a series of low temperatures in many arctic areas during the 70’s which ice would have corresponded to by growing.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
As the IPCC show, the start of the satellite period therefore roughly coincided with a period of peak ice-so it is not at all surprising that as part of its natural cycle it should subsequently decline.
link 5
The IPCC are not very good at their historic reconstructions and generally view actual observations as ‘anecdotal.’ They seem to believe that history did not start before 1979.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#comments
This article examines the arctic melting in the period 1810-1860 -see notes at bottom of article with additional references.
Link 6
These are two good studies showing the arctic melting from the 1920’s to 1940’s posted elsewhere;
“I will cite two of these studies, which show (a) a warm period during the 1930s and 1940s with temperatures as high as those of today and (b) reduced sea ice extent during this period, which only later returned to the high levels measured at the start of the latest retreating cycle in 1979 (when satellite measurements started), i.e. your point.
ftp://ftp.whoi.edu/pub/users/mtimmermans/ArcticSymposiumTalks/Smolyanitsky.pdf
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
link 7 The melting in the period 1920-1940 is very well documented. I have posted various articles on it including newspaper stories.
Expeditions to the arctic to view the melting ice became the equivalent of todays celebrity jaunts to the area. The most famous were those mounted by Bob Bartlett on the Morrissey. I have carried extracts from his diary before-remember the observation of the mile wide face of a glacier falling in to the sea?
There are pathe news reels of his voyages which your parents may have watched in their youth, and books on the subject. Here is a bibliography of material relating to him.
http://www.nlpubliclibraries.ca/nlcollection/pdf/guides/NL_Collection_Guide_11.pdf
We have got this far citing instances of warming and not even mentioned the Vikings 1000 years ago or the Ipiatuk from 2000 years ago.
Certain of us seem reluctant to learn the lessons of history-in this case that there are periods of melting and refreeze that appear to follow a roughly 60/70 year cycle. We may or may not be at the low point in the cycle-that will become clearer over the next five years.
Whatever the alarmists may believe, at present our modern era is not displaying any climate characteristics that have not been experienced in past ages of humanity.
tonyb
bill (16:37:28) :
Many here blame the melt on ice flowing south via the Fram Staight.
But just how much actually does?
This animation from Jaxa:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
shows 2008 and 2009 up to 19th Sept. Most melt seems to be the other side o the Fram.
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3709/seaice0809i.gif
As one who has offered and attempted to support the hypothesis that the flow of sea ice through the Fram is a significant contributor to declining summer minimums in the Arctic, including several times in this thread, I would say the suggestion that many here support the idea is overstated, since I’ve often felt like a lonesome kitten far out on limb when trying to press the discussion here. I also seldom use the word melt when discussing the ebb and flow of Arctic ice extent, at least within the confines of the Arctic Ocean itself, since I tend to think the relative contributions of melting and movement out of the area to loss of ice extent is still an open question.
The links you provided do indicate contracting ice with little accompanying flow out the Fram, but I have some problems accepting them as contradictory evidence of my hypothesis. In attempting to locate some analyses that provide quantitative data on the volume ice flowing out the Fram what I’ve been able to find suggests that such analysis has been scant, sporadic and inconsistent. However, the studies I have been able find do have one thing in common, they all show the flow bottoming out in the month leading up to the annual minimum, then rebounding robustly once freeze up commences. I would point out that each of the graphics that you linked are of that month.
You also seem to want to characterize the contraction of the ice fields that those graphics show as melting, but since a number of other similar graphics of the same time period indicate that the contracting ice was also thickening significantly, I would suggest that the contribution of actual melting is still not established and consolidation of the ice may be as much responsible.
I don’t claim to have proof for any of my amateurish guesses about any of this, but as I’ve stated here on quite a number of occasions, I’ve seen very little to suggest that the pros in this are any better situated in that regard, for their much better compensated SWAGs.
Hi Mr. Green Genes:
You’ve met my pet methane catastophe? I call him Ralph. I keep him around because it’s always possible that I might want to feed him a biosphere. 🙂
Seriously, we get trillions of dollars of free goods and services from our self regulating biosphere. In that sense, we are already rich and are born rich.
