Speaking of pogroms of elimination from closeted admirers of Stalin found in the fossil fuel industry, Michael Mann is fighting a lopsided battle wherein he’s in one corner, the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuels industry is in the other, and they’re battling over Mann’s research work materials. May the best person win, but that’s only going to happen if Mann can lawyer-up to fight something called the “American Tradition Institute” as it seeks to gain exclusive access to Mann’s work (which various taxpayers actually have funded).
See Scott Mandia’s page describing the Climate Scientist Defense Fund for more details. Can you rob yourself of the opportunity for a couple of deluxe pizzas, or a few overprice coffee drinks? Consider diverting a few dollars to a less ephemeral sort of satisfaction.
Again, this is an industry in which just the top 10 firms are flowing some $2.3 trillion in annual revenue, these firms being part of a world where people will kill for $2 and a sandwich. Don’t expect a clean fight, don’t expect to win without fighting. Fortunately, “fight” in this case mostly means a little cash going in the right direction; once in court, things become much fairer but it costs money to be there.
Paul Ssays
Judith Curry has a new paper out concerning uncertainty in climate science. In a reply to a comment published about their paper Curry & Webster state, with reference to Gent et al. (2011):
In spite of using a better model and better forcing data for the CCSM4 simulations, the CCSM4 simulations show that after 1970, the simulated surface temperature increases faster than the data, so that by 2005 the model anomaly is 0.4oC larger than the observed anomaly. By contrast, the CCSM3 simulations show very good agreement with the surface temperature data. The critical difference is that the CCSM4 model was tuned for the pre-industrial period and used accepted best estimates of the forcing data, whereas the CCSM3 model was tuned to the 20th century observations and each modeling group was permitted to select their preferred forcing data sets.
From my reading of Gent et al. I can’t see that these conclusions are supported but I could be missing something. Gavin, can you offer a more informed appraisal of the difference between CCSM3 and CCSM4, with regards to the Curry & Webster reply?
We have a neighbor planet called Venus that is famous for its extreme greenhouse effect. What a perfect place to test various models on. Unfortunately atmospheric observations are vary scarce but there is at least one temperature profile. The uppermost parts of the clouds is quite well observed as is the topography. I haven’t seen any serious attempts to model the climate of Venus, however. Can the basic data be approximated straight from first principles? Are there papers on serious climate model runs or do they not exist? Please let me know what you know about the subject.
Ray Ladburysays
Steven Jörsäter, Ever hear of Google Scholar? More than 30000 hits in 0.17s.
the Soviet Union playing the peace movement full blast at the height of the Cold War. – Russell
You know, as a member of the peace movement, I never received a penny in Moscow gold, nor saw any propaganda materials of Soviet origin (not hard to spot). Nor was it necessary to believe in the nuclear winter hypothesis to be opposed to the ramping-up of tensions by the Reagan administration, which nearly led to nuclear war twice in 1983 (google “Stanislav Petrov” and “Able Archer” for details). Nuclear winter or no, such a war would have been an unprecedented catastrophe, killing billions. The peace movement I was a member of did its utmost to work with Soviet-bloc dissidents, and opposed Soviet as well as NATO missiles. Russell loves his old Cold War hobby-horse, though, doesn’t he?
[Response: This is way OT – enough thanks. – gavin]
Russellsays
186
Extraordinary claim’ – Eric , you asked for it :
‘Claims of anyone ‘refusing’ to do something usually say more about the claimant than the accused. Care to be more specific about what you allege Naomi gets wrong? ‘
189
Snapple’s confusion is nearly complete-
“The book Comrade J quotes the “physicist” Russell Seitz who claims that nuclear winter research is based on “a notorious lack of scientific integrity” (176). However, Seitz does not have a Ph.D. in physics. [See Lawrence Badash, A Nuclear Winter’s Tale, page 249.]
I think it is possible that Seitz’s ideas about nuclear winter were attributed to the KGB defector Tretykov in order to give Seitz’s views credibility.”
what Snapple says” Comrade J ” attributes to me is apparently this quotation
from Kerry Emanuel, who in observed the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Notwithstanding that don’t know this fellow Earley from Adam , that Brad Sparks was a sort of 80’s avatar of Marc Morano, that the KGB has morphed into another service, and I’ve been appointed a Fellow of the Department of Physics at Harvard , It is vexing he should fail to note that Crutzen, who nailed the effect Sagan subsequently hyped in a 1981 Ambio article astutely entitled ‘Twilight at Noon’, mirrored Steve Schneider’s skepticism as to the 1-D model’s limits.
Sad as defector’s memoirs tend to be , their perusal can occasionally turn up new facts amidst recycled dezinformatsia,
To clarify an obscure reference , as Eric requests , the Vladimir Alexandrov to whom Snapple refers remains an object of vexation and concern to physicists who do not shoot other physicists because, in a move that might give even Attorney General Cuccinelli pause, he was shoved into a van on the doorstep of the Soviet Embassy in Madrid, after blowing his lines at a Eurocommunist Nuclear Free Zone rally the night before .
He has not been seen since.
Russellsays
The ‘Extraordinary claim’ is the one you made earlier, Eric :
‘Claims of anyone ‘refusing’ to do something usually say more about the claimant than the accused. Care to be more specific about what you allege Naomi gets wrong? ‘
189
Snapple’s confusion is nearly complete-
“The book Comrade J quotes the “physicist” Russell Seitz who claims that nuclear winter research is based on “a notorious lack of scientific integrity” (176). However, Seitz does not have a Ph.D. in physics. [See Lawrence Badash, A Nuclear Winter’s Tale, page 249.]
I think it is possible that Seitz’s ideas about nuclear winter were attributed to the KGB defector Tretykov in order to give Seitz’s views credibility.”
what Snapple says” Comrade J ” attributes to me is apparently this quotation
from Kerry Emanuel, who in observed the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Notwithstanding that don’t know this fellow Earley from Adam , that Brad Sparks was a sort of 80’s avatar of Marc Morano, that the KGB has morphed into another service, and I’ve been appointed a Fellow of the Department of Physics at Harvard , It is vexing he should fail to note that Crutzen, who nailed the effect Sagan subsequently hyped in a 1981 Ambio article astutely entitled ‘Twilight at Noon’, mirrored Steve Schneider’s skepticism as to the 1-D model’s limits.
Sad as defector’s memoirs tend to be , their perusal can occasionally turn up new facts amidst recycled dezinformatsia,
To clarify an obscure reference , as Eric requests , the Vladimir Alexandrov to whom Snapple refers remains an object of vexation and concern to physicists who do not shoot other physicists because, in a move that might give even Attorney General Cuccinelli pause, he was shoved into a van on the doorstep of the Soviet Embassy in Madrid, after blowing his lines at a Eurocommunist Nuclear Free Zone rally the night before .
He has not been seen since.
206
Alan Robock rode this hobby horse in from the cold in Nature last spring, and you can read my reply in Correspondence, 7 July.
Russellsays
186
Eric
I’ve provided a link to a direct comparison of the TTAPS and Robock scenarios just below my July 7 piece in Nature
Hank Roberts
In addition to the planckton guys, coral biologists and limnologists are weighing in, since solar heated hot water is as much of a problem in some aquatic ecosystems as compression of the euphotic zone is in others .
Doug Bostromsays
All regular readers here have already donated to Prof. Scott Mandia’s defense fund for climate scientists, right? Michael Mann is not going to have to show up in court to retain possession of his private correspondence, working papers, etc. with no lawyer at his side, yes? Dr. Mann won’t be facing a focused, ruthlessly efficient global constituency armed with trillions of dollars all by his lonely self, correct?
We can confidently say we’re not so complacent as to allow such a terrible thing to happen, I’m sure.
Snapple’s source is a chunk of bloggerel fit for Marc Morano or Tony Watts ; largely incoherent and dead wrong in most of its particulars, from its misattribution to me of a quote from Kerry Emmanuel and failure to note I’m a Fellow of the Department of Physics here to its bizarre equation of Paul Crutzen’s views with those of Carl Sagan.
