One of the regular alarm stories that comes from the global warming machine is that atmospheric methane with soon run amok and cause a tipping point. We are regularly treated to scare stories like this one from The Guardian on November 27th, 2012:
UN: methane released from melting ice could push climate past tipping point
Doha conference is warned that climate models do not yet take account of methane in thawing permafrost
The United Nations sounded a stark warning on the threat to the climate from methane in the thawing permafrost as governments met for the second day of climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar.
Thawing permafrost releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, but this has not yet been included in models of the future climate. Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the northern hemisphere at present and is estimated to contain 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – twice the amount currently in the atmosphere. As it thaws, it could push global warming past one of the key “tipping points” that scientists believe could lead to runaway climate change.
Note the word “could” in the last sentence. That comes from models, not observations. Note also this scary quote:
Doha conference is warned that climate models do not yet take account of methane in thawing permafrost
So how do the IPCC methane models stack up against reality? Not so hot…
Clearly, nature isn’t cooperating with IPCC science as atmospheric methane trends have fallen well below even the lowest range of all the IPCC scenarios. The First Assessment Report (FAR) projection has methane at 5 times the current value, and each subsequent IPCC report lowered the projection by about half each time, and they still missed it. Once again, observations trump models. Add this to the other bombshell graph from the same chapter and you have to wonder how the AGW issue continues to have any traction.
But that won’t stop scare stories like the ones below from appearing, because as we’ve noted, alarmists aren’t good at assimilating new contrary factual data in a way that mutes their zeal in spreading the alarm.
Here’s one from a couple of years ago, where naturally occurring methane from decomposition gets ignited by an activist, and Dan Miller at Berkeley turns that into climate alarm:
And yet, despite these alarming stories, according to the IPCC report showing observations versus the models in figure 1.7, atmospheric methane concentration isn’t accelerating, nor is it currently within the forecast bounds of any of the IPCC climate models.
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Just reading the above comments, it appears the increase in observed Methane concentrations is nothing to be worried about. I beg to differ.
I am not so worried about the mismatch between model vs actual, but the effect the increased methane concentration has on the energy balance of the earth.
Well, at least 2006 depending on the cut off date for acceptance of papers. Still no match.
Richard111 says:
“It was suggested that methane bubbles sank the SS Waratah.”
Probably the real story behind the Titanic disaster as well. And the Marie Celeste. (Stop laughing)
Reality is overrated, models are where it’s at!
Yeah right it could. But then again it didn’t in the past. Now let’s take a look at another type of observation and what the IPCC also say.
Now here is what the IPCC says about runaway warming.
I am curious as to how, in the FAR, they managed to have an inflection point in the lower boundary of the projection, and also that this point seems to be mirrored in the observed data! Any ideas?
Methane again? Just so much marsh gas (lol)
jeez says:
December 18, 2012 at 1:33 am
“This chart is obviously not final as AR4 projections would have to match the observation in 2007 as that is the starting point. ”
So what you are saying is that with each IPCC report they reset the models?
I think they don’t do that as it would reek too much of fudging even for the climate scientists of the IPCC.
But maybe you should suggest it. They need some imaginative new ideas to become the driving force of global transformation again. Don’t worry about the scientific implications, science went out the window in 1988 already.
Think of all that lovely heating gas to burn off, let’s hope the Japanese are beaten to it by enterprising Brits to extract the clathrate, yippee!!! Why is it they can never, ever, see the advantages. always only the disadvantages, am I guessing somebody’s glass is always half-empty? Natural gas is 85% methane, 10% ethane, & varying levels of between 2-3% butane & propane! CO2 is regarded by the IPCC as a “trace” gas, despite all the hullaballoo over the end of the world is nigh, so what does that make methane?
Not only has Methane flattened out (it went up a tiny bit in the last few years but looks to have stabilized again) …
… but everyone interested in Methane should watch this video of Methane levels captured by the AIRS satellite covering every day from 2002 to 2008 (cool music to go with it) …
… Just search “Airs Methane” on Google Video – should be the first one that comes up.
