Arctic Ice Holds Much CO2 128
scottie2shoes writes "The Edmonton Journal is reporting fascinating research on the role of arctic ice in absorbing carbon dioxide. It seems that (contrary to what was previously thought) arctic ice actually absorbs significant quantites of CO2 and is thus a key player in the 'greenhouse gas game'. So melting the ice caps won't just flood thousands of square miles of land and wipe out thousands of species, now it is is starting to sound serious..."
Circular (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Circular (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Circular (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Circular (Score:2, Insightful)
However, your so-called "theory" is just uneducated armchair bullshit because - as anyone who has done high school chemistry would know - the solubility of gases in water decreases as temperature increases. So as the ice melts and the oceans get warmer, the dissolved CO2 would in fact be released into the atmosphere, accelerating th
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Circular (Score:3)
This will make the storms, droughts, floodings and the massive migration caused by it much more bearable.
> why would a run-away process happen now?
Um, some totally unimportant lifeform achieved to increase the CO2 level in the last 50 years to the highest amount in the last 100 millenia.
Probably more important, those impertinent pigs and cows are producing tremendous amounts of CH4.
Re:Circular (Score:3, Insightful)
Of all the years the Earth has been around (4.5 billion?), why would a run-away process happen now?
Over the very long term, the history of the earth's climate has been a case of the sun getting gradually hotter, and CO2 levels dropping in compensation. This system nearly broke down around 800 million to 600 million years ago, leaving the earth almost entirely frozen over.
75 million years ago, temperatures were extremely high by today's standards; there is a lot of leeway within the long term equlibriu
Re:Circular (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Circular (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Circular (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me, but how can ocean plankton be the largest consumers of CO2 in the atmosphere ?
With the exception of those animicules that die, dropping a calcium carbonate shell to the ocean floor what happens to plankton blooms? Don't they get eaten, metabolized, and turned back into CO2? Or, if they don't get eaten, don't they poison the water, rot anaerbically, producing CO2 and CH4?
With the exception of animicules that l
Re:Circular (Score:2)
Re:Circular (Score:2)
Re:Circular (Score:2)
Re:Circular (Score:5, Informative)
While it's true that Venus is closer to the sun than we are, and Mars is further away, that's not the whole truth. Believe it or not, more solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface than ours. The albedo (i.e. reflectivity) of Venus is so high that most sunlight is reflected back out into space before it has a chance to heat the surface. In the case of the Earth, about 50% gets through and about 50% is reflected. The difference in distance between each planet and the sun is not enough to overcome this effect.
An important reason why Mars is so much colder than the Earth is not that it's further away but that it's also much less massive. The martian atmosphere may not be heated as strongly as the terrestial atmosphere, so the atoms and molecules may not move as fast, but they don't have to move as fast to escape and over the aeons they leak away. There are other factors involved, some of them caused or influenced by the lower mass, but this is one of them. Others include the lack of a strong magnetic field (to keep the solar wind at a good distance from heating the upper atmosphere) and, perhaps, the lack of active plate tectonics in recent history.
Turning to Venus, it rotates very slowly and does not have a pernament magnetic field. In its early history it probably had an atmosphere quite like the early Earth's and was very probably at much the same sort of temperature as on the Earth today, but just a bit warmer. Venus was still closer to the sun than was the Earth, but the Sun was noticeably cooler in those days (about 75-80 percent of present luminosity). Not having a magnetic field helped to heat the upper atmosphere; water was photolysed to hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen leaked away. At some point in its history, Venus got just a little bit too warm before life had evolved enough to start stabilising the climate as it has done here on Earth for the last few billion years. No-one got around to inventing photosynthesis in a big way to mop up carbon-dioxide and replace it with much less effective (as a greenhouse gas) oxygen while the lack of plate tectonics meant that organic matter and water wasn't safely swept ip into the upper mantle. At least one important feedback mechanism was missing on Venus and the greenhouse effect ran away until we see the conditions today: less solar heating at the surface than the Earth, but a temperature high enough to melt lead.
Paul
Huh? (Score:1)
Paul, are you a Venusian? If so, your .sig ("abandon all hope, ye who enter here") had better be posted some way up in orbit in case you're expecting any of us to drop by...
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Oh well, can't win them all. I think myself lucky if I win any.
Nice to see someone can read mediaeval Italian. Pity you had to give it away to hoi polloi.
Ob-ontopic: The amount of CO_2 in the Martian atmosphere is much higher by percentage terms (about 98%) than in the terrestial atmosphere (about 0.3%) but similar in absolute terms (i.e. partial pressure). It's a bit les
Re:Circular (Score:5, Informative)
And we simply dump too much CO2. "The average American per capita emission is 5 tons of carbon annually." [ucsd.edu]> (Damn! It's TOO much!)
More CO2 on the air, plus oceans retaining less C02 means something bad will happen.
Re:Circular (Score:1)
Re:Circular (Score:1)
Re:Circular (Score:2)
Of course it's only a theory, and not one I'd bet the farm on.
Literally, we have bet all the farms on it already.