The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum and the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event appear to be due to runaway positive feedback greenhouse events. The C12/C13 ratio signatures left in the sediments and seashells laid down at those times are best explained by trillions of tons of “isotopically light” methane from the methane hydrates entering the atmosphere geologically instantaneously, causing a huge discontinuity in the isotope ratios.
The Permain- Triassic mass extinction killed something like 95% of marine species, and 80% of land species. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. Some scientists have speculated that this event came very close to tipping the entire self-regulating climate system over, killing all life on earth. Most people do not know that the real equilibrium state of the earth’s atmosphere, in the absence of life, would resemble the surface of Venus, with temperatures of hundreds of degrees, no free oxygen, and such a huge heavy atmosphere that surface pressures would resemble those found now at the bottoms of our oceans.
Certainly, it took almost 100 million years for life to slowly regain its former complexity, after the End-Permian event, and hundreds of thousands of years for the oceans to become oxygenated again.
Our huge rate of change of greenhouse gases could easily destabilize the Arctic permafrost, and the greenhouse gases from the permafrost and from the burning a good portion of the tropical and boreal forests could reasonably set off just such a methane catastrophe, by releasing some fraction of the several trillion tons of methane known to be contained in the methane hydrates.
Methane is a greenhouse gas currently 23 times or so worse than CO2, but which could become more long lasting in the atmosphere (and a worse greenhouse gas), if current concentrations of the hydroxyl radical in the atmosphere become overwhelmed, as is almost inevitable during an methane catastrophe.
Do you really think that such an event would be good for our economy?
What I find truely amazing about NSIDC and others is the contridictions they spout and refuse to see. They state the Sun-Earth connection is complex and not well understood on how it all effects the climate. Yet that continue to run models based trying to predict the future, even when those models must be incompleted and incorrect due to this lack of Sun-Earth understanding. One need only look at their short-term forecasts based on all of this modeling, compared to real results, to see they are way off. And this is just the short term modeling. Any errors in those get magnified over time, with the net result is long term models aren’t worth the electricity used to generate them. Yet they stand by these models, obssesively, defending them and the data they produce.
I would have thought that as scientists they would be jumping up and down for joy given the current unusual solar activity. A careful and detailed study of what is going on could yield immense amounts of information which, while only scratching the sun-earth connection, could yield great insights into enhancing existing models. But I have yet to hear anything like this. Oh sure they may be studying the sun. But for them to admit they are doing so and that this might change their models (which would then produce, very likely, less dire effects on earth) goes against the message of doom beat into them every day for the last 20 years. Quite frankly, all I want is one of the major scientists in the field to step up, say “We admit the models are wrong so far but we are working on correcting them”. But they can’t do that as it would destroy the entire warming arguement in one swoop, and maybe put many of them out of a job. Sigh….
Re: TonyB (16:55:48)
Thanks for the notes — they led me to this:
Chylek, P.; Dubey, M.K.; & Lesins, G. (2006). Greenland warming of 1920-1930 and 1995-2005. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L11707. doi:10.1029/2006GL026510.
“We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930) Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 – 2005.“
Leland Palmer said;
“Methane is a greenhouse gas currently 23 times or so worse than CO2, but which could become more long lasting in the atmosphere (and a worse greenhouse gas), if current concentrations of the hydroxyl radical in the atmosphere become overwhelmed, as is almost inevitable during an methane catastrophe.”
What percentage would methane need to increase in order to overwhelm the hydroxyl radical and over what timescale would the catastrophe unfold?
tonyb
Leland Palmer, look on the bright side. Methane is intrinsically less powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 but has a greater effect at present because it is present in such low concentrations that its absorption frequencies are not saturated. So the more that is released into the atmosphere the less powerful it will become.
Fridtjof, TonyB
The downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent has accelerated indeed. The data from the past three years are all below the long term trend (1978 – 2006) of declining Arctic sea ice extent (though the 2009 minimum not by much). The downward trend from 1978 to 2009 ice minima is steeper than that from 1978 to 2006. Whether this signifies a real change in the long term trend, or whether these were just 3 anomalous years, is hard to tell for sure.
An Inquirer,
The fact that much larger variations of ice extent existed in the history of the Earth than we have witnessed in the past 30 years is not particularly comforting to me. It means that if the system is pushed hard enough, even much more ice can melt than we have witnessed in recent years.