It will change your view of Methane and where it is generated (everywhere that is) and how fast it moves around the planet with the prevailing weather systems (you can’t measure it over the Arctic ice and say the measurements came from there – they may have been generated 1,000 kms away two days earlier).
I could watch only the first couple of minutes. I was told to be very scared and that there were big things to worry about. There is just so much to worry about so I schedule time to give them my undivided worry attention. This one is scheduled for 3:00 A.M. -4:00 A.M. December 22, 2018. When does N2O become a big worry?
This guys are really silly. All there big worries and statements said to an audience of like-minded rent seekers and received with great approval. This passes for science?
“We don’t know…” this. “We don’t know…” that.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam, ad nauseum.
His ignorance is exceeded only by his overwhelming compulsion to flaunt it.
Methane + water + cold -> methane hydrate, a crystalline form of a water/methane mixture that melts at 55°F, releasing the methane. The methane will come off at a significantly warmer temperature than that required to melt the surface ice.
‘Note the word “could” in the last sentence. That comes from models, not observations’. WUWT, kindly stop playing semantics, with the word ‘could’! Because there are only two guarantees in life, that is taxes and death. Anything else is a could! There could be WMD in Iraq, Dubya could have been the best president in history, Aliens and UFOs could exist, there could be a God, but we need evidence and in my opinion there is plenty for AGW!
REPLY: The real issue is: is there any evidence for a methane induced tipping point? Show your work – Anthony
That Arctic methane combustion pales into insignificance compared with the giant hole of fire in Derweze, Turkmenistan – It’s a crater made by geologists more than 40 years ago, and the flames within have been burning ever since:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202202/Karakum-Desert–Giant-hole-known-The-Door-Hell-40-YEARS.html
First rule of climate ‘science’ deals with this, where the models and reality differ in value its reality which is in error.
UNFCCC trump observation and reality?
Carter:
At December 18, 2012 at 4:08 am you say
Hmmmm.
That depends on whether you mean discernible AGW.
For three decades research costing in excess of $5 billion per year has been conducted to find some – any – evidence of discernible AGW. The search has had no success; none, zilch, nada.
If you have any such evidence then please provide it because many – including me and including the IPCC – would like to have it. At this moment we have none.
Which is not to say AGW does not exist: it probably does. But all available evidence indicates AGW trivial and is too small for it to be discernible.
Richard
I posted this on Sunday:
In a recent post UNEP Report – Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost
http://mostlyharmless-room-101.blogspot.com/2012/12/unep-report-policy-implications-of.html
I identified a major contradiction therein, and debunked claimed “increases” in CO2 and methane over permafrost areas. I’ve been digesting parts of the leaked IPCC AR5 draft report, and found this in WG1 chapter 6:
6.3.3.2 Emissions
………………
Over the past decades, however, there is no evidence for significant emission of CH4 from permafrost and hydrates (Dlugokencky et al., 2009).
…. from the horse’s mouth.
And a little further on this section:
6.4.3.4 Permafrost Carbon
Current estimates of permafrost soil carbon stocks are 1670 PgC (Tarnocai et al., 2009), the single largest component of the terrestrial carbon pool and higher than previously thought. Terrestrial carbon models show a land CO2 sink with warming at high northern latitudes, however none of the models participating in C4MIP or CMIP5 included explicit representation of permafrost soil carbon decomposition, which at a minimum requires sufficient vertical resolution in modelled soil carbon distribution and processes to separate surface pools from very old (Pleistocene) permafrost carbon pools. Including permafrost carbon processes into an ESM can change the sign of this C response to warming from a sink to a source in northern high latitudes (Koven et al., 2011). The magnitude of this source of CO2 to the atmosphere from decomposition of permafrost carbon varies widely by 2100 according to different model estimates: process-model estimates include 7–17 Pg (Zhuang et al., 2006), 55–69 Pg (Koven et al., 2011), and 126–254 Pg (Schaefer et al., 2011); estimates of uncertainty ranges suggest the source could range from 33 to 114 Pg C (68% range) under RCP8.5 warming (von Deimling et al., 2012), or 50–270 PgC (5th–95th percentile range; Burke et al., subm.). Combining observed vertical soil C profiles with modelled thaw rates estimate that the total quantity of newly-thawed soil C by 2100 will be 246 Pg for RCP4.5 and 436 Pg for RCP8.5 (Harden et al., 2012 in press). Sources of uncertainty for the permafrost C feedback include the physical thawing rates, the fraction of C that is release after being thawed and the timescales of release, possible mitigating nutrient feedbacks, and the role of fine-scale processes in determining the terrestrial response.
