From WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER and the Peter Wadhams is still wrong, no record low this year department, comes this overt hand-wringing worry over permafrost, most of which is about methane releases, which aren’t accelerating and don’t seem to be a big problem at all as seen in this IPCC chart below showing observed reality compared to model projections, and a recent examination of the real-vs-perceived issues of methane. Plus, then there’s the bugs that will appear to eat it, canceling the effect, since nature always capitalizes on a boom of nutrients.
Scientists to discuss global threats from climate change in the Arctic
Hoping for real commitments at COP 21 in December, climate experts and international policymakers gather at the Arctic Circle Conference in Iceland to discuss permafrost thaw and other Arctic challenges
Three leading Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) experts on the threats of climate change in the Arctic will urge France’s President Hollande and other political leaders to address the threat posed by thawing permafrost in the Arctic at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 15. WHRC scientists Scott Goetz, Max Holmes and Susan Natali, who advised the State Department and helped to inform President Obama’s strong remarks at the GLACIER conference in Alaska last month, will present research on permafrost thaw and other serious threats caused by climate change.
“Given that permafrost contains almost twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, permafrost thaw and the subsequent loss of carbon from permafrost has the potential to throw a wrench in current policy solutions to contain global warming,” said Dr. Max Holmes, a Senior Scientist at WHRC.
The carbon released by permafrost thaw causes more warming, which in turn causes more permafrost thaw. “This potentially self-reinforcing cycle could constitute a ‘tipping point’ that would be difficult to stop once underway. But the magnitude of this feedback can be controlled–the less fossil fuels we emit, the less carbon that is released from permafrost,” said Dr. Susan Natali, an Assistant Scientist at WHRC and presenter at the Arctic Circle conference.
Despite the well-documented urgency of this problem, it has received little attention from policy makers. Unlike deforestation and fossil fuel combustion, which are under direct human control, permafrost thaw cannot be immediately turned off once begun. According to WHRC Senior Scientist Scott Goetz,
“President Obama said recently in Alaska that we cannot deny the science of climate change. While there is still much to be learned about the magnitude and timing of this threat, the message we are taking to Iceland is we must act now to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion, lest it be too little too late to avoid a runaway train of thawing permafrost.”
Arctic 21 is a network of organizations calling attention to the impacts of climate change in the Arctic and the rest of the world. For Rafe Pomerance, Chairman of Arctic 21and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development,
“The Arctic is unraveling. Our hope for the Arctic Circle Conference is to raise global awareness about the realities and threats of climate change in the Arctic so that world leaders will act on the science at COP 21 in Paris.”
WHRC scientists have been a part of a series of high-level US government conversations about climate change in the Arctic beginning this past spring, leading to the technical meeting of international climate change negotiators in Bonn, Germany in June. This Arctic conference follows closely on the heels of the GLACIER Conference in Alaska in August where President Obama spoke passionately about the impacts of climate change already occurring in the Alaskan Arctic. At COP 21 in Paris this December expectations run high that the international policy community will execute real commitments to combat climate change in Paris. President Hollande’s presence in Iceland encourages optimism.
The key science points, implications and recommendations can be found in the WHRC Policy Brief, “Permafrost and Global Climate Change.” http://whrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/PB_Permafrost.pdf
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All 5 of the Dem candidates mentioned solving “climate change” in their opening statements!!!
I thought this was last on the list of voters…
can’t see the public being convinced:
13 Oct: Yorkshire Evening Post: Weather warning: Yorkshire ‘set for months of snow’
AN early weather warning has been issued across the UK as experts forecast months of heavy show in what is expected to be the worst winter in half-a-century…
The forecast shows snow is expected to start falling in Yorkshire in December and continue until March, although the earliest snowfall could arrive by early November…
It is thought low temperatures, snowfall and north-easterly winds in Russia have encouraged Bewick’s swans to start their westwards migration through Europe early this year. The swans have also been spotted on lakes in the Netherlands…
Unsually cold weather has developed over a large part of continental Europe and is likely to persist through this week with temperatures around 5-10 degrees below average. Daytime temperatures in Russia on Monday were around 3-4C which is more like the average nighttime temperature for this time of year…
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/trending/weather-warning-yorkshire-set-for-months-of-snow-1-7511317
13 Oct: Globe Newswire: As Snow Creeps Down From The Himalayas, World Patent Marketing Reviews the Cost of Developing the Driveway Snow Blanket The New York Inventor Exchange approves Driveway Snow Blanket for licensing and trading intellectual property rights
MIAMI, Fla. via PRWEB – World Patent Marketing, a vertically integrated manufacturer and engineer of patented products, announces the Driveway Snow Blanket, a snow melting invention that helps people in clearing snow away from the streets and driveways.
