Siberian Permafrost Melting 1023
TeknoHog writes "New
Scientist Reports on a remarkable runaway process of global warming
that has been going on in Siberia for the past few years. 'Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3C in the last 40 years.' As a result, a million
square kilometers (the area of France and Germany) of frozen peat bog have
been found to be melting, according to Russian and international
scientists. This releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, which
contributes to further global warming."
Problematic, but some benefits (Score:5, Interesting)
Again, from all the science it seems like global warming will be a catastrophe, but it would be nice to find a few more bog people.
And yes, I have a degree in anthropology.
Alternate energy source (Score:3, Interesting)
Not particularly scientific. (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't panic! (Score:1, Interesting)
"We expel methane all the time...well, Laura and I do"
Re:American jobs! (Score:0, Interesting)
Air is getting warmer inside heads too... (Score:2, Interesting)
Hello, we are coming out of an ice age! I know I am one of the 'unwashed masses' when it comes to the science of Global Warming, so don't take this as an authority, but last I heard, the Earth fluctuates quite frequently (geologic time) in temperature, and the dinosaurs were enjoying world-wide tropics.
We very well may be causing this, which would be bad, but what if we are not?
Before you mod me down, remember, good scientists ask lots of questions, annoying questions.
Burning methane (Score:5, Interesting)
It is debatable whether 99% remediation is sufficient, but surely it's a good start. At the very least, it would be nice to use some of the energy produced in combustion to sequester the CO2 rather than dump it into the atmosphere.
Mal-2
No, you are incorrect (Score:1, Interesting)
Aside from this, the problem with global warming is that it does not represent the earth steadily warming up-- even if the earth had been steadily warming before human-caused global warming started. Instead, what we see is a decidedly non-steady, drastic, sudden, and accelerating trend in increasing temperatures right at the beginning of the industrial age.
We very well may be causing this, which would be bad, but what if we are not?
Then we're going to have to come up with entirely new models of how climate and atmosphere works, because the ones we have right now all say at the most basic level that if you drastically increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (and humanity has definitely done this) the climate changes.
Aside from this, think of it like this. Driving while drunk might kill you. However, what if it will not? Well, to what extent does the answer to this question matter? Because that's an outside chance at best.
Before you mod me down, remember, good scientists ask lots of questions, annoying questions.
Indeed, so in future if I were you I would stick to asking questions rather than randomly positing statements like "the earth has been steadily warming up for the last several thousand years" without finding backup for that.
Re:The orgy must end (Score:3, Interesting)
Give me a break.
Henry Ford made millions, but he also made fire trucks more mobile. Too bad they didn't have that in 1871 Chicago [wikipedia.org].
Franklin, Edison, Tesla, Shockley and Turing made research and information retrieval so much easier. Are you willing to give up your beloved Slashdot? I didn't think so.
If you are, let me know, and I'll provide the shovel so you can dig your cave. Once you have a hole big enough, you can use the shovel to beat away the wild animals.
Re:CAN YOU SPOT THE REAL SCIENTIST? (Score:3, Interesting)
Peat Bog? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, wait....if it's not natural for this formerly "permafrost" peat bog to be melting, how is it that this peat moss was, at some point, able to grow in the first place?
Re:The orgy must end (Score:3, Interesting)
- Abandon capitalism (though not freedom), it drives consumerism.
- Raise taxes, if taxes are high enough, then no one will have enough money to be consumers... wait, this is kind of like getting rid of capitalism.
- Teach people the value of community, and of living for something greater than trying to attain personal nirvana. We would probably have to ban advertising since the goal of advertising is to make us feel inadequate about our current status, and offers a solutions for $19.99.
Dang, I think I just became a communist, but that went out with the 90's, so that probably won't work either.
Changing the momentum which consumerism has developed this century is not going to be an easy task. It may be faster to just embrace it, in order to help accelerate it over the cliff it may or may not be headed towards a little sooner. It may be unfortunate that billions may go with it along with our economy, ecology, environment and all, but if the evolutionists are correct, a billion years from now, it will all just be an extra thick grey layer in some rock, and some scientist from the current dominant species will be trying to figure out what amazing catastrophy could have caused such a mass extinction as they simulate possible scenarious on their newly developed toxic byproduct producing technology.
Can technology solve the problems it is creating? It seems to be creating bigger problems than it is solving.
Maybe the Unibomber was right, and we should all go back and live in small farming communities.