TonyB,
I wrote: “The problem with CO2 is that a large part of our emissions stays in the atmosphere for centuries or even millennia”
References:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf
The most important processes governing the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere are:
(1) Anthropogenic CO2 will equilibrate with seawater in the global ocean, on a timescale
less than a millennium.
(2) Acidifying the ocean by adding CO2 perturbs the CaCO3 cycle by decreasing the global burial
rate of CaCO3. This perturbation acts to restore the pH of the ocean back toward its initial pre-anthropogenic value, on a timescale of _10 kyr.
(3) A silicate weathering feedback acts to restore pCO2 to some equilibrium value on timescales of _100 kyr, setting the ultimate maximum duration of an anthropogenic carbon cycle perturbation.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2008.tail_implications.pdf
“Abstract. The notion is pervasive in the climate science community and in the public at
large that the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release will only persist for a few centuries.
This conclusion has no basis in theory or models of the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle,
which we review here. The largest fraction of the CO2 recovery will take place on time
scales of centuries, as CO2 invades the ocean, but a significant fraction of the fossil fuel
CO2, ranging in published models in the literature from 20–60%, remains airborne for a
thousand years or longer.”
And
“The notion that global warming will last only a few centuries is widespread in the
popular and even in the scientific literature on global warming. This misconception
may have its roots in an oversimplification of the carbon cycle. The atmosphere today
contains about 200 Gton C in excess of the natural 1,750 value. The ocean takes up
2 Gton C per year, while the land surface, including deforestation, is currently in near
balance. If the ocean were going to take up all of the CO2 following a simple first-order
kinetics rate law, the CO2 drawdown would follow a decaying exponential trajectory, and
the e-folding time for the uptake would be determined by dividing 200 Gton C by 2 Gton
C/year, to yield about 100 years. The fallacy of this reasoning is that the real carbon
uptake follows a sum of exponentials, rather than a single exponential decay. After the
fastest exponential decay is finished, there is still CO2 left in the atmosphere awaiting
slower uptake mechanisms.”
And this graph:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/fig_tab/climate.2008.122_F1.html
Bart Verheggen (02:11:23),
Your conjecture is false. Above ground nuclear tests in the South Pacific emitted carbon isotopes that showed conclusively that carbon dioxide persistence in the atmosphere is very short. Ferdinand Englebeen gives a figure of 5.2 years. Prof Freeman Dyson gives a figure of around 12 years.
If CO2 had persistence of even a hundred years, there would be a long delay before we noticed any decline in CO2 due to the recession. But that is not what’s happening: click. CO2’s very short persistence means that if less is emitted, the atmospheric CO2 level will quickly begin to decline. That is exactly what we are seeing.
To promote the canard that CO2 persistence is thousands of years is preposterous. But the rationale for the deception is clear: with a short persistence, the climate is not sensitive to CO2. So the alarmists must lie about it. They have no choice.
The planet is verifying that CO2 persistence is short. As CO2 rises, the climate continues to cool. Listen to what the planet is saying, instead of those mendaciously promoting the runaway global warming myth.
Smokey,
“The atmospheric lifetime of CO2 is often incorrectly stated to be only a few years because that is the average time for any CO2 molecule to stay in the atmosphere before being removed by mixing into the ocean, photosynthesis, or other processes. However, this ignores the balancing fluxes of CO2 into the atmosphere from the other reservoirs. It is the net concentration changes of the various greenhouse gases by all sources and sinks that determines atmospheric lifetime, not just the removal processes.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas)
“begin to decline” is something very different than getting back to their original level. And even then, concentrations are not yet visibly affected: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Bart Verheggen (02:08:29) :
Fridtjof, TonyB
The downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent has accelerated indeed. The data from the past three years are all below the long term trend (1978 – 2006) of declining Arctic sea ice extent (though the 2009 minimum not by much). The downward trend from 1978 to 2009 ice minima is steeper than that from 1978 to 2006. Whether this signifies a real change in the long term trend, or whether these were just 3 anomalous years, is hard to tell for sure.
Bart, don’t you think that this reply is a trifle disingenuous? I haven’t checked, but I suspect that 1978-2009 trend is not steeper than the 1978-2007 trend. If I wanted to cherry-pick, I could state that the past three years have seen an unprecedented growth in both Arctic and Global Sea Ice and that if this trend continues we could see the start of an Ice Age. Stuff and nonsense.