Coastal flooding is the least of my worries should there be an actual significant warming trend, man-made or otherwise.
It's that once arable land helping to feed 6 billion people will lose it's agricultural productivity. Oklahoma may become a dustbowl and we'll all need to move north to Manitoba to grow wheat. And that's taking the optimistic view that the area of temperate climate just "mo
Re:Circular (Score:1)
Re: Circular (Score:3, Informative)
> So greenhouse gases cause global warming which melt the ice caps and then releases greenhouse gases?
Yep, positive feedback cycles are "circular".
Re: Circular (Score:1, Interesting)
This is way off topic, but it was in your signature line. I was listening to an interview with Matt Groening on Fresh Air (I think) and he explained this point. He was trying to make it a point that Bart hates his father but loves this clone that looks exactly like his father.
You can listen to the interview [npr.org] online. I may be remembering a different interview, but I am quite sure that the similarities between Homer and Krusty was intentional.
[OT] Homer and Krusty (Score:1)
>> How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?
> This is way off topic, but it was in your signature line. I was listening to an interview with Matt Groening on Fresh Air (I think) and he explained this point. He was trying to make it a point that Bart hates his father but loves this clone that looks exactly like his father.
Thanks. Several other people have answered, and I just haven't gotten around to changing my
Re:Circular (Score:2)
Many people are unaware that fully one third of the world's biomass is taken up by methane-metabolizing microbes of the Arcaea family -- close ancestors to the lifeforms that dominated the Earth before the evolution of plant species forever changed us from a primarily methane atmosphere to one of oxygen, CO2, and nitrogen. Marine biologists have only become fully aware of their existence in the past few decades. Buy this month's Discover magazi
Enter the diamond age (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:1)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
e
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:1)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:3, Flamebait)
Basically, different atoms are bonded together with these "chemical bonds," and the "bond energies" of these "chemical bonds" determines the stability of the compound and how much "energy" is needed to break them or is produced in creating them.
The "chemical bonds" in CO2 are quite strong, so breaking them apart to form C and O2 would require a LOT of chemical "energy" (the same "energy," in fact, produc
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
Whoever made that suggestion didn't know much about chemistry.
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:1)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
The net reaction is this:
6CO2 + 6H2O (+ light energy) -> C6H12O6 + 6O2
It would be the reverse reaction of burning C6H12O6 (glucose), not carbon.
For a more detailed stepwise reaction: here [hawaii.edu]
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:1)
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you'll find that as you progress through college that your depth of knowledge is actually quite small and that you can never know as much as you want too. The breadth of human discovery is just too large for any one person to know everything. It is actually quite interesting to see how specialized some Doctoral thesis are. Someday soon you will f
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
Seriously, though, I know that I am not omniscient, and I know that I want to learn more. Also, keep in mind that the original poster pointed out later that he knew what he was posting was ridiculous.
If I were to be truly condescending/unhappy/mad at someone here, it would be because he pretend to know what he is talking about, even though he was
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:3, Funny)
You just need a very sharp chisel.
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:5, Funny)
> something called "chemical bonds" and
> something called "energy."
Hey, no problem: Global warming means more
energy, right?
And we can easily exploit it, since
temperature differences are what make
engines run. Here's my plan: Take a big
wire, put one end in the cold past, and
the other end in the hot future....
Uh, nevermind.
Re:Enter the diamond age (Score:2)
Here's my plan: Take a big
wire, put one end in the cold past, and
the other end in the hot future....
Whoa! You just invented the Trans-Temporal Atmospheric Sterling Engine. Once you begin construction, I'm going to follow the wire that leads to the past and patent the idea. Unless...you've already laid the wire that leads to the future and you knew I was going to post this so you've already patented it. Damn you!
More Info? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More Info? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one ever compares the actual amounts of energy or chemicals, nor do they estimate the CO2 sinks in the world that are natural.
It's kind of like the traffic studies that say "If we build another lane, people will just fill it up, so why do it?" rather than "Building one more lane will increase traffic flow by X0 and decrease travel time by X1, which is estimated to increase the economy by Y, and it will cost Z to build it."
Re:More Info? (Score:4, Informative)
The really detailed numbers are in http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/ (which is about 1000 fairly technical pages. There are various summaries and the US report independently confirmed that they are reasonably accurate summaries,
gambling on the future of carbon sinks (Score:2)
There is the trap of killing the messenger, upon hearing bad news. You aren't falling into this trap, are you?
So, what are these carbon sinks that you want us to gamble on?
It seems to me that most carbon sinks that are put forward only work in the short term. Can we lock carbon up in forests? Temporarily, maybe. Forests burn. Or trees fall down, and decay, and their
Is this new? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another nasty factor contributing to the runaway positive feedback loop is the warming of bogs. The strip of bogs around the northern part of the world holds 25% of all of the world's carbon- it's one helluva sink. As the climate warms up, the bogs start warming up, which will start releasing a lot of methane and CO2. A professor here at my school (John Pastor) has been doing work measuring this. Spooky stuff.