Paul’s 1981 Ambio article ‘ Twilight at Noon ‘ accurately predicted the regime of optical depth that TTAPS overshot by up to six orders of magnitude. What he predicted is as far
from Sagan’s apocalyptic predictions as Robock’s contemporary results-
Here’s the Nature letter in response to Robock’s revival of this cold war hobby horse
Nuclear winter was and is debatable
Alan Robock’s contention that there has been no real scientific debate about the ‘nuclear winter’ concept is itself debatable. (Nature 473, 275–276; 2011
This potential climate disaster, popularized in Science in 1983, rested on the output of a one-dimensional model that was later shown to overestimate the smoke a nuclear holocaust might engender. More refined estimates, combined with advanced three-dimensional models (see http://go.nature.com/kss8te), have dramatically reduced the extent and severity of the projected cooling.
Despite this, Carl Sagan, who co-authored the 1983 Science paper, went so far as to posit “the extinction of Homo sapiens” (C. Sagan Foreign Affairs 63, 75–77; 1984). Some regarded this apocalyptic prediction as an exercise in mythology. George Rathjens of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology protested: “Nuclear winter is the worst example of the misrepresentation of science to the public in my memory,” (see http://go.nature.com/yujz84) and climatologist Kerry Emanuel observed that the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Robock’s single-digit fall in temperature is at odds with the subzero (about −25 °C) continental cooling originally projected for a wide spectrum of nuclear wars. Whereas Sagan predicted darkness at noon from a US–Soviet nuclear conflict, Robock projects global sunlight that is several orders of magnitude brighter for a Pakistan–India conflict — literally the difference between night and day. Since 1983, the projected worst-case cooling has fallen from a Siberian deep freeze spanning 11,000 degree-days Celsius (a measure of the severity of winters) to numbers so unseasonably small as to call the very term ‘nuclear winter’ into question. ”
Russell Seitz Cambridge, Massachusetts
********@physics.harvard.edu
{An article appearing in Scientific American a few years ago indicated that it must have been very cold, globally, for 3–6 years.}
David B. Bensonsays
I should add to my comment #212 that apparently surviving the Mt. Toba super-eruption was a very close call for the Bengal tigers; unfortunately I don’t have the link.
Septic Matthewsays
Switching from coal to gas may not change much very soon:
To me, this goes along with “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” to which I usually add “and continues with single steps.” It is still a good idea to replace coal with natural gas as soon as possible, especially since EPA requires cleaner and cleaner effluents from coal combustion (diminishing the cooling effects of SO2 et al, mentioned in the article.)
This looks like the sort of thing that the anti-AGW forces will publicize.
Possibly I am more aware of the potential for livestock waste to supply energy and reduce the use of coal, because my wife rides horses and I occasionally help muck out the stalls. Like most parts of the solution, it is a very small part. In some niches, it is a large part, as economies of scale drive down the price, reduce offensive smells, and reduce infective pollution.
Hopefully, this is at least a little more on topic than malaria and the Cold War.
wilisays
Septic, the ‘coal no worse than gas’ article is pretty lame.
“While burning less coal would indeed reduce [CO2] emissions, it would also reduce emissions of other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide, which cool the planet.”
But, guess what–S02 also causes acid rain and other nasties, so most new coal plants scrub most of it out, and many old ones are being retrofitted to do the same.
So really, it should have said:
“natural gas plants have about the same net effect as the last few old coal plants which have not yet been retrofitted but soon will be.”
A pretty worthless point to make.
But if you simplify that to the point of falsehood, you get a much catchier title.
Septic Matthewsays
216, wili: Septic, the ‘coal no worse than gas’ article is pretty lame.
I thought I said that, but I guess not.
Paul from VAsays
@102 BillS
Thanks for the link, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I was curious as to how they accounted for microwave emissivity variations, and the level 2 document provides all I was looking for.
“A major pollution-mapping program that ends September 9 has turned up startling trends in climate-warming gases and soot. The data it collected over the past five years from a National Science Foundation aircraft show the tropics periodically belch huge plumes of nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas — into the upper atmosphere. Arctic measurements show that the recent record summer retreats of ice cover have allowed seas there to exhale unexpected amounts of methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
Then there’s soot. Parts of the supposedly pristine Arctic skies host dense clouds of these black carbon particles. During some flights, “We were immersed in essentially clouds of black carbon that were dense enough that you could barely see the ground,” recalls Stephen Wofsy of Harvard University, a principal investigator in the program. “It was like landing in Los Angeles — except that you were 8 kilometers above the surface of the Arctic Ocean.”
Until a few years ago, scientists interested in mapping global emissions of climate-altering pollutants had to rely on Earth-based sensors or satellites’ eyes on the skies. Neither could identify at what altitude the pollutants tended to congregate. They also missed many highly localized or seasonal plumes of natural pollutants.
That all changed when a federal-university research partnership got access to NSF’s research plane: HIAPER (for High Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research). Throughout a number of periodic runs, this aircraft repeatedly swooped up and down — from 150 meters above Earth’s surface to heights sometimes exceeding 13.7 kilometers (45,000 feet). All along the way, its instruments measured more than 50 greenhouse gases and black carbon.
The unparalleled altitude- and latitude- specific data collected as part of this program — named HIPPO (for HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations) — will soon be made available to researchers generally, notes Wofsy. He expects scientists will mine its data for many years, looking for additional climate trends….
…”
DISsertations initiative for the advancement of Climate Change ReSearch
“Ph.D. recipients whose dissertation or current work pertains to climate change and its impacts are invited to register their dissertation using the form below. After submitting your registration, your dissertation abstract will be available online”
at: http://www.disccrs.org/search
“DISCCRS provides online tools for catalyzing interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration: http://disccrs.org/disccrsposter.pdf
Please display and distribute the poster as widely as possible!”
“… corrective information is often presented in an ineffective manner. We … graphical corrections may be more effective than text …. Graphical corrections are also found to successfully reduce incorrect beliefs among potentially resistant subjects and to perform better than an equivalent textual correction….” http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2011/09/new_research_on_political_misp032163.php
I’ve urged this before — when you search for information about climate, check what’s out there at least three ways:
use Google, and Scholar, and Images.
Comparison is often impressive — how _different_ the results are.
Google Image searches return many, many copies of rebunked material.
ccposays
I apologize to the posters and scientists who post here for my writing being quite simplified. I’m sure my posts are uninteresting to you. Thankfully, I don’t really post for your benefit, but for the laypersons who wander in and find the more scientific stuff too dense. I try to keep it simple, straightforward and work from a meta view, hopefully with images to make points tangible, that is easily grasped. Call it application of the KISS principle. In teaching, this working to the group Zone of proximal Development.
But here I am talking to you regulars.
@methane and long term trends: @1850 to current time methane has increased roughly 250%. CO2 only about 37%. That’s a pretty darned robust long-term trend.
Is that all Arctic? Nope. Much is from FFs and agricultural and animal husbandry, of course. And those are symptomatic of increasing FF use which allowed huge increases in population.
But the assumption, or more accurately, the reticence, to acknowledge an Arctic methane problem, is handled quite nicely by one simple observation clearly showing a rising trend: A 3oo% increase in direct observations of thermokarst lakes by Katey nee Walter.
Is it proof? No. Is it enough to stop and think to ourselves, “Oh, holy poop in my pants?” Yup.
Further, at least one of the recent articles on the new (current?) expedition to measure methane release mentioned that the amounts found during previous trips mentioned the background below the water line and just above were significantly higher than about a decade ago.
So, rising data wrt thermokarst lakes and rising data in direct measurements in the short term coupled with a renewed rise as of 2007 atmospherically (actually, the graphs earlier in the thread showed a slow in emissions over the previous 10 year span, not a stop), give us pretty compelling evidence of something amiss with Arctic methane. Also, I believe we have reduced emissions from agriculture in recent years.
I’d like to point out expectations that methane deposits would not erupt for quite some time were based on the belief at the time that the planet could not warm as fast as it has been, that the oceans could not warm as fast as they have been, and that clathrates were in relatively deep water. But the Arctic shelves are very shallow, there’s a lot more warm water infiltrating than believed back then, and the ice is dancing a funeral jig.