Personally I think the problem is that the current dominating western culture promotes greed as a good thing. It must be good, it drives our economy, creates jobs, drives people to produce, etc... Unfortunately, it lacks any balance of heart.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm going to hurry up and build my 70' composite catamaran and sail to Kenya so I can see the glaciers of Kilamanjaro before they are totally gone. Then I'll set out to answer the latest question that's been really nagging at me: "If we cut down all the trees on the earth, would the earth spin faster?" I think I'll start in the Amazon, there's a lot of big trees there.
Re: Third Post (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Burning methane (Score:2, Interesting)
Terraforming and Methane (Score:2, Interesting)
The nearest terraforming solution would be the use of methanotrophes, a bacteria that is known to consume methane.
It's worth a read (it's enviro-techy, a good combination).
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003283.html [worldchanging.com]
Re:thawing frozen peat bog (Score:4, Interesting)
On the one hand this is unknown territory for humans as you mention. It is the 'greenhouse effect' which could have dramatic consequences including an ice age if ocean currents flip.
It is playing with fire. This is possibly the worst thing that can happen in the last several thousand years.
But it is the greenhouse effect. If you have ever worked around greenhouses, you inject C02 to induce faster plant grow. Like plants like bogs..
Why did dinosaurs tower 3 stories? The biomass could support them. Would we survive a transition to a CO2 rich atmosphere? I don't know.
Re:Air is getting warmer inside heads too... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is precisely the point I try to drive home. Even the experts don't really know what the hell is going on, and why should we expect them to? It's not as if we spend an enormous amount of money researching either the direct question or the indirect factors involved (such as peat bogs, the supposed topic of this discussion).
I have no problem with the government directing a good chunk of change in trying to figure out what's going on, what part is due to our activities, and what - if anything - can be done to slow down the change. Assuming that's what we want to do. Which it might not be, if it turns out that it's human activity which is preventing our break between ice ages from ending.
I have a huge problem with passing seat-of-the-pants legislation which will have real, measurable, enormous effects on our standard of living, but which lacks a single iota of proof that it will have any effect (or the desired effect) just because some folks are convinced they have all the answers, and want to force their world-view on everything else.
The science here is primitive. Better science I'll vote for, and put my tax dollars behind. Bullshit legislation based on wishful thinking I won't.
Max
Re:Air is getting warmer inside heads too... (Score:2, Interesting)
"has anyone taken into consideration that the earth has been warming up steadily for the past several thousand years?"
From how I understand it, the earth is at a point in one of its longer cycles which brings it unusually close to the sun. At the same time mankind is dumping millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. At the same time mankind is destroying a significant proportion of the natural means to deal with said gases.
Add all this up and you have a reasonable explanation for the heating.
The biggest worry at the moment is whether we are adding enough into the mix to initiate a runaway greenhouse effect. If this is the case we've left a pretty fucked up planet for our kids to inherit...
No joking matter when it hits you (Score:2, Interesting)
Definetly gives you an entirely new view on the global warming, because now it hits very close to home. It's not just another story in the evening news, it's something that affects you and the ones close to you.
So now when I read about this in Siberia, my first thought was: "Great! So in following years even more people will die or loose their houses..."
I'm getting married this year. And I find myself alarmingly often asking myself if I really want to raise a child in this world...
Need I remind you... (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you need to factor in every single extinct homonid species and subspecies that did NOT make it.
Sure, humanity survived without technology. Mind you, we weren't exactly causing this level of pollution a million years ago, either. Even with just "natural causes" to contend with, the vast majority of hominids did NOT make it and we damn near didn't, either.
Will we survive global warming? Possibly. Humans are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently mobile that it would take a total collapse of the ecosystem to finish off the race. That could happen, though. It is possible.
Will it decimate humanity? Oh, very likely. I suspect the human population will be in the hundreds of millions, by the end of the century, rather than the projected tens of billions. It depends on just how much the environment lags behind the input.
If the lag is sufficiently small, we're seeing the major effects of what we're doing now right now. This means a 5C rise over the last century would result in a 5C rise this century (we've had exponential growth, so far, but efficiency is beginning to catch up, so we can't just do a simple extrapolation). A 10C total rise would finish off life in the tropics and severely reduce it in the subtropics.
If, however, the lag is closer to a century (much more likely) then we're barely seeing the effects of the Industrial Revolution. A 5C rise now could translate to a cumulative 20-25C rise over a century from now, with no additional input from us. That's just from what we've put into the environment already, allowing for the time lags inherent in a global scale.