“The Snowplowing Services industry is worth $17 billion and will continue to grow at 3.8% per year,” says Scott Cooper, CEO and Creative Director of World Patent Marketing and Desa Industries Inc. “In the next five years, industry revenue growth will go higher as we experience colder winters with higher levels of winter precipitation.”…
http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/10/13/775540/10152333/en/As-Snow-Creeps-Down-From-The-Himalayas-World-Patent-Marketing-Reviews-the-Cost-of-Developing-the-Driveway-Snow-Blanket.html
13 Oct: Accuweather: Early-Season Snow to Whiten Germany by Wednesday
By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist
Fritzlar should also see snow, marking the earliest such occurrence in October since Oct. 5, 1994, according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys…
The impending snow may be a preview of what is expected this winter with the AccuWeather Long Range Forecasting Team anticipating an elevated threat for snowfall events across Germany later this winter.
I personally saw a small group of Brent Geese arrive in the Somerset Levels last week which is a VERY early appearance for them. November is usually when they start to arrive. This of course is more a sign of bad weather where they were rather than an indicator for here but given the effect a cold central European air mass can have its a little worrying.
Ya know, the warmists might want to tone down all their belly aching about all the carbon in the permafrost. They don’t really want to draw attention to it. ‘Cuz if there’s that much, it is only a matter of time before some enterprising company figures out out to harvest the stuff so we can burn it.
tragic:
13 Oct: The Hill: Sanders: Climate change is biggest national security threat
“The scientific community is telling us: if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be inhabitable,” the Vermont Independent said during the first Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas.
“That is a major crisis,” he said to strong applause and cheering from the crowd in attendance.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also mentioned climate change as one of the top national security threats, saying it “makes cascading threats even worse.”…
O’Malley has repeatedly highlighted global warming as a top security threat, inviting mockery from Republicans and others. But he has doubled down on his statements, even saying that climate change is partly to blame for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
President Obama has made similar assessments…
All candidates except Webb mentioned the need to fight climate change in their opening statements.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/256859-sanders-climate-is-biggest-national-security-threat
They are going to Reykjavik, Iceland? Been there, done it. Keflavik also, and all points in between. There is not 1 square inch of permafrost in Iceland! What a bunch of money stealing, sociopathic people who ought to be in an asylum, or better yet, jail.
Iceland has ‘a floor heating’ installed, but it doesn’t even need any permafrost, it has glaciers instead.
To mwh: The 2 degree limit is according to professor Phil Jones (the mother of all climate alarmists) “pulled out of thin air” (quotation verbatim). So much for the science behind it.
We got 2C already since 1800, and no-one complains. 60°N, average yearly temp around +4°C. I could do with 10°C more, but of course that would not yet allow banana production.
No we haven’t because there is no reliable global data before the 1850’s, although agree most would hardly notice the difference if we had.
There is barely 0.7 c rise since 1860’s
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/plot/hadcrut4gl
Just to add 60 N or just below covers parts of the world where temperature increases are hardly any different to global. For regions 64 N+ temperatures have warmed more than 2 c since 1980’s, but they also cooled more than 2 c until 1970’s.
Shown below the surface land warming in the Arctic, but satellites disagree and likely due to bias selection of places surface stations are placed. Only land surface stations with no coverage of Arctic ocean, with latter that warms and cools much more slowly.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/ArcticTempsSurface1936_zpspod7pd2i.png
I’m not talking about any global data, but my place here in the North.
2C did little and definitely no harm.
[“did a little good and definitely no harm” ? >mod]
Nullschool Earth is a great tool to actually show people what conditions are like in the Arctic and Antarctic.
will somebody PLEASE put the nail in the coffin on this crap.
….another round of climategate emails?
……..wife of one of the protagonists discovering a conscience and posting some tape recordings?
…………..one of the major players fessing up to the data-doctoring and ratting out?
we all know it is going to happen sooner or later….nobody fools everybody forever. AG, KT, MM, and the like will all go into the history books as slime no less fecal than Bernie Madoff, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and VW. It isn’t a matter of “if”, it is only a matter of “when”. Whoever comes clean first will get some credo for having a conscience…..who will it be?