Given the speed of change in the Arctic and all the other evidence, this is not something we want to be cagey about in discussion. The question for me is not whether it is rising – if it isn’t, it very soon will be (but it is) – but how do we get at the evidence? Yes, I realize that sounds like deciding the outcome before doing the experiment, but we have more than enough evidence to form a hypothesis and test it, so it actually is not.
Let the scientists do their cagey scientist thing, but for heaven’s sake, can’t we simply acknowledge all the evidence is bad, the chance of a significant rise in Arctic methane emissions is very high, and the risk is so great we’d better do something about it regardless of what we can prove or not?
If you really believe the clathrates and permafrost are not melting while every other part of the cryosphere is, then this is for you:
:o
Actually, the real question is, given things are already very tenuous and adding even a percentage point or two of the stored methane would likely leave us with a very small chance of success, what can we do to prevent this from happening? We don’t even need to know if the methane is increasing or not because we need to take action anyway.
I’m a gunslinger, you’re my target, my hand just twitched: whatcha gonna do?
@mitigation: You are now moving into my area of knowledge.
*All of you are familiar with non-liner and chaotic system behavior, so I need not harp on that other than to raise it to immediate awareness.
* Design Principle: organic before non-organic solutions. Geo-engineering is what we do. All biota do. We’ve seen what non-natural choices do. If natural choices exist, and they do, good design says use them first.
Options:
– Re-grow forest ecosystems. (Proof of concept exists: Willie Smits; Hansen has stated reforestation can cover 100% of current emissions.)
– Regenertive Ag. (Proofs of concept exist: Rodale, for one. Change to regenerative practices globally – big ag only, not including home gardens, 40% )
– Reduce consumption. (Growth trumps innovation/efficiency; Jevon’s Paradox and US consumption 1980 – 2000’s: US oil consumption rose 5 million barrels a day while US efficiency rose over 30%. Oops. Reducing consumption is not optional.)
Those three alone have the potential to compensate for more than 100% of current emissions, which means we would be going backwards with CO2e by sometime between mid-century and 2100 if all we did was hold gross non-agricultural emissions constant and implement these changes.
Why in the name of All would we mess with techno-fantasies and their very likely unintended consequences when we can reduce carbon and feed the planet simply by growing more plants and improving our quality of life?
That last brings up two other principles: Each element in a system should have more than one function, and each function should be supported by more than one element.
Also: Least change for max effect. This last is more reflected in type of change rather than scale given we are talking about all agriculture and lots of forests.
All this without even going into the myriad other needs for and benefits of this sort of solutioneering.
If I never hear of schemes for geo-engineering again it will be too soon. My prediction: If we are foolish enough to end up choosing non-natural choices over natural choices, and all that implies, we have already lost. You can’t just get liposuction and expect to remain slim, you have to change how you eat and burn calories. If we don’t change how we eat, any techno gain will be overcome by our poor habits and growth.
K.I.S.S.
Russellsays
222
Knowing Alexandrov , as soon as I learned of his disappearance I conducted telephone interviews with people on the ground in Cordoba and Madrid, and met in DC, London and Paris with some of those investigating the matter.
Doug Bostromsays
Scott Mandia’s website:
“Update #4 (09/12/11): We have reached our initial target goal of $10,000 which will cover Mike’s [Michael Mann] immediate legal fees. The excess amount will be moved to a more permanent legal defense fund that we are establishing to help climate scientists with any future legal expenses. We hope this new permanent structure will also allow donors to send money as tax-deductible. Thank you all for your generous support. You are really sending a message. Keep that message going.”
Well done, a sweeping tip of the hat to Scott Mandia and everybody who has contributed to this worthy effort.
I spent some time in public radio management, among other fun work harassing habitual listeners into coughing up some change to support their addiction. There are stacks of data showing that for every person whose conscience penetrates into their wallets to make a donation to causes they care about, about nine more don’t make that leap. Most of the fault lies in slight inconvenience, a significant little in the way we compartmentalize our feelings safely away from our bank accounts. Inconvenience is no longer an excuse because– as typified by this example– without shifting our keisters one iota we can reach Prof. Mandia’s donation page and do Good Work. That leaves only the evaluatin of how much we care about seeing handfuls of dense, abrasive and draggy sand thrown into the gears of scientific progress.
Do we care?
Mandia raised $10k in about 7 days. Factoring in a depletion allowance, he ought to be able to raise much, much more if he can stay visible with his plan and if enough people sincerely care about maintaining scientific integrity.
As you may have heard on-the-air, “You know who you are.” Do you care?
As far as continuing visibility goes, RC and like sites should add a prominent link pointing to Prof. Mandia’s fundraising page.
Septic Matthewsays
225, ccpo: Those three alone have the potential to compensate for more than 100% of current emissions, which means we would be going backwards with CO2e by sometime between mid-century and 2100 if all we did was hold gross non-agricultural emissions constant and implement these changes.
I believe that is an achievable goal. Changes already underway in the development of alternative energy and fuel sources will substantially reduce fossil fuel use by 2050. Almost everyone is in favor of reforestation, afforestation, and less disruptive agriculture (beginning with “minimum tillage”).
What do you say to people who assert that 2050 is too late. Barton Paul Levenson reported here that his simulations show the end of civilization for sure by 2050, due to the collapse of the food supply.
[Response: That topic is beyond the ability of anyone here–or anyone anywhere IMO–to address properly, as it is fraught with enormous uncertainties. It quickly goes off the rails. Discussions of climate and agriculture and perfectly fine as long as they are firmly based on what we solidly know. Discussions of the end of civilization do not qualify.–Jim]
wilisays
I posted this on the other thread, but it looks like this might be where it is more relevant (mods feel free to delete one or the other):
“Commercial shipping through the Northeast Passage over the last couple weeks has reported the seas bubbling as if they were boiling. Their observations have been reported to the science ministry who have sent scientists to investigate.”
Does anyone know about this source? Is it usually reliable?
Does anyone else find the notion of “seas bubbling as if they were boiling” a bit…disconcerting?
Do any of the people who post here or who run the site know any of the scientists going on that emergency excursion to study the ‘dramatic’ increase in methane emissions from the Arctic?
If so, have they heard anything about why exactly they are going up there? What exactly did they hear about? Was it this report from ships in the NE Passage? What are they finding up there now?
ccpo, I agree that when thoughts turn to non-organic (as you say) geo-engineering, it is a sign of utter desperation and that we’ve likely already lost the game. It looks to me as though we are pretty close to there.
The obvious answer to your question about why your very sane solutions aren’t being implemented very quickly while people are considering these kinds of geo-engineering schemes is that it only takes a relatively few people to carry out the latter, whereas you have to convince essentially the whole world to go along with your plan–especially the reduction consumption part. Yours is definitely the sane path. We don’t seem to have taken it, and don’t seem likely to at this point, imho.
Doug Bostromsays
Wili, based on the dateline of this article we may have to wait a bit to find out.
“Russian, U.S. scientists set to study methane release in Arctic
VLADIVOSTOK, September 2 (RIA Novosti)
A group of Russian and U.S. scientists will leave the port of Vladivostok on Friday on board a Russian research ship to study methane emissions in the eastern part of the Arctic.
“This expedition was organized on a short notice by the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research and the U.S. National Science Foundation following the discovery of a dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas from the seabed in the eastern part of the Arctic, said Professor Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition.
The group consists of 27 scientists who would attempt to measure the scale of methane emissions and clarify the nature of the process.
The 45-day expedition will focus on the sea shelf of the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Russian part of the Chukotsk Sea, where 90% of underwater permafrost is located.
“We assume that the leakage of methane results from the degradation of underwater permafrost…A massive release of such a powerful greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming,” Semiletov said.”
I’m no expert but that looks dubious to me. Has there really been such a large retreat of the ice sheet and loss of ice area, particularly in the east?
wilisays
Thanks all. The monitors we that are in the area are not yet showing dramatic increases:
But as I understand it, methane breakdown is particularly fast and high in the full sun of summer. This fall’s and winter’s data should tell us how significant the release is. (Any chance that, if the increase in methane concentrations is really extreme, they will suppress the data? Sorry to get paranoid, but I do wonder if there is a limit at some point to what they will share with the general public if things really start looking hairy.)