But, of course, humans aren't going to stop the pollution tomorrow. And if efficiency does NOT improve to reduce pollution, then the 20-25C rise will be an underestimate. In that case, a few hamlets might survive on the antarctic continent, but the rest of the planet will resemble Death Valley.
Re:Word From the Whitehouse (Score:3, Interesting)
You voted for a born-again christian.
believe humans are most likely to blame for global warming
You voted for a former oil company executive who believes that "the jury is still out" on global warming.
recycle everything I can, ride my bike to work year round (even though I do own an SUV)
You voted for a "free trade" booster who has opened the borders to more cheap disposable Chinese and Central american goods.
and, wait for it - voted for Bush. Twice. Wait, three times if you count the elder. Oh, and I have a PhD in biochemistry. There are many different reasons why people vote Republican.
Some kind of sadism / masochism thing?
Do you also hire someone to beat you with a whip?
Me? I am sick of entitlements.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are crooked, everyone knows that. The Republicans dole out as much pork as anyone.
Fast forward to the present, I am now stuck with a Democratic governor (Gregoire, Washington) who, despite promising not to, stuck me with the most bloated budget ever. A nice reminder of why I vote Republican at the national level.
Take a look at the budgets coming out of our Republican-controlled congress. Neither party care about fiscal responsibility any more.
I'm not trying to be cruel here (unless you're... you know... into that...) but can you name even a SINGLE issue that you agree with W. on?
And no, the balanced budget thing doesn't count, since he didn't actually do it!
Re:Word From the Whitehouse (Score:5, Interesting)
Global Warming is Damn Complex (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Word from Chicken Little (Score:4, Interesting)
Our energy production is in no way relevant, as the Earth's energy input from the Sun is still thousands of times more than that. Let's make a rough calculation... One kW per square meter makes 60*60*24*365*1000*pi*6300000^2=3.9322e+24 J per year. Divide that by your 500 exaJ, and you get about 8000. Ok, some is reflected (earth's albedo is
All heat on surface of earth is radiated to space, all the time, no matter how it is generated, so Earth's energy input and output are about exactly the same. It's the buffer effect of the atmosphere that matters.
So the only thing that is relevant, is CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, which keep the Sun's energy trapped. Please keep to the facts.
Re:The boat parable (Score:5, Interesting)
In (a), you're assuming that this is a do or die. Either they will make it to shore, or they won't. In reality, the question isn't "is the planet going to die" it's "how badly is the planet going to die, and how badly has it already died". So yes you are right, either we can (b) start bailing (fixing the problem) or (actually the proper word here is AND, but you'd rather we forget that) we can take measurements to see how bad the damage is, how permanent the damage is, and how quickly we need to fix things.
We have what every reputable (non-political / lobby) scientist declares a problem or potential problem. If this is a true problem, we are constantly doing damage even now. You are advising that we double check previous findings before attempting to fix it, instead of attempting to fix it while double checking at the same time. Let me spell this out for you: If we try to fix it and it turns out not to be a problem, we lose billions or trillions of dollars (note: "lose" is of course not taking into account the reduced pollution which is a huge gain even if global warming doesn't exist). If we don't try to fix it while double checking, we lose the footing we need to combat the problem.
Here's another analogy. There is a colored plastic cup upside-down on a table. Underneath is either a mini-cupcake or termite digging into the table. Scientists hear scratching noises through the cup, but can't lift it. Either we fix the problem (smash the cup) which might ruin a cupcake if that is under it, however if it's a termite, we stop an infestation before it enters the table. If we wait around and double check our readings to confirm a termite, it will burrow into the table and squishing it will no longer be possible.
Re:The boat parable (Score:5, Interesting)
c) patch up the leaks and keep working, cause if they don't make a catch on this trip they'll be broke. If they make a catch they might be able to afford patch materials for the next trip AND have money to feed their families.
I believe that's the current method being used.
Re:Interestingly enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a much shorter climate-related transgression cycle for most coasts. In the Netherlands geology, archeology, and history suggest roughly the following cycle for the last few millenia:
Duinkerke III B (1000 - 1200)
Duinkerke III A (800 - 1000)
Duinkerke II (250 - 600)
Duinkerke I (500 - 200 BC)
Duinkerke 0 (1500 - 1000 BC)
Calais IV B (2150 - 1800 BC)
Calais IV A2 (2450 - 2150 BC)
Calais IV A1 (2700 - 2450 BC)
Calais III (3300 - 2700 BC)
The recent stability of coastlines is clearly exceptional. The map of Ptolemaeus [brucop.com] for instance, based on Duinkerke I data, shows most of the Netherlands, a part of Belgium, the east of England, and the Venice area in Italy missing (consistent with a modest rise of the sea level).
