From Florida State University and the department of we’ve heard all this before comes this story
Researchers: Permafrost thawing could accelerate global warming
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A team of researchers lead by Florida State University have found new evidence that permafrost thawing is releasing large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere via plants, which could accelerate warming trends.
The research is featured in the newest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We’ve known for a while now that permafrost is thawing,” said Suzanne Hodgkins, the lead author on the paper and a doctoral student in chemical oceanography at Florida State. “But what we’ve found is that the associated changes in plant community composition in the polar regions could lead to way more carbon being released into the atmosphere as methane.”
Permafrost is soil that is frozen year round and is typically located in polar regions. As the world has gotten slightly warmer, that permafrost is thawing and decomposing, which is producing increased amounts of methane.
Relative to carbon dioxide, methane has a disproportionately large global warming potential. Methane is 33 times more effective at warming the Earth on a mass basis and a century time scale relative to carbon dioxide.
As the plants break down, they are releasing carbon into the atmosphere. And if the permafrost melts entirely, there would be five times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere than there is now, said Jeff Chanton, the John Widmer Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State.
“The world is getting warmer, and the additional release of gas would only add to our problems,” he said.
Chanton and Hodgkins’ work, “Changes in peat chemistry associated with permafrost thaw increase greenhouse gas production,” was funded by a three-year, $400,000 Department of Energy grant. They traveled to Sweden multiple times to collect soil samples for the study.
The research is a multicontinent effort with researchers from North America, Europe and Australia all contributing to the work.
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This is actually an argument for mining and burning it – better it be converted into CO2, than be released as damaging methane! 🙂
Why did the FSU folks have to go to Sweden when Florida and much of the South is one big methane generator and has been for eon’s? Ever heard of Swamp Gas? There are road signs warning motorists. No wonder it’s so warm down there ;). Oh, the humanity! But, it’s more glamorous to travel to distant shores on a well-funded snipe hunt than to just walk out the back door.
Mark Twain comes to mind: “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
@thegriss, you wrote:
“ummm.?. how did the peat get there in the first place if the area has always been frozen?”
Good One!
How many “journalists” in the MSM are going even THINK to ask that question? Even better that methane is measured in parts per BILLION. So what if methane is 33% more potent as a GHG? Measured at ppB, its sort of a like a pimple on a gnats knee compared to the “catastrophic” 400 ppM that is CO2…
These are the time-servers that try men’s patience.
“As the plants break down, they are releasing carbon into the atmosphere. And if the permafrost melts entirely, there would be five times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere than there is now” But that can’t work, I mean the Guardian’s Damian Carrington has already said “The planet’s atmosphere is half-full of carbon” so how can you add 33 times as much, that would mean the atmosphere would be 17 times as biggerer than it is now and all carbon if my maths is right, oh God we’re all going to FRY…
Meantime, I LOL.
“The world is getting warmer…” he said.
Key statement. We might as well commission computer models of scientists doing studies that add to the narrative and save the money of actually doing them. We’re clearly getting nothing out of the live models that wasn’t parametered in.
Sorry, that should be 1800ppBILLION/v, or 1.8ppm/v. My bad!
I read the title and I thought that the fear was that due to the polar vortex thingy, the new ice layer in many places in Canada and USA wasn’t going to melt during this summer.
Then why are we here?
If the current warmth is sufficient to release methane from the permafrost, and cause a runaway warming of catastrophic consequences, then why did this not happen during the Roman and Medieval warm periods? They were certainly warm enough and long enough.
Why even give any attention to this drivel?? (from the NAS)
So only human-C02 emissions affect peat, which in turn will somehow affect the 1 million many to many relationships, found in climate ? Peat is now the new toxin ? We pay for this junk ?
“Chanton and Hodgkins’ work, “Changes in peat chemistry associated with permafrost thaw increase greenhouse gas production,” was funded by a three-year, $400,000 Department of Energy grant. They traveled to Sweden multiple times to collect soil samples for the study.”
My own theory is that Phd’s in climate theology are less educated than grade 9’s in times past [since the pretty happy dudes believe in the flat-earth – Earth is a greenhouse fiction].