Note the model results for emissions from permafrost to 2100: 7–17 Pg (petagrams), 55–69 Pg, 126–254 Pg, and the consequent estimated uncertainty range of 33 to 114 Pg C or 50–270 Pg C at the 5th–95th percentile range.
What does this all mean?
They don’t know.
Carter says: “but we need evidence and in my opinion there is plenty for AGW!”
It may surprise you to know that most people reading WUWT would agree with the above statement.
However, they would also not confuse CAGW, which does not exist, with AGW. The latter is a mildly interesting, difficult to quantify, phenomenon.
Difficult to quantify? That’s because man is not the only reason for the climate warming over the past century, natural climate cycles almost certainly accounted for 50-90% of the ~0.7 degrees C rise.
Alarmists like to muddle up the subjects of AGW and CAGW, as they know it helps their cause and that only well-informed sceptics can rend the two asunder. Unfortunately, the general public are likely to think the difference between the two is just semantics.
By muddling up the subjects of AGW and CAGW, you allow the huge unaccountable Global Warming Industry to exist and grow, plus support its bloated gravy train.
Perhaps the IPCC should change its name to COULD – Climate Of Utterly Ludicrous Dimensions.
Peter Miller wrote on December 18, 2012 at 1:04 am
A nit… 8.5 is probably a bit short. Page 11 of that source gives the directly-calculated atmospheric lifetime of CH4 as ~8 years, but identifies a feedback mechanism that (they say) effectively increases the atmospheric lifetime of additional CH4 to ~12 years.
Other sources give the half-life of CH4 in the atmosphere as 7 or 8 years, which would make the average lifetime 1.4427 times that (because oxidation is an exponential process, rather than linear), yielding an average lifetime of 10 to 11.5 years. So 10-12 years is probably a better guess than 8.5.
LetsBeReasonable says:
December 18, 2012 at 1:37 am
Just reading the above comments, it appears the increase in observed Methane concentrations is nothing to be worried about. I beg to differ.
I am not so worried about the mismatch between model vs actual, but the effect the increased methane concentration has on the energy balance of the earth.
Interesting. Just what effect do you think it’s having on the “energy balance”? Please show us the basis for your worry. Your C02 bogeyman doesn’t seem to be working out so well.
Canman says:
December 18, 2012 at 1:15 am
As someone who is not as confidently skeptical as most of the visitors here, I find that graph to be a big relief!….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
YOu might want to look at Ric Werme’s guide to WUWT. (Found on right side panel) He has very kindly organized the threads by subject so you can read what is said about a topic of interest.
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html
This is the Categories button (page down once to find it or use my button to go to it directly)
At the bottom of the home page is a guide to the mark-up language for comments.
Kev-in-Uk says:
December 18, 2012 at 2:26 am
I am curious as to how, in the FAR, they managed to have an inflection point in the lower boundary of the projection, and also that this point seems to be mirrored in the observed data! Any ideas?
________________________________
From what I understand they use historic data to”train” the models.
“I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, ‘with four parameters I can fit an elephant and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.'” ~ Enrico Fermi
Bill Irvine says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:59 pm
That’s been suspected in the sinking of various drilling and fishing vessels, but only in cases of sudden releases of enough methane to reduce the density of the sea water/methane mix so that it can’t support the boat. Your statement implies that any bubbles, e.g. that from a scuba diver, would be enough to sink a boat.
Apropos of nothing, if you take 1,800 ppb of the 3,451 miles geodesic distance between JFK and LHR airports you will have travelled slightly under 11 yards – about 1/7th of the length of a Boeing 747-400.
Way to go!