Peat formation occurs only in specific cold, wet, and acidic conditions. If land along the coast contains a large amount of peat, a few degrees of warming causing just a slight rise of the sea level, also causes the land to sink. In a few decades land can sink into the sea or turn into a lake, as our ancestors have frequently seen happening in the early middle ages. In 2003 we had two small floods in the Netherlands caused by collapsing peat dikes because of the unusually dry weather.
In the case of Siberia there is another major catalyst for quick change: melting of frozen water in peat. A little change in climate can have great consequences, apparently.
If we have reached some sort of tipping point then hold on. Humans will either learn to adapt or we'll die. I happen to think we'll adapt just fine.
Me too, but I am starting to get slightly worried about the future value of my house.
I hate to break it to y'all (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone notice the price of oil (and other fossil fuels, which have gone up dramatically as well) today?
Back when I was a debater, in college, virtually every proposal to counter Co2 emissions was dependant upon altering the prices of fossil fuels.
Sure, the mechanisms were different; some utilized high levels of taxes, implemented globally. Some used means of artificially limiting supply; when we agree to burn only x exajoules of energy, the price per unit goes up.
In any case, none of those proposals (all of which were directly from left leaning political panels on climate change) envisioned prices as high as they are now, or as high as they are projected to be in the near future. I do not believe there is anyway that political action will be able to unite all the major Co2 emitting countries under one policy. It's simply impossible.
Significantly higher oil prices? We'll have conservation out the wazoo, now, and alternate energy technologies (yes, including Nuclear, which is probably the best way out of fossil fuels in the short run (you take what you can get, and there is the potential for a really wonderful powersource, if the only idiotic nuclear companies would step out of the way for the latest and greatest designs being used in research throughout the world)) are on the short-term horizon.
Anyone notice the hybrid trend? Or walk into a honda dealership or a saturn dealership?
See all the signs about conservation? Fuel Efficiency? Mark my words-- If oil prices collapse again, all of this green-wave will vanish. Keep oil prices high, and we'll move off the fossil fuel economy in the near future.
Quite frankly, if you are really worried about emissions-related global warming, (which I'm not, there are many other factors which I believe account for warming better than industrial era emissions. Like humanities desire to clear forests, and the resulting desertification. Or conversion of various land types to ecologically useless farmland) your best bet is to vote for policies that keep oil prices high, and drive it up through the roof.
If oil was $120-200 a barrel, electric cars would be a reality, even with their dinky 100 mile range. If oil was that high, nuclear plants would be built *right-now*, and the major auto companies would be building a hydrogen economy in conjunction with the oil companies *right-now*. Oh, and oil is projected to be at these levels if demand patterns continue to grow at their current rate.
I never believed the supply-side problems presented by the dooms-dayers of the 70. Rather, I thought we would experience demand that slowly outstripped supply, allowing the market to adjust economic allocations to account for it. That's exactly what we are experiencing. These corporations already have their plans laid; they've been waiting for economic conditions to be right, so they can get the jump on their competitors.
Basically, I'm asking for people to stop clamoring for lower gas prices. It's a blessing in disguise. If oil prices had only gone up from their high in the 70s, we'd live in a different world today. It's really too bad that the Shah's regime collapsed; as the architech of the first-wave price hikes, he would have unknowingly corrected the world dependence on fossil fuels.
The next best step for concerned individuals to take (i.e. people who are not the dictators of statist regimes who can alter prices at whim
That's the way out of fossil fuel emissions. You'll *never*, *ever* get a pure political solution. Attack the economics of the problem, and the free market
Re:Enough.... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the question is, can you actually argue a point without crap like "I wanted to slap you like a bitch" or "you stupid cunt"? Zealot tantrums are an amusing read, but sadly prove nothing in science.
Re:Word From the Whitehouse (Score:5, Interesting)
So you, sick fool, are laughing. Making posts with no content, just some inane partisan crack. While talking about "communists", as if the real ones weren't part of the problem, in collusion with your oil corporate government heroes. When are you going to shut up and let the adults talk about how to salvage the wreck your boys have made? Or at least enlist and go to Iraq as a soldier to "support the troops", instead of just slapping a magnetic sticker (made of oil, in China) on the back of your suburban 12MPG SUV?