Updated methane concentration data seems to be either disappearing or it’s presented in a shoddy fashion. For example, here’s a link to an EPA methane chart. Not only is it out of date, it has a bungled comment (it refers to ozone, but the chart is said to be methane):
http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-concentrations.html
Or try going here, an European reference page. The charts disappeared, but try going to the “New!” Link. See if you can find the methane graph. I couldn’t find it.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/atmospheric-concentration-of-ch4-ppb-1
“Humans have 275 petagrams of carbon left to emit to stay this side of the 2C threshold”
This is extraordinarily precise with an assumption that it is certain that the atmosphere will respond to carbon and if it did just like a domestic thermostat. Also Carbon is an abundant element so how can we emit it as it’s already here and does that mean that life is bad because it is carbon based? What kind of mark would this statement get in a school science exam?
The 3 circles figure is a classic example of “How to Lie with Statistics”. Unusually, the actual numbers are given (in smaller letters).
The use of the diameter of the circles to represent the amount is downright dishonest. A casual reading will get the impression (based on the coloured areas) that the permafrost is far and away the largest source while it is actually less than half the total. This assumes the numbers mean anything at all. The figures are for “carbon” storage on land, whatever this means, The ocean that the Woods Hole people are so keen on studying is ignored. I wonder why?
Anyone producing rubbish figures like this need to be sacked from science and put into PR.
Yes and it seems everyone is talking about Carbon and not CO2. This subject is supposed to be a science?
In the last 800,000 years, methane never got above 800 ppb, despite going through:
– 8 interglacials,
– including the last Eemian interglacial in which Arctic temperatures were about 5C warmer than today; and
– the interglacial 400,000 years ago which lasted for about 25,000 years, the longest one yet.
Therefore, even when Arctic temperatures are 5C higher than today and even when the interglacial lasts 10,000 years longer than the current one has, the methane time bomb in the Arctic never goes off.
Today, we are at 1750 ppb methane mostly because of natural gas releases from the oil and gas industry and, in all the last 8 interglacials, it never got above 800 ppb. (and then there is Willis’ post from a few days ago which shows that at these very low parts per billion concentrations, methane produces little if any climate forcing).
http://depagter.com/peakoil/img/CO2andCH4.jpg
Plus garbage dumps, irrigation, a few others … but not permafrost melting.
Despite all the panic about declining Arctic sea ice and warming there, satellites don’t show that much warming there. This data set covers more of the Arctic region area than any other and considered to be the best observation tool there.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/UAH_ArcticTemps1979_zpstf88xnmu.png
Since 2001 there has been little warming in the Arctic and yet GISS apparently say recent warming in global temperatures are warming more due to covering more Arctic regions. Funny that GISS shows more warming since 2001 then previous years in the Arctic, that showed much more warming via satellite.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/UAH_ArcticTemps2001_zps4ffhcszg.png
That is one hell of a turn around to show much more warming since 2001 when there has been hardly any.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/GlobalvDifference1997-98ElNino_zps8wmpmvfy.png
If there wasn’t any science evidence that tampering was occurring than this adds the final nails to the coffin.
“Given that permafrost contains almost twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, permafrost thaw and the subsequent loss of carbon from permafrost has the potential to throw a wrench in current policy solutions to contain global warming,” said Dr. Max Holmes, a Senior Scientist at WHRC.
++++++++
The fact that permafrost contains carbon does not mean that it will emerge as either CO2 or methane. The concept is flawed. The carbon content of soil is not zero. While it is certain that some of the canbonaceous material will decompose to methane and CO2 there is nothing we know about Arctic soils that indicates the soils will void themselves of carbon it the temperature rises above freezing.
Quite the opposite. Once it is warm enough to grow plants, vegetation will sequester Carbon from the air at a rate dependent on the local climate including the availability of water. These rates are well known from adjacent areas where permafrost used to exist.
If melting permafrost were truly to transform into gaseous emissions then tropical peat bogs, which are very similar to melted permafrost, would long ago have vanished. Anoxic peat bogs preserve biomass very well, even bodies of deceased humans, for centuries. So too anoxic sodden soils in Alaska and Siberia.
The alarm raised about melting permafrost causing runaway global warming is completely false and no aspect of our collected scientific knowledge supports the claims. They are baseless and against common sense.