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 finished reading Michael Benton’s “When Life Nearly Died” on the P-T mass extinction (or possibly 3 mass extinctions). It is less than 10 years old and after 250 pages of building the case for an end of Permian event he spends 25 pages saying in effect we don’t know what really caused it — but tries to make the case for a “Methane Burp” in addition to the massive tectonic changes, Siberian traps, possible meteor impact(s), oxidizing coal fields, cosmic rays and other events that may have caused global warming (+6C), decreased O2, loss of productivity, etc. The problem with any of the causes is that after analysis they couldn’t have pumped enough of their preferred GHG/particulate (SO2, Chlorine, Iron, CO2, methane, etc.) into the atmosphere to make a difference.
P.S. he does spend (waste) the final chapter building on Goreacle’s 1992 quote on man-made extinctions. I guess you need to support the narrative to get good reviews on Amazon from the AGW crowd.
mpainter says:
December 18, 2012 at 10:15 am
Carter
you need to get some education. You need to learn the difference between argument and evidence and what constitutes acceptable evidence and what the term “bald assertion” means. You do not seem to understand what constitutes robust science nor how that contrasts with dubious science. Nor do you perceive how propaganda is being palmed off as science, to be swallowed by the gullible. …
Him and many other CAGW supporters, I would say.
@ur momisugly John West says:
December 18, 2012 at 8:15 am
Yep, it appears we John’s are on the same page.
🙂
They can’t control the weather but they can control the models, upon which all the alarmism is based. For them to control the weather, I think their latest estimate was $70 trillion.
FOA Bill Illis
‘He was talking about some imaginary data’
Well watch him telling you everything you wanted to know about co2 and Global Warming, but are too scared to ask about!
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml
“Have shocked scientists”. Oh dear.
FAO Bruce Cobb
‘ If such a “C02 tipping point” existed, then why are we not still in a “runaway hothouse earth” climate?’
Because the climate is a dynamic process and it doesn’t, yet, stay still!
‘today’s Modern climate, which only began about 5 million years ago’ well the last ice age was only about 20,000 years ago! And the next one is due in about 16.000 years, but due to AGW it is unlikely to keep to that schedule!
Carter says:
”Well we know in the past there has been a ‘run away hothouse Earth’, if methane played a part, I know not, but suspect it did. So there has been at least a co2 tipping point, otherwise we would still be in a ‘snowball Earth’!”
1) “Snowball Earth” is a hypothesis.
2) If Snowball Earth actually happened it would not only take 350 times more CO2 than is currently in the atmosphere (way more than if we burned all the fossil fuels), but also would require a positive feedback (albedo) to pull the planet completely out of such a condition.
@ur momisugly John Who
Yep.
FAO Tim Clark
‘So why aren’t we as hot as Venus’
Because it has a runaway co2 atmosphere! With I suspect, no likely hood of changing in the foreseeable future!
Carter,
Thanx for your assertion. But we need more than “what-ifs” here.
To Carter. The term “could” is deliberately used by the warmists/extremists in these scare stories. “Could” provides a loophole through which they can escape, so that when nature comes back and bites them on the behind – and politicians start to frown at all that money thrown that way – they can point at that word and claim truthfully, “We didn’t say it WOULD happen but that it COULD happen.” Anthony is right to point out this word. If you see “could” in any alarmist story, you can dismiss it as an emotive attempt to sway the general public. They can’t do it with science, they have to do it with fear. “Could” makes that scare fiction, not fact.
Carter
Why did the earth go from a warm moist dinosaur haven to Ice ages?
Carter
There have been reports of pieces of the sky falling from the ether and striking persons on the head. One fellow lost a whole bunch of poultry that ran off in a panic. Best stay indoors until this stops. If you just have to go outside, then be sure to wear a helmet or some such protection.
So in 22 years, the methane level has risen from 1.72 parts per million (1720 parts per billion – bigger number looks more impressive) to 1.8 parts per million. Most compounds cannot even be measured to this degree of accuracy in a test tube let alone a measure of the content of the whole atmosphere!! At approximately 0.04 ppm per decade we will be in real trouble in a thousand years.
Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the northern hemisphere at present and is estimated to contain 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon
I’ll point out the obvious. This carbon is organic matter, which if its trapped in permafrost, must be from a warmer period (or periods) in the past.
Therefore we can safely conclude that were the permafrost to melt we would experience net carbon capture, because this is what happened in the past (at lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations).
We can also conclude that any short term warming from methane release (even though I doubt this will occur) will accelerate carbon capture in the melted permafrost regions.
“”””””…..mpainter says:
December 18, 2012 at 10:15 am
Carter
you need to get some education. You need to learn the difference between argument and evidence and what constitutes acceptable evidence and what the term “bald assertion” means. You do not seem to understand what constitutes robust science nor how that contrasts with dubious science. Nor do you peceive how propaganda is being palmed off as science, to be swallowed by the gullible.You have swallowed the AGW wholly and uncritically. Please also keep in mind that climate study embraces all of the natural sciences, and a viewpoint based on the theory of radiation physics is a woefully inadequate view. Above all,you need to stop listening to the panic-talk and learn to think for yourself. Thank you for your attention……”””””
I would opine that a viewpont not based on the theory of radiation physics is also a woefully inadequate view.
FAO Gail Combs
‘Why did the earth go from a warm moist dinosaur haven to Ice ages?’
Because
‘Nearer our own time, the coming and going of the ice ages that have gripped the planet in the past two million years were probably triggered by fractional changes in solar heating (caused by wobbles in the planet’s orbit, known as Milankovitch cycles’
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650-climate-myths-global-warming-is-down-to-the-sun-not-humans.html
Carter says:
December 18, 2012 at 9:46 am
Well watch this and the link in the description.
I watched the complete lecture a few years back. I am reminded of the saying that if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. Well the last 16 years have provided no ‘nails’ so there is no need for a ‘hammer’.
FAO mpainter
‘If you just have to go outside, then be sure to wear a helmet or some such protection’ well that would be better than your tin foil hat!
I keep waiting for someone named “Schwarz” to comment so Carter can say “FAO Schwarz”
george e. smith says: December 18, 2012 at 1:58 pm
I would opine that a viewpont not based on the theory of radiation physics is also a woefully inadequate view.
===================================================================
I should have said that a viewpoint based *solely* on the theory of radiation physics is woefully inadequate. However, the AGW theory can be refuted by the same radiation physics that is used to justify it, i.e., the absorbency spectrum of water. Do you not agree?
LOL, Anthony!
[For those left guessing at Carter’s cryptic acronym, FAO means For the Attention Of.]
FAO Werner Brozek
‘Well the last 16 years have provided no ‘nails’ so there is no need for a ‘hammer’’ well I would reply to that, but the mods haven’t agreed with the answer previously and it’s gone off into cyber space! I wonder if this message is posted?
FAO D Böehm
I thought FAO was universal in the English speaking world!
Doha, Qatar? I believe the correct spelling is, D’oh-Uh! With apologies to Homer Simpson.
FAO Carter
Titan, with it’s thick atmospheric methane green house, is the same temperature as it’s immediate neighbor, the moon Hyperion, which has no atmosphere whatever.
DO you get it now?