Bart Verheggen and Smokey,
There are several half life times of interest in the case of what happens with the surplus CO2 humans have emitted to the atmosphere.
Smokey shows the 5.3 years which is the average residence time for any individual molecule that is emitted. That is important for the fate of (atomic bomb) 14C and (human/fossil and plant) 13C in the atmosphere, as that is governed by the 150 GtC circulation through the atmosphere (which contains about 800 GtC currently).
But that is not important for what happens with the total mass of CO2 in the atmosphere. The 2 GtC yearly absorbed by the oceans (+ about 1.4 GtC by vegetation) is the only value of importance, as that is what is reducing the total amount of CO2 (regardless of the origin) in the atmosphere, back to the pre-industrial average, modulated somewhat by temperature.
Simple direct calculation shows that this leads to a half life time of about 40 years for the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, if we stop all emissions today. Thus after 40 years the current 380 ppmv would be 330 ppmv, after 80 years 305 ppmv and after 120 years 292.5 ppmv (again, modulated by temperature at about 8 ppmv/degr.C). See the work of Peter Dietze at: http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm
Now this is quite accurate if the amounts emitted by humans are not extremely high, which is the case until now. Most of the reduction in the atmosphere will be stored in the deep oceans, where there is such a massive storage of CO2 (as -bi-carbonate) present that the small addition by humans doesn’t play a role.
But once we use near all available oil and a lot more coal, that will lead to even an increase in the deep oceans, which will return to the atmosphere sooner or later, thus increasing the basic amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Then several other, slower, processes are involved to reduce the levels to the old equilibrium.
The IPCC models use the Bern and ISAM models (but other models are in use too), see for the Bern model: http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/model_description/model_description.html
The Bern model uses a mix of half life times, depending of the type of sink and as the longest gives a remainder of thousands of years for the last 10% of excess CO2 in the atmosphere, that gives extremely long average half life times. Even if that is so, what the IPCC does forget to tell you is that the extreme long life times are only for the last 10% and that 80% of the excess CO2 is already gone in less than 150 years (except with extreme large amounts of emissions).
For the current conditions: if we stop the emissions today, the 380 ppmv today will be about 315 ppmv according to the Bern model by the year 2150. The impact of that on temperature is completely negligible, even in the “hottest” models. See the work by Hans Erren (in Dutch, but the last graph gives the difference between the models). Bart Verheggen knows that, as he already commented…
To make a comparison: the total of human emissions were about 200 GtC until today. If we stop the emissions, these 200 GtC will be absorbed by the oceans and ultimately mixed with the deep ocean reservoir of 26,000 GtC. That means that the concentration will increase from 26,000 to 26,200 or roughly 1%. The return ocean flow thus contains 1% more CO2, leading to a 1% increase of CO2 in the atmosphere when everything is in equilibrium. That is about 3 ppmv on a 280 ppmv level…
Forgot to include the web page of Hans Erren, it is here:
http://www.vkblog.nl/bericht/262958/De_CO2-cyclus
Hi Tony B:
The best completely worked out scenario for this that I have seen is at http://www.killerinourmidst.com.
How quickly this could happen is a good question, and how fast this could occur is something I have tried to understand myself. The changes, in the past have occurred “geologically instantaneously”, in other words, in less than a thousand years. Some authorities have made claims that this can happen in less than one hundred years, and there have even been claims that these events can happen in less than twenty years.
One distinction that has to be drawn is between the ongoing consequences of passing the tipping point, and passing the tipping point itself, after which the consequences are preordained and cannot be stopped. The consequences could resemble a slow motion train wreck, with plenty of time for humanity to watch the unfolding events in horror, but with no way to stop them. The tipping point could occur with little advance warning, and could be happening now, or might have already happened.
Chris Field talks about the release of several hundred billion tons of carbon by the burning of the tropical forests by the end of the current century, and talks about over a trillion tons of carbon contained in the melting permafrost. Lovelock estimates 6 billion people dead by the end of the century, and while he does mention methane, I get the idea that it is not the central part of his scenario.