Re:Word From the Whitehouse (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:CAN YOU SPOT THE REAL SCIENTIST? (Score:2, Interesting)
GALLANT claims "the jury is still out" on evolution or global warming, since he considers himself to be on the jury.
Here's a surprise for you: there are GALLANT's and GOOFUS's on both sides of the fence.
Re:I hate to break it to y'all (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I'm a believer in free markets. However, it's not clear to me that a free market entirely focused on cost will enforce social change of bad behaviors. Consider the London Fog... the pollution that killed thousands of londoners over the past couple centuries. It was a direct result of burning of wood and coal inside the city.
The cost was in death and health problems. That doesn't change the price of coal or wood. So there is no free market disincentive to not use those materials for heating.
From a macro sense, obviously the London Fog was bad. But from a micro sense, there was no free market incentive to address the problem.
Ultimately the government banned the burning of coal and wood within the city.
Also, another factor that is often ignored by free marketers(mainly of the ignorant Ayn Rand sort)... Society is part of the free market. Fur sales have plummeted in recent years. Not because of the cost of fur, so much, as the social issues surrounding them.
A Free Market includes people arguing against a product.... not just costs of the product.
Re:Word From the Whitehouse (Score:5, Interesting)
No. There are at this point exactly three possible reasons that somebody could vote Republican:
Me? I am sick of entitlements.
And so you vote for the party *most* commited to them?!?
That puts you squarely in category 2.
If anybody else doubts this, let's hear your reasons. It's really pretty simple to put them in one or more of those categories.
Re:Interestingly enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no climate scientist, so take this with a grain of salt, but:
Different "greenhouse gasses" block different parts of the spectrum. It's my understanding that the section that CO2 blocks is already nearly closed. That means that further increases in CO2 will have little effect...there.
OTOH, methane blocks a different window. Ditto for sulfide ions (or perhaps it's hydrogen sulfide).
When a window is blocked, further releases have little effect on temperature, but continued releases prevent the window opening as the current gasses are cycled into the environment.
Methane has a relatively short half-life in the atmosphere. On the order of a decade. Then bacteria eat it and it gets turned into CO2.
HOWEVER, those methane clathrates that you mentioned are stored in "ices" that are very sensitive to the pressure and the temperature of the ocean that surrounds them. Occasionally something happens that causes large releases. If you know what, you know more than I do, but a warmer ocean sounds plausible.
Then there's another greenhouse gas. Water vapor. And we KNOW that that one's quite sensitive to temperature. The hotter it gets, the more water evaporates from the surface of the ocean. The warmer the air is, the longer it stays evaporated. And it's a very potent greenhouse gas.
Now the interesting thing is, the ocean has a long delay built into it. Water only evaporates from the surface, but the ocean has to be heated as a whole, and it has a vast thermal bulk. And water vapor in air is unstable. It tends to percipitate.
So the oceans are slowly being heated, which is increasing the rate of evaporation. And while a warmer atmosphere can hold more water, it can't hold an ocean's worth. So percipitation happens...but where? Not where it used to!
At some point we should start seing wild artic storms...something that hasn't been seen in centuries (at least). As long as the snow all melts in summer, the average temperature of the world will continue increasing, but at some point there will be a year of wilder than normal storms followed by a colder than average summer. This will lead to increased ice-pack, and snow not melting in the summer. But the ocean is still HOT, so it keeps evaporating more water. And in a few years, perhaps less than a decade, the glaciers will again start marching South.
As more and more land is covered by year-round snow, more light gets reflected back out into space. But it takes a long time for the oceans to give up their heat, and until they have finished doing so, there will be lots of percipitation every year, and each year more of it will be in the form of ice and snow.
This vast accumulation of ice and snow on the surface of the land will cause the ocean level to drop. (Sorry, I left out the ocean level rising during the lead up, but you're already familiar with that one.)
The last time the glaciers marched they scooped out the great lakes and Yosemite valley. That's around the latitude of San Francisco and Washington. I'm not sure how far South they got in Europe...but most of it was covered. (OTOH, the Mediterranian Sea was a fertile grassland. The sea level REALLY dropped.)
Another feature of this is that the continents float on a layer of underlying magma, and how high they float depends on how much weight is present. Water is heavy, so when the glaciation is in full force, the continents start to submerge into the magma (they never get very far
So. Well, if you ask how much certainty I have in that model...not much, but more than in any alternative I've been presented with.