So if it’s a 45 day cruise and ship left from Vladivostok on the second, can we assume that they are up there by now starting their study? Are they completely cut off from satellite communication up there? Are there no scientists affiliated with this site that are in touch with them? Can anyone tell us anything?
How quickly does methane dissipate in the atmosphere? When should we expect the monitors, all of which are at least 1000 miles away from the main areas of methane release (as far as I can tell), to show major increases in atmospheric concentrations if this is really going on at the rate it seems to?
(Sorry for all the back to back questions, and thanks ahead of time for any insights.)
J Bowerssays
@ Wili, does that ESRL map cover the Northern Sea Route? I can’t see any info for GHGs between Finland and Alaska.
Last week David Mitchell solved the environment – and he’s a bit miffed that didn’t make more of a stir. So this week he thought he’d tackle climate change doubters. These disbelievers must concede that climate change is a ‘possibility’. In which case, why take the risk – and continue ruining the planet, in the meantime?
L. David Cookesays
Hey All,
Hmmm…, many interesting subjects… To pick one, let me consider Coal-vs-Nat Gas to start. Nat Gas is not without it’s issues. First, when in combustion the assumption is correct. Water vapor and CO2 are the primary emissions. However, associated will the ground recovery or pumping if you will there are vast amounts of hydrogen sulfide and CO-CO2 that is associated and must be removed. This same issue also can be observed in the capture of bio-gas. In essence, total Carbon may not be terribly different. That it is lower in sulfates and mercury is it’s greatest pollutant difference. That it also makes a very efficient hydrogen storage medium and can offer a model for the conversion of the liquid fossil fuel infrastructure (bridge fuel), is likely the strongest case for this transition. As for testing if the “boiling Arctic” is methane, the easiest test, a match…
Moving on, I consider that the methane generation of animals to be a non-issue, whether it was horses, buffalo or cattle it does not matter those values are nearly breakeven. As to chickens or turkey, yes domestication has concentrated waste products as has pig farming. Are the total waste values generated greater, yes, as are human waste total values. Population increases have that effect. At issue is what is done with the wastes. We spread chicken wastes on fields, similar to bio-char whether naturally generated by wildfires or ancient farming practices. In essence we recycle a good deal of it, until it reaches the human food chain where most get washed out to sea (treated/non-treated doesn’t matter). Whether the effluent mixes with farm run off or not to cause coastal dead zones or anoxic shorelines is not the issue. As to the better waste treatment, personally I like the idea of packing it away in former coal mines or deep wells located within former fossil fuel pockets.
As to root cause of global warming… I can see where current levels of CO2 could contribute to a increase of normal variation towards a warming condition. That the levels are 135ppm greater then 150ya and fossil fuel emissions are the primary cause does not appear to be supportable. That we are seeing effects that were last seen when total atmospheric levels were 2500ppm, suggests to me there is likely a different forcing responsible for the strong deviations or synoptic changes we are seeing.
To this end I concur that deforestation also plays a part. (Actually this better correlates to 1750-2010 CO2 rise then fossil fuel combustion emissions.) If we look at the Carbon Cycle imballance pre- 1950 there appeared sufficient land based sequestration to offset emissions. Hence, the atmospheric CO2 rise had to of had a different source at that time. Post 1950 I concur fossil fuel combustion has to be the primary cause with 45ppm solely associated there of. That fossil fuels rose to dominance can be attributed to three things, changes in transportation, industrial and home energy systems, increases in human population and reduction of current bio-sphere carbon based energy sources.
So which Carbon source do we begin to address first… Certainly not the primary cause…
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
Doug Bostromsays
wili: Can anyone tell us anything?
They likely won’t say a thing unless they see something truly eye-popping. Semiletov and the rest of the bunch have been focusing on this area for years, don’t seem prone to jump the gun by skipping publication.
As somebody elsewhere pointed out (can’t remember where), given the normal timeline of shipborne expeditions “short notice” could well mean the project was put together in response to last year’s publication of papers concerning dramatic increases in methane output in the region. That would be a compressed timeline with a late summer 2011 departure objective a bare year after inception.
Anybody want to comment on this post by Robert Rapier? He claims, citing a 1991 Nature article, that closing a coal plant would result in more warming, not less, because the reduction in aerosols emissions would have more impact that the reduction in CO2 emissions. If this has been adequately discussed elsewhere, could you direct me to this discussion?
Septic Matthewsays
228, Jim inline: Discussions of the end of civilization do not qualify.–Jim
I am happy with that. Not that my happiness is the goal. But this seems to be a new policy.
Does anyone want to comment on this post by Robert Rapier. He is claiming, based on a 1991 article in Nature, that closing a coal plant would increase warming rather than decreasing warming, because the reduction in aerosol emissions would outweigh the reduction in CO2 emissions.
> 1991 … closing a coal plant would increase warming
Industry had a lot of old inefficient coal plants reaching end of service life or end of longterm contracts and wanted back then to extend their use as is rather than replacing them with more efficient plants that would put out less sulfate pollution. That was a long time ago and the rationalizations have changed.
Pete Dunkelbergsays
Steve Funk @ 240, google Hansen Faustian bargain. Sulfate aerosols caused mainly by burning coal have a net cooling effect. We can’t keep burning coal forever. The longer we keep burning coal the more CO2 we put in the air. Sooner or later we have to stop, preferably we3ll before we burn all the coal there is. Then we pay the Faustian debt: climate warms some more because the sulfate aerosols only stay in the air for 6 – 18 months. The more coal we burn the worse things will be regardless.
“And should have been clearer that the effect discussed is short-term only.”
The point is that the effect discussed is short-term with respect to natural gas as well. I didn’t see too many media outlets focused on that. Most with the sensationalism, and my title is a parody of their sensationalism and failure to highlight what is really happening.
S. Molnarsays
I agree with Jim that predictions about the future end of civilization are insufficiently constrained to be wothwhile. However, I’m not so sure that’s true of claims about the current end of civilization.
siddsays
Re: sulfate cooling/CO2 warming from coal power
I understand that the Wigley paper is not yet published ? I wonder which model(s) they used for sulfate cooling. I see from the graph on Mr. Rapier’s site, that the warming for zero CH4 leakage peaks at about 0.05C in 2050, and I take it this is above some baseline computed from one or more of the IPCC scenarios ?
On the same note, are there estimates for black carbon dust emissions from coal mining, especially surface mines ? I do not recall the soot/Arctic paper (by Hansen and Kharecha ?) discussing mining sources. I suppose Ramanathan might be the go to guy here. References would be greatly appreciated.
sidd
siddsays
Re: sulfate cooling/CO2 warming from coal power
I am sorry, I misread the graf: the zero CH4 leak heating, presumably due to loss of sulfate aerosol, peaks at about 0.25C in 2040 and disappears by 2050
siddsays
my eyes are going, the peak of zero CH4 leak is 0.025C…
Dust from digging and transporting falls out quickly. Look along the rail lines that haul the coal cars for those, not so much in the atmosphere. Small particles from incomplete combustion stay in the air longer.
Speaking of pogroms of elimination from closeted admirers of Stalin found in the fossil fuel industry, Michael Mann is fighting a lopsided battle wherein he’s in one corner, the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuels industry is in the other, and they’re battling over Mann’s research work materials. May the best person win, but that’s only going to happen if Mann can lawyer-up to fight something called the “American Tradition Institute” as it seeks to gain exclusive access to Mann’s work (which various taxpayers actually have funded).
See Scott Mandia’s page describing the Climate Scientist Defense Fund for more details. Can you rob yourself of the opportunity for a couple of deluxe pizzas, or a few overprice coffee drinks? Consider diverting a few dollars to a less ephemeral sort of satisfaction.