Better get planting some trees in the fertile soils freed by the melting permafrost. If the Yamal region is anything to go by all the extra warmth and CO2 will make them grow really quickly. That could capture masses of carbon. Extrapolating from the work of esteemed climate scientists from Penn State and East Anglia one would expect a massive hockeystick shaped uptick in carbon sequestration.
Intrigued to know where all that permafrost to study is in Australia for the local lads and lassies in on this project.
Oh, silly me. They have models!
Duh!
So let me get this straight – the midieval warm period was a localized regional effect. where was this region? Oh yeah somewhere up by Norway or Sweden. But if it was quite warm up there then, why didn’t it turn into a catastrophic global event? Or did it? Only it wasn’t really catastrophic? It was just really agreeable climmate … all over the world.
If CO2 is such a crisis, why are these w@nkers to-ing and fro-ing to Sweden? Or did they travel on mooseback? Oh! I forgot, it’s just the ordinary people that are supposed to reduce their carbon output.
And in 10 years, when the warming productions continue to fail, they’ll switch from methane to ????
Heres the Peer reviewed rebuttal:
Lupascu et al. Nature Climate Change, January 2014.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n1/full/nclimate2058.html
Their conclusion:
Consequently, the High Arctic has the potential to remain a strong C sink even as the rest of the permafrost region transitions to a net C source as a result of future global warming.
“…Methane is 33 times more effective at warming the Earth on a mass basis and a century time scale relative to carbon dioxide.”
SH of CO2 @ur momisugly 275K = 0.819
SH of CH4 @ur momisugly275K = 2.191
2.191/0.819 = 33
Clearly I am missing something.
@jim
Quite right: methane and CO2 from permafrost (there is a lot of that as well) are old, just like coal carbon. Yes it is not AS old but it is old enough to have significantly depleted 14C.
Bu-ut….on another topic: “Methane is 33 times more effective at warming the Earth on a mass basis and a century time scale relative to carbon dioxide.”
So, what happened to ’20 times’ that we have been told 20 times before? “Century time scale”? Gimme a break. What happened to ’20 years’ that we were told 20 times before?
Research on the North Slope using modern methane instruments showed years ago that there is very little if any impact from melting permafrost because of the huge increase in tree growth that occurs once it has melted permanently. There is a lot more carbon in the trees that grow on melted ground than emerges from the frozen biomass, which if one has even half a clue, will be remembered, grew there in a former, warmer, time. Duh!
I see this paper as cooking up more time and impact and alarm than many other scientists consider prudent.
“chris moffatt says:
April 8, 2014 at 4:30 am
SH of CO2 @ur momisugly 275K = 0.819
SH of CH4 @ur momisugly275K = 2.191
2.191/0.819 = 33
Clearly I am missing something.”
Yeah, the ~1.8ppMILLION/v concentration of CH4 in air, in an open, dynamic, chaotic, non-lab system.
A team of researchers lead by the almighty dollar have found new evidence that joining the warmist religion is extremely profitable.
Given equal atmospheric masses of CO2 and CH4 it seems to me that the heat capacity of the CH4 would be ~2.7 times that of the CO2. Whence the figure of 33?
Given that the actual concentration of CH4 is so low – about 1/200 of CO2 it also seems to me that as an atmospheric warming agent it is negligible. What am I missing here?
I’m confused. I’ve been to the Arctic once and the sub-Arctic several times. As I recall plants thrive in areas of permafrost. I can only assume the very near surface warms up enough in the summer for the plants to survive. But ignoring all the greenery, where exactly is this build up of dead plant material that is decaying and releasing so much CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. Because all I’ve ever seen is 1) water, 2) barren outcrop and 3) grass.
If you worry about methane being “33 times as evil” as carbon dioxide, then you ought to be quite pleased to hear that it’s also reactive enough to combine readily with atmospheric oxygen when given only the tiniest tweak from solar UV. This might also account for its minimal atmospheric concentration, given the quantity of decaying organic matter in the world.