This paper on the Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum ( a smaller, later event than the Permian-Triassic mass extinction) measures isotope ratios in individual sea shells, and seems to indicate that the onset of the warming event and methane release from the hydrates occurred within a single centimeter of sediment, with individual shells of the two populations of planktonic foraminifers mixed in that layer.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/debbieetal.pdf
So significant warming, as shown by the Oxygen 18 isotope ratios, was occurring in individuals which got their carbon from pre-release sources, for the bottom dwellers. It would take a while for the carbon from the methane hydrate release to enter the carbon cycle as CO2, I guess. But the surface dwelling plankton got the isotope change right away, and for the surface dwellers the layer shows only before and after C13 isotope ratios, with no transitional values, suggesting a very abrupt release of methane from the methane hydrates.
About the hydroxyl radical a recent MIT modeling study shows something like a 20 percent decline by the end of the century, but whether this is accurate hard to say, of course, and would depend on the scale and rapidity of the methane release.
Here’s a news story about methane release, from the Anchorage daily news:
http://www.adn.com/269/story/916689.html
How fast this is occurring is hard to say. NOAA is flying aircraft in the area to monitor methane and CO2 concentrations. Methane plumes in the oceans from hydrate release have been detected by sonar, off Norway.
Such methane plumes exist all the time – the question is, are the flows increasing?
Certainly, as the oceans warm, the methane hydrate stability zone will likely contract (whether and how fast this occurs is a complicated function of both water pressure from increased sea levels and temperature) and methane flows will likely increase.
And, it appears that the fossil record does show methane catastrophes.
Whether it is possible for humans to set one off is a good question, but do we really want to risk it?
Ferdinand Englebeen,
Thank you for the clarification. I couldn’t find an English translation link on Hans Erren’s site. So could you please explain, for example, where the white cliffs of Dover came from, and how long it will be before the CO2 contained in the chalk reverts to the atmosphere? As you stated above, it will return to the atmosphere sooner or later, thus increasing the basic amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, even though CO2 has ramped up recently, it has been up to twenty times higher in the past — at times during major ice ages. And when the climate was warm and CO2 was high, the Earth was lush and life thrived.
Next, what is the probability that we will use nearly all the available oil and a lot more coal, as you posit? Drilling, and even exploration, is completely forbidden in the red areas: click. Thus, using all the oil won’t come near to happening, and the use of coal will be even more curtailed. Yes, Saudi Arabia will continue producing oil, which makes a farce out of the entire debate.
Due to the logarithmic decline in the effect of CO2, even doubling the concentration, which is highly unlikely even with no restrictive action taken, would add very little to the temperature, and surely a small additional warming would be much more beneficial than any continued cooling. And whether or not there is any change in CO2, the climate will continue to change: click.
The IPCC/Al Gore claim is that an atmosphere that is 99.9613% non-CO2 results in the normal climate we have now, but a change to 99.9226% will cause catastrophic runaway global warming. This is based almost exclusively on computer models that are programmed by people who have at least some sort of outcome in mind. Compared to the real world, their conclusions do not hold up.
The proposed gross misallocation of truly enormous capital resources, from actually beneficial science redirected into the putative mitigation of what is probably a non-problem, is a real human tragedy. The entire debate has been hijacked by people who are salivating at the prospect of collecting those $trillions, and in the process destroying the healthy and sustained civilization we’ve built.
China will do exactly what we have done over the past two centuries, while privately screaming with laughter at our insanity as we wreck what we’ve built, creating a huge and unnecessary new bureaucracy in the process, empowering the totally corrupt and opaque UN to rule all individual countries, and implementing their proposed “World Tax” in addition to the massive new taxes that will result from current proposals.
If I come across as a strong advocate of delaying these actions at least until we learn much more about the new science of climatology, it is because of the direct threat to Western civilization and living standards by truly evil people, most of them in the West, who want these very things to happen. They will not debate because they lose the debates. Rather, they work behind the scenes to greatly reduce our living standards and increase our taxes far beyond what they will admit. The UN’s Maurice Strong has stated that industrial societies must be destroyed, and the means they have decided on is to falsely demonize a harmless, beneficial and minor trace gas.
Can I repost Smokey’s earlier link which has passed everyone by in the latest flurry of co2 information:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/carbon-emissions-fall-with-global-downturn-report-20090921-fxqf.html
Is there an actual decline, or is it a slow down in the rate of increase of co2 as measured ar Mauna Loa?? Any actual figures or a graph anywhere?
tonyb