Again, this is an industry in which just the top 10 firms are flowing some $2.3 trillion in annual revenue, these firms being part of a world where people will kill for $2 and a sandwich. Don’t expect a clean fight, don’t expect to win without fighting. Fortunately, “fight” in this case mostly means a little cash going in the right direction; once in court, things become much fairer but it costs money to be there.
Judith Curry has a new paper out concerning uncertainty in climate science. In a reply to a comment published about their paper Curry & Webster state, with reference to Gent et al. (2011):
From my reading of Gent et al. I can’t see that these conclusions are supported but I could be missing something. Gavin, can you offer a more informed appraisal of the difference between CCSM3 and CCSM4, with regards to the Curry & Webster reply?
We have a neighbor planet called Venus that is famous for its extreme greenhouse effect. What a perfect place to test various models on. Unfortunately atmospheric observations are vary scarce but there is at least one temperature profile. The uppermost parts of the clouds is quite well observed as is the topography. I haven’t seen any serious attempts to model the climate of Venus, however. Can the basic data be approximated straight from first principles? Are there papers on serious climate model runs or do they not exist? Please let me know what you know about the subject.
Steven Jörsäter, Ever hear of Google Scholar? More than 30000 hits in 0.17s.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=venus+climate+model&hl=en&as_sdt=1,21&as_sdtp=on
Knock yourself out.
the Soviet Union playing the peace movement full blast at the height of the Cold War. – Russell
You know, as a member of the peace movement, I never received a penny in Moscow gold, nor saw any propaganda materials of Soviet origin (not hard to spot). Nor was it necessary to believe in the nuclear winter hypothesis to be opposed to the ramping-up of tensions by the Reagan administration, which nearly led to nuclear war twice in 1983 (google “Stanislav Petrov” and “Able Archer” for details). Nuclear winter or no, such a war would have been an unprecedented catastrophe, killing billions. The peace movement I was a member of did its utmost to work with Soviet-bloc dissidents, and opposed Soviet as well as NATO missiles. Russell loves his old Cold War hobby-horse, though, doesn’t he?
[Response: This is way OT – enough thanks. – gavin]
186
Extraordinary claim’ – Eric , you asked for it :
‘Claims of anyone ‘refusing’ to do something usually say more about the claimant than the accused. Care to be more specific about what you allege Naomi gets wrong? ‘
189
Snapple’s confusion is nearly complete-
“The book Comrade J quotes the “physicist” Russell Seitz who claims that nuclear winter research is based on “a notorious lack of scientific integrity” (176). However, Seitz does not have a Ph.D. in physics. [See Lawrence Badash, A Nuclear Winter’s Tale, page 249.]
I think it is possible that Seitz’s ideas about nuclear winter were attributed to the KGB defector Tretykov in order to give Seitz’s views credibility.”
what Snapple says” Comrade J ” attributes to me is apparently this quotation
from Kerry Emanuel, who in observed the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Notwithstanding that don’t know this fellow Earley from Adam , that Brad Sparks was a sort of 80’s avatar of Marc Morano, that the KGB has morphed into another service, and I’ve been appointed a Fellow of the Department of Physics at Harvard , It is vexing he should fail to note that Crutzen, who nailed the effect Sagan subsequently hyped in a 1981 Ambio article astutely entitled ‘Twilight at Noon’, mirrored Steve Schneider’s skepticism as to the 1-D model’s limits.
Sad as defector’s memoirs tend to be , their perusal can occasionally turn up new facts amidst recycled dezinformatsia,
To clarify an obscure reference , as Eric requests , the Vladimir Alexandrov to whom Snapple refers remains an object of vexation and concern to physicists who do not shoot other physicists because, in a move that might give even Attorney General Cuccinelli pause, he was shoved into a van on the doorstep of the Soviet Embassy in Madrid, after blowing his lines at a Eurocommunist Nuclear Free Zone rally the night before .
He has not been seen since.
The ‘Extraordinary claim’ is the one you made earlier, Eric :
‘Claims of anyone ‘refusing’ to do something usually say more about the claimant than the accused. Care to be more specific about what you allege Naomi gets wrong? ‘
189
Snapple’s confusion is nearly complete-
“The book Comrade J quotes the “physicist” Russell Seitz who claims that nuclear winter research is based on “a notorious lack of scientific integrity” (176). However, Seitz does not have a Ph.D. in physics. [See Lawrence Badash, A Nuclear Winter’s Tale, page 249.]
I think it is possible that Seitz’s ideas about nuclear winter were attributed to the KGB defector Tretykov in order to give Seitz’s views credibility.”
what Snapple says” Comrade J ” attributes to me is apparently this quotation
from Kerry Emanuel, who in observed the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Notwithstanding that don’t know this fellow Earley from Adam , that Brad Sparks was a sort of 80’s avatar of Marc Morano, that the KGB has morphed into another service, and I’ve been appointed a Fellow of the Department of Physics at Harvard , It is vexing he should fail to note that Crutzen, who nailed the effect Sagan subsequently hyped in a 1981 Ambio article astutely entitled ‘Twilight at Noon’, mirrored Steve Schneider’s skepticism as to the 1-D model’s limits.
Sad as defector’s memoirs tend to be , their perusal can occasionally turn up new facts amidst recycled dezinformatsia,
To clarify an obscure reference , as Eric requests , the Vladimir Alexandrov to whom Snapple refers remains an object of vexation and concern to physicists who do not shoot other physicists because, in a move that might give even Attorney General Cuccinelli pause, he was shoved into a van on the doorstep of the Soviet Embassy in Madrid, after blowing his lines at a Eurocommunist Nuclear Free Zone rally the night before .
He has not been seen since.
206
Alan Robock rode this hobby horse in from the cold in Nature last spring, and you can read my reply in Correspondence, 7 July.
186
Eric
I’ve provided a link to a direct comparison of the TTAPS and Robock scenarios just below my July 7 piece in Nature
Hank Roberts
In addition to the planckton guys, coral biologists and limnologists are weighing in, since solar heated hot water is as much of a problem in some aquatic ecosystems as compression of the euphotic zone is in others .
All regular readers here have already donated to Prof. Scott Mandia’s defense fund for climate scientists, right? Michael Mann is not going to have to show up in court to retain possession of his private correspondence, working papers, etc. with no lawyer at his side, yes? Dr. Mann won’t be facing a focused, ruthlessly efficient global constituency armed with trillions of dollars all by his lonely self, correct?
We can confidently say we’re not so complacent as to allow such a terrible thing to happen, I’m sure.
Climate Scientists Defense Fund
Thanks, Doug. Will do.
Also of interest, as this event is just 2 days away, and seems surprisingly low profile so far:
http://climaterealityproject.org/the-event/
189
Snapple’s source is a chunk of bloggerel fit for Marc Morano or Tony Watts ; largely incoherent and dead wrong in most of its particulars, from its misattribution to me of a quote from Kerry Emmanuel and failure to note I’m a Fellow of the Department of Physics here to its bizarre equation of Paul Crutzen’s views with those of Carl Sagan.
Paul’s 1981 Ambio article ‘ Twilight at Noon ‘ accurately predicted the regime of optical depth that TTAPS overshot by up to six orders of magnitude. What he predicted is as far
from Sagan’s apocalyptic predictions as Robock’s contemporary results-
http://s1098.photobucket.com/albums/g370/RussellSeitz/?action=view¤t=RobockAndSagan.jpg
Here’s the Nature letter in response to Robock’s revival of this cold war hobby horse
Nuclear winter was and is debatable
Alan Robock’s contention that there has been no real scientific debate about the ‘nuclear winter’ concept is itself debatable. (Nature 473, 275–276; 2011
This potential climate disaster, popularized in Science in 1983, rested on the output of a one-dimensional model that was later shown to overestimate the smoke a nuclear holocaust might engender. More refined estimates, combined with advanced three-dimensional models (see http://go.nature.com/kss8te), have dramatically reduced the extent and severity of the projected cooling.
Despite this, Carl Sagan, who co-authored the 1983 Science paper, went so far as to posit “the extinction of Homo sapiens” (C. Sagan Foreign Affairs 63, 75–77; 1984). Some regarded this apocalyptic prediction as an exercise in mythology. George Rathjens of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology protested: “Nuclear winter is the worst example of the misrepresentation of science to the public in my memory,” (see http://go.nature.com/yujz84) and climatologist Kerry Emanuel observed that the subject had “become notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” (Nature 319, 259; 1986)
Robock’s single-digit fall in temperature is at odds with the subzero (about −25 °C) continental cooling originally projected for a wide spectrum of nuclear wars. Whereas Sagan predicted darkness at noon from a US–Soviet nuclear conflict, Robock projects global sunlight that is several orders of magnitude brighter for a Pakistan–India conflict — literally the difference between night and day. Since 1983, the projected worst-case cooling has fallen from a Siberian deep freeze spanning 11,000 degree-days Celsius (a measure of the severity of winters) to numbers so unseasonably small as to call the very term ‘nuclear winter’ into question. ”
Russell Seitz Cambridge, Massachusetts
********@physics.harvard.edu
Well, the last approximation to ‘nuclear winter’ didn’t seem to result in any species extinctions at all, e.g.,
http://anthropology.net/2009/11/24/environmental-impact-of-the-73-ka-toba-super-eruption-in-south-asia-sciencedirect/
{An article appearing in Scientific American a few years ago indicated that it must have been very cold, globally, for 3–6 years.}
I should add to my comment #212 that apparently surviving the Mt. Toba super-eruption was a very close call for the Bengal tigers; unfortunately I don’t have the link.
Switching from coal to gas may not change much very soon:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/energy/27156/?p1=A4
To me, this goes along with “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” to which I usually add “and continues with single steps.” It is still a good idea to replace coal with natural gas as soon as possible, especially since EPA requires cleaner and cleaner effluents from coal combustion (diminishing the cooling effects of SO2 et al, mentioned in the article.)
This looks like the sort of thing that the anti-AGW forces will publicize.
Another unforced variation:
making energy from hog manure — http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/Hog_waste_producing_electricity_and_carbon_offsets_999.html
Possibly I am more aware of the potential for livestock waste to supply energy and reduce the use of coal, because my wife rides horses and I occasionally help muck out the stalls. Like most parts of the solution, it is a very small part. In some niches, it is a large part, as economies of scale drive down the price, reduce offensive smells, and reduce infective pollution.
Hopefully, this is at least a little more on topic than malaria and the Cold War.
Septic, the ‘coal no worse than gas’ article is pretty lame.
“While burning less coal would indeed reduce [CO2] emissions, it would also reduce emissions of other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide, which cool the planet.”
But, guess what–S02 also causes acid rain and other nasties, so most new coal plants scrub most of it out, and many old ones are being retrofitted to do the same.
So really, it should have said:
“natural gas plants have about the same net effect as the last few old coal plants which have not yet been retrofitted but soon will be.”
A pretty worthless point to make.
But if you simplify that to the point of falsehood, you get a much catchier title.
216, wili: Septic, the ‘coal no worse than gas’ article is pretty lame.
I thought I said that, but I guess not.
@102 BillS
Thanks for the link, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I was curious as to how they accounted for microwave emissivity variations, and the level 2 document provides all I was looking for.
Climate change already has unprecedented impact on European oceans; surface water rapidly warming: http://reut.rs/EUocea
More for the methane topic next time it comes ’round.
Janet Raloff of Sciencenews is a consistently interesting reporter.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334245/title/HIPPO_reveals_climate_surprises
HIPPO reveals climate surprises
Swooping pole-to-pole plane flights uncover unexpected trends in pollutant releases and spread
By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Thursday, September 8th, 2011
“A major pollution-mapping program that ends September 9 has turned up startling trends in climate-warming gases and soot. The data it collected over the past five years from a National Science Foundation aircraft show the tropics periodically belch huge plumes of nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas — into the upper atmosphere. Arctic measurements show that the recent record summer retreats of ice cover have allowed seas there to exhale unexpected amounts of methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
Then there’s soot. Parts of the supposedly pristine Arctic skies host dense clouds of these black carbon particles. During some flights, “We were immersed in essentially clouds of black carbon that were dense enough that you could barely see the ground,” recalls Stephen Wofsy of Harvard University, a principal investigator in the program. “It was like landing in Los Angeles — except that you were 8 kilometers above the surface of the Arctic Ocean.”
Until a few years ago, scientists interested in mapping global emissions of climate-altering pollutants had to rely on Earth-based sensors or satellites’ eyes on the skies. Neither could identify at what altitude the pollutants tended to congregate. They also missed many highly localized or seasonal plumes of natural pollutants.
That all changed when a federal-university research partnership got access to NSF’s research plane: HIAPER (for High Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research). Throughout a number of periodic runs, this aircraft repeatedly swooped up and down — from 150 meters above Earth’s surface to heights sometimes exceeding 13.7 kilometers (45,000 feet). All along the way, its instruments measured more than 50 greenhouse gases and black carbon.
The unparalleled altitude- and latitude- specific data collected as part of this program — named HIPPO (for HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations) — will soon be made available to researchers generally, notes Wofsy. He expects scientists will mine its data for many years, looking for additional climate trends….
…”
Henry Waxman unveils a searchable database of anti-environment votes by the current Congress.
> Vladimir Alexandrov
Interesting to learn from Dr. Seitz above details of that disappearance. Your memory goes into detail far beyond what I could find published.
Can you tell us your source for the details you reveal? Whether you’re giving info from personal knowledge, or from published or anecdotal material?
I did find: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,960025,00.html
(final paragraph), but that’s much less specific than the facts you state. Does your recollection fill a gap in the published record?
DISsertations initiative for the advancement of Climate Change ReSearch
“Ph.D. recipients whose dissertation or current work pertains to climate change and its impacts are invited to register their dissertation using the form below. After submitting your registration, your dissertation abstract will be available online”
at: http://www.disccrs.org/search
“DISCCRS provides online tools for catalyzing interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration: http://disccrs.org/disccrsposter.pdf
Please display and distribute the poster as widely as possible!”
“… corrective information is often presented in an ineffective manner. We … graphical corrections may be more effective than text …. Graphical corrections are also found to successfully reduce incorrect beliefs among potentially resistant subjects and to perform better than an equivalent textual correction….”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2011/09/new_research_on_political_misp032163.php
I’ve urged this before — when you search for information about climate, check what’s out there at least three ways:
use Google, and Scholar, and Images.
Comparison is often impressive — how _different_ the results are.
Google Image searches return many, many copies of rebunked material.
I apologize to the posters and scientists who post here for my writing being quite simplified. I’m sure my posts are uninteresting to you. Thankfully, I don’t really post for your benefit, but for the laypersons who wander in and find the more scientific stuff too dense. I try to keep it simple, straightforward and work from a meta view, hopefully with images to make points tangible, that is easily grasped. Call it application of the KISS principle. In teaching, this working to the group Zone of proximal Development.
But here I am talking to you regulars.
@methane and long term trends: @1850 to current time methane has increased roughly 250%. CO2 only about 37%. That’s a pretty darned robust long-term trend.
Is that all Arctic? Nope. Much is from FFs and agricultural and animal husbandry, of course. And those are symptomatic of increasing FF use which allowed huge increases in population.
But the assumption, or more accurately, the reticence, to acknowledge an Arctic methane problem, is handled quite nicely by one simple observation clearly showing a rising trend: A 3oo% increase in direct observations of thermokarst lakes by Katey nee Walter.
Is it proof? No. Is it enough to stop and think to ourselves, “Oh, holy poop in my pants?” Yup.
Further, at least one of the recent articles on the new (current?) expedition to measure methane release mentioned that the amounts found during previous trips mentioned the background below the water line and just above were significantly higher than about a decade ago.
So, rising data wrt thermokarst lakes and rising data in direct measurements in the short term coupled with a renewed rise as of 2007 atmospherically (actually, the graphs earlier in the thread showed a slow in emissions over the previous 10 year span, not a stop), give us pretty compelling evidence of something amiss with Arctic methane. Also, I believe we have reduced emissions from agriculture in recent years.
I’d like to point out expectations that methane deposits would not erupt for quite some time were based on the belief at the time that the planet could not warm as fast as it has been, that the oceans could not warm as fast as they have been, and that clathrates were in relatively deep water. But the Arctic shelves are very shallow, there’s a lot more warm water infiltrating than believed back then, and the ice is dancing a funeral jig.
Given the speed of change in the Arctic and all the other evidence, this is not something we want to be cagey about in discussion. The question for me is not whether it is rising – if it isn’t, it very soon will be (but it is) – but how do we get at the evidence? Yes, I realize that sounds like deciding the outcome before doing the experiment, but we have more than enough evidence to form a hypothesis and test it, so it actually is not.
Let the scientists do their cagey scientist thing, but for heaven’s sake, can’t we simply acknowledge all the evidence is bad, the chance of a significant rise in Arctic methane emissions is very high, and the risk is so great we’d better do something about it regardless of what we can prove or not?
If you really believe the clathrates and permafrost are not melting while every other part of the cryosphere is, then this is for you:
:o
Actually, the real question is, given things are already very tenuous and adding even a percentage point or two of the stored methane would likely leave us with a very small chance of success, what can we do to prevent this from happening? We don’t even need to know if the methane is increasing or not because we need to take action anyway.
I’m a gunslinger, you’re my target, my hand just twitched: whatcha gonna do?
@mitigation: You are now moving into my area of knowledge.
*All of you are familiar with non-liner and chaotic system behavior, so I need not harp on that other than to raise it to immediate awareness.
* Design Principle: organic before non-organic solutions. Geo-engineering is what we do. All biota do. We’ve seen what non-natural choices do. If natural choices exist, and they do, good design says use them first.
Options:
– Re-grow forest ecosystems. (Proof of concept exists: Willie Smits; Hansen has stated reforestation can cover 100% of current emissions.)
– Regenertive Ag. (Proofs of concept exist: Rodale, for one. Change to regenerative practices globally – big ag only, not including home gardens, 40% )
– Reduce consumption. (Growth trumps innovation/efficiency; Jevon’s Paradox and US consumption 1980 – 2000’s: US oil consumption rose 5 million barrels a day while US efficiency rose over 30%. Oops. Reducing consumption is not optional.)
Those three alone have the potential to compensate for more than 100% of current emissions, which means we would be going backwards with CO2e by sometime between mid-century and 2100 if all we did was hold gross non-agricultural emissions constant and implement these changes.
Why in the name of All would we mess with techno-fantasies and their very likely unintended consequences when we can reduce carbon and feed the planet simply by growing more plants and improving our quality of life?
That last brings up two other principles: Each element in a system should have more than one function, and each function should be supported by more than one element.
Also: Least change for max effect. This last is more reflected in type of change rather than scale given we are talking about all agriculture and lots of forests.
All this without even going into the myriad other needs for and benefits of this sort of solutioneering.
If I never hear of schemes for geo-engineering again it will be too soon. My prediction: If we are foolish enough to end up choosing non-natural choices over natural choices, and all that implies, we have already lost. You can’t just get liposuction and expect to remain slim, you have to change how you eat and burn calories. If we don’t change how we eat, any techno gain will be overcome by our poor habits and growth.
K.I.S.S.
222
Knowing Alexandrov , as soon as I learned of his disappearance I conducted telephone interviews with people on the ground in Cordoba and Madrid, and met in DC, London and Paris with some of those investigating the matter.
Scott Mandia’s website:
“Update #4 (09/12/11): We have reached our initial target goal of $10,000 which will cover Mike’s [Michael Mann] immediate legal fees. The excess amount will be moved to a more permanent legal defense fund that we are establishing to help climate scientists with any future legal expenses. We hope this new permanent structure will also allow donors to send money as tax-deductible. Thank you all for your generous support. You are really sending a message. Keep that message going.”
Well done, a sweeping tip of the hat to Scott Mandia and everybody who has contributed to this worthy effort.
I spent some time in public radio management, among other fun work harassing habitual listeners into coughing up some change to support their addiction. There are stacks of data showing that for every person whose conscience penetrates into their wallets to make a donation to causes they care about, about nine more don’t make that leap. Most of the fault lies in slight inconvenience, a significant little in the way we compartmentalize our feelings safely away from our bank accounts. Inconvenience is no longer an excuse because– as typified by this example– without shifting our keisters one iota we can reach Prof. Mandia’s donation page and do Good Work. That leaves only the evaluatin of how much we care about seeing handfuls of dense, abrasive and draggy sand thrown into the gears of scientific progress.
Do we care?
Mandia raised $10k in about 7 days. Factoring in a depletion allowance, he ought to be able to raise much, much more if he can stay visible with his plan and if enough people sincerely care about maintaining scientific integrity.
As you may have heard on-the-air, “You know who you are.” Do you care?
As far as continuing visibility goes, RC and like sites should add a prominent link pointing to Prof. Mandia’s fundraising page.
225, ccpo: Those three alone have the potential to compensate for more than 100% of current emissions, which means we would be going backwards with CO2e by sometime between mid-century and 2100 if all we did was hold gross non-agricultural emissions constant and implement these changes.
I believe that is an achievable goal. Changes already underway in the development of alternative energy and fuel sources will substantially reduce fossil fuel use by 2050. Almost everyone is in favor of reforestation, afforestation, and less disruptive agriculture (beginning with “minimum tillage”).
What do you say to people who assert that 2050 is too late. Barton Paul Levenson reported here that his simulations show the end of civilization for sure by 2050, due to the collapse of the food supply.
[Response: That topic is beyond the ability of anyone here–or anyone anywhere IMO–to address properly, as it is fraught with enormous uncertainties. It quickly goes off the rails. Discussions of climate and agriculture and perfectly fine as long as they are firmly based on what we solidly know. Discussions of the end of civilization do not qualify.–Jim]
I posted this on the other thread, but it looks like this might be where it is more relevant (mods feel free to delete one or the other):
Has anyone else seen this:
http://arctictransport.wordpress.com/
“Commercial shipping through the Northeast Passage over the last couple weeks has reported the seas bubbling as if they were boiling. Their observations have been reported to the science ministry who have sent scientists to investigate.”
Does anyone know about this source? Is it usually reliable?
Does anyone else find the notion of “seas bubbling as if they were boiling” a bit…disconcerting?
Do any of the people who post here or who run the site know any of the scientists going on that emergency excursion to study the ‘dramatic’ increase in methane emissions from the Arctic?
If so, have they heard anything about why exactly they are going up there? What exactly did they hear about? Was it this report from ships in the NE Passage? What are they finding up there now?
ccpo, I agree that when thoughts turn to non-organic (as you say) geo-engineering, it is a sign of utter desperation and that we’ve likely already lost the game. It looks to me as though we are pretty close to there.
The obvious answer to your question about why your very sane solutions aren’t being implemented very quickly while people are considering these kinds of geo-engineering schemes is that it only takes a relatively few people to carry out the latter, whereas you have to convince essentially the whole world to go along with your plan–especially the reduction consumption part. Yours is definitely the sane path. We don’t seem to have taken it, and don’t seem likely to at this point, imho.
Wili, based on the dateline of this article we may have to wait a bit to find out.
“Russian, U.S. scientists set to study methane release in Arctic
VLADIVOSTOK, September 2 (RIA Novosti)
A group of Russian and U.S. scientists will leave the port of Vladivostok on Friday on board a Russian research ship to study methane emissions in the eastern part of the Arctic.
“This expedition was organized on a short notice by the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research and the U.S. National Science Foundation following the discovery of a dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas from the seabed in the eastern part of the Arctic, said Professor Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition.
The group consists of 27 scientists who would attempt to measure the scale of methane emissions and clarify the nature of the process.
The 45-day expedition will focus on the sea shelf of the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Russian part of the Chukotsk Sea, where 90% of underwater permafrost is located.
“We assume that the leakage of methane results from the degradation of underwater permafrost…A massive release of such a powerful greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming,” Semiletov said.”
More
Re: wili said:14 Sep 2011 at 8:28 PM
It seems a Prof Igor Semiletov departed on an (un)planned trip from Vladivostok to go observe this bubbling. Clathrates, sub sea permafrost thawing.
reCaptcha: timed ascendts
> seas bubbling
Methane detection instrument coming along soon that might help:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/status_reports/DC-8_status_08_31_11_prt.htm
The Times Atlas of the World has redrawn Greenland:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/09/greenland-ice-sheet-loss-shows.html
I’m no expert but that looks dubious to me. Has there really been such a large retreat of the ice sheet and loss of ice area, particularly in the east?
Thanks all. The monitors we that are in the area are not yet showing dramatic increases:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/
But as I understand it, methane breakdown is particularly fast and high in the full sun of summer. This fall’s and winter’s data should tell us how significant the release is. (Any chance that, if the increase in methane concentrations is really extreme, they will suppress the data? Sorry to get paranoid, but I do wonder if there is a limit at some point to what they will share with the general public if things really start looking hairy.)
So if it’s a 45 day cruise and ship left from Vladivostok on the second, can we assume that they are up there by now starting their study? Are they completely cut off from satellite communication up there? Are there no scientists affiliated with this site that are in touch with them? Can anyone tell us anything?
How quickly does methane dissipate in the atmosphere? When should we expect the monitors, all of which are at least 1000 miles away from the main areas of methane release (as far as I can tell), to show major increases in atmospheric concentrations if this is really going on at the rate it seems to?
(Sorry for all the back to back questions, and thanks ahead of time for any insights.)
@ Wili, does that ESRL map cover the Northern Sea Route? I can’t see any info for GHGs between Finland and Alaska.
@ SteveF, NASA Greenland melt day anomaly 2010.
Video break. David Mitchell’s Soapbox: climate change doubters.
Hey All,
Hmmm…, many interesting subjects… To pick one, let me consider Coal-vs-Nat Gas to start. Nat Gas is not without it’s issues. First, when in combustion the assumption is correct. Water vapor and CO2 are the primary emissions. However, associated will the ground recovery or pumping if you will there are vast amounts of hydrogen sulfide and CO-CO2 that is associated and must be removed. This same issue also can be observed in the capture of bio-gas. In essence, total Carbon may not be terribly different. That it is lower in sulfates and mercury is it’s greatest pollutant difference. That it also makes a very efficient hydrogen storage medium and can offer a model for the conversion of the liquid fossil fuel infrastructure (bridge fuel), is likely the strongest case for this transition. As for testing if the “boiling Arctic” is methane, the easiest test, a match…
Moving on, I consider that the methane generation of animals to be a non-issue, whether it was horses, buffalo or cattle it does not matter those values are nearly breakeven. As to chickens or turkey, yes domestication has concentrated waste products as has pig farming. Are the total waste values generated greater, yes, as are human waste total values. Population increases have that effect. At issue is what is done with the wastes. We spread chicken wastes on fields, similar to bio-char whether naturally generated by wildfires or ancient farming practices. In essence we recycle a good deal of it, until it reaches the human food chain where most get washed out to sea (treated/non-treated doesn’t matter). Whether the effluent mixes with farm run off or not to cause coastal dead zones or anoxic shorelines is not the issue. As to the better waste treatment, personally I like the idea of packing it away in former coal mines or deep wells located within former fossil fuel pockets.
As to root cause of global warming… I can see where current levels of CO2 could contribute to a increase of normal variation towards a warming condition. That the levels are 135ppm greater then 150ya and fossil fuel emissions are the primary cause does not appear to be supportable. That we are seeing effects that were last seen when total atmospheric levels were 2500ppm, suggests to me there is likely a different forcing responsible for the strong deviations or synoptic changes we are seeing.
To this end I concur that deforestation also plays a part. (Actually this better correlates to 1750-2010 CO2 rise then fossil fuel combustion emissions.) If we look at the Carbon Cycle imballance pre- 1950 there appeared sufficient land based sequestration to offset emissions. Hence, the atmospheric CO2 rise had to of had a different source at that time. Post 1950 I concur fossil fuel combustion has to be the primary cause with 45ppm solely associated there of. That fossil fuels rose to dominance can be attributed to three things, changes in transportation, industrial and home energy systems, increases in human population and reduction of current bio-sphere carbon based energy sources.
So which Carbon source do we begin to address first… Certainly not the primary cause…
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
wili: Can anyone tell us anything?
They likely won’t say a thing unless they see something truly eye-popping. Semiletov and the rest of the bunch have been focusing on this area for years, don’t seem prone to jump the gun by skipping publication.
As somebody elsewhere pointed out (can’t remember where), given the normal timeline of shipborne expeditions “short notice” could well mean the project was put together in response to last year’s publication of papers concerning dramatic increases in methane output in the region. That would be a compressed timeline with a late summer 2011 departure objective a bare year after inception.
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/boards/r-squared-blog-posts/bombshell-solar-and-wind-power-would-speed-up-not-reduce-global-warming/
Anybody want to comment on this post by Robert Rapier? He claims, citing a 1991 Nature article, that closing a coal plant would result in more warming, not less, because the reduction in aerosols emissions would have more impact that the reduction in CO2 emissions. If this has been adequately discussed elsewhere, could you direct me to this discussion?
228, Jim inline: Discussions of the end of civilization do not qualify.–Jim
I am happy with that. Not that my happiness is the goal. But this seems to be a new policy.
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/09/12/bombshell-solar-and-wind-power-would-speed-up-not-reduce-global-warming/
Does anyone want to comment on this post by Robert Rapier. He is claiming, based on a 1991 article in Nature, that closing a coal plant would increase warming rather than decreasing warming, because the reduction in aerosol emissions would outweigh the reduction in CO2 emissions.
#240–Sure. I think he’s being deliberately provocative. And should have been clearer that the effect discussed is short-term only.
> 1991 … closing a coal plant would increase warming
Industry had a lot of old inefficient coal plants reaching end of service life or end of longterm contracts and wanted back then to extend their use as is rather than replacing them with more efficient plants that would put out less sulfate pollution. That was a long time ago and the rationalizations have changed.
Steve Funk @ 240, google Hansen Faustian bargain. Sulfate aerosols caused mainly by burning coal have a net cooling effect. We can’t keep burning coal forever. The longer we keep burning coal the more CO2 we put in the air. Sooner or later we have to stop, preferably we3ll before we burn all the coal there is. Then we pay the Faustian debt: climate warms some more because the sulfate aerosols only stay in the air for 6 – 18 months. The more coal we burn the worse things will be regardless.
“And should have been clearer that the effect discussed is short-term only.”
The point is that the effect discussed is short-term with respect to natural gas as well. I didn’t see too many media outlets focused on that. Most with the sensationalism, and my title is a parody of their sensationalism and failure to highlight what is really happening.
I agree with Jim that predictions about the future end of civilization are insufficiently constrained to be wothwhile. However, I’m not so sure that’s true of claims about the current end of civilization.
Re: sulfate cooling/CO2 warming from coal power
I understand that the Wigley paper is not yet published ? I wonder which model(s) they used for sulfate cooling. I see from the graph on Mr. Rapier’s site, that the warming for zero CH4 leakage peaks at about 0.05C in 2050, and I take it this is above some baseline computed from one or more of the IPCC scenarios ?
On the same note, are there estimates for black carbon dust emissions from coal mining, especially surface mines ? I do not recall the soot/Arctic paper (by Hansen and Kharecha ?) discussing mining sources. I suppose Ramanathan might be the go to guy here. References would be greatly appreciated.
sidd
Re: sulfate cooling/CO2 warming from coal power
I am sorry, I misread the graf: the zero CH4 leak heating, presumably due to loss of sulfate aerosol, peaks at about 0.25C in 2040 and disappears by 2050
my eyes are going, the peak of zero CH4 leak is 0.025C…
> black carbon dust emissions from coal mining
Scholar; try this search and then focus using whatever keywords you find:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=black+carbon+dust+emission+coal+mining
e.g.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479703001737
Dust from digging and transporting falls out quickly. Look along the rail lines that haul the coal cars for those, not so much in the atmosphere. Small particles from incomplete combustion stay in the air longer.