Re:Is this new? (Score:2)
Re:Is this new? (Score:2)
There is. It's called life. Organisms en mass have two tendencies: to adapt to be comfortable in their environment and to adapt their environment so that it becomes comfortable to them.
Once upon a time, chlorophyll was invented. It converted the plentiful carbon dioxide to plentiful oxygen, leaving a small amount of carbon dioxide behind. Most every other organism takes that oxygen and converts it back to CO2 so that the chlorophyll-contain
Re:Is this new? (Score:2)
Basically, surviving plant species and aerobic bacteria can slowly crank down the temperature by flourishing in the carbon and methane rich atmosphere. Essent
Where does it go? (Score:4, Interesting)
If passing the CO2 down to the ocean, I think it would be beneficial to have less ice to allow more plankton in the open water to convert CO2 to O2.
If absorbing in the ice, are there huge bubbles? What is the capacity? Has the ice not reached it's capacity over the last several thousand years? If not, then when would it reach it's storage capacity anyway?
What is the mechanism for the transmission of CO2 through solid ice?
How did the earth get rid of CO2 before man started generating it by burning fossil fuels?
Re:Where does it go? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where does it go? (Score:2)
There are a huge number of variables when you are talking about the climate and we only know the smallest bit about it. We know Earth has gone through warming and cooling cycles before without our help and for all we know, trying to prevent it might end up making it worse.
Luckily, we are rather adapti
Re:Where does it go? (Score:2)
> can't even get an accurate prediction of the local
> weather 1 *day* in advance, we are trying to claim
> we know what will happen on a global scale years
> in advance.
That's like saying that because you can't predict in detail the motion of a bit of soap scum when you open the drain that you can't say that the tub is going to empty.
Re:Where does it go? (Score:1)
Although icebergs appear solid, they and nearly all naturally-formed ice are in constant transition between liquid and solid. As small portions transition to liquid, the super-cool water is extremely capable of dissolving gases - like CO2. When it refreezes not all of the gas escapes. Over time, CO2 is consumed and trapped. That's where it goes.
Were nature allowed to take its course, it sounds like this spiral would lead to a dominance of plant life that maximizes growth (CO2 consumption) and minimizes ne
Another hitherto unforseen danger (Score:5, Funny)
Chemistry wonkiness (Score:2)
According to some "back of the envelope" math that I found on Google, the breaths of human beings contribute 0.000036% of the worlds carbon dioxide supply per day (which balances out with the fact that all the carbon they exhale comes from eating plants or things that eat plants).
If you drop that down to a single collective simultenous breath, we all put out about 2.9 million liters of carbon dioxide or about the amount equal to the
Buoyancy please.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Plural?
Remember that melting the north polar ice cap will not raise sea level...
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But that isn't all exactly true, because the Earth is spinning. As ice melts at the North Pole, the Earth will become slightly less spherical, resulting in higher sea levels at the equator, and possibly making a slight difference in the need for leap seconds.
Now whether that effect is significant or not, I have no idea.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:2)
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is true that the (slightly) less dense ice is somewhat taller, so it might effect the Ear
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:1)
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:3, Informative)
The greenland icecap is also on land, and it's on par with the antarctic icecap in terms of volume of ice. BUT, theres a big difference if it all melts. The greenland icecap is situated between a couple mountain ranges, and is in places more than 3 miles thick, with a bottom well below sea level. If it all melts, it becomes a huge lake, whereas if the antarctic
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:2)
Are you sure? The CIA factbook says that Greenland is three times the size of Texas, and that Antarctica is 1.5 times the size of the USA. The CIA factbook says Greenland has 1,755,637 sq km ice-covered, and Antarctica has 13.72 million sq km ice-covered.
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:2)
True, but rising sea level is only one of the problems associated with the green house effect. Too much fresh water flowing from the north pole could stop the gulf stream which will have catastrophic effects on the climate throughout the world, and start a new ice age in Europe and north America. Similarly, the raising of atmospheric temperature will have an unpredictable effect on weather everywhere, and could cause severe economic d
Re:Buoyancy please.... (Score:2)
the next Ice Age will solve the problem of global warming!!!
I cant decide whether I'm joking or not...
Ice Ages (Score:1)
co2 sequestering in ice in prehistoric times (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:co2 sequestering in ice in prehistoric times (Score:2)
Here is the decent overview [theecologist.org] article.
Here is the article on deep ocean microbes [discover.com].
Here is the article on killer lakes [si.edu].
yeah. great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless people are actually dying at an alarming rate, no amount of evidence is going to change anything. The US is not focused on being "earth happy" is any way. Be superpower, stay superpower, alone. Through economic and military might now, but perhaps scientific or educational might on a better day.
However, until the Atlantic currents slow to a crawl and we have another Ice Age, we're going to have to just deal with freakish weather and high insurance premiums.
Re: yeah. great. (Score:3, Interesting)
> Unless people are actually dying at an alarming rate, no amount of evidence is going to change anything.
I think the Great Melt is already upon us. Just look at the news of the past few years: Glacier National Park is becoming Bare Rock National Park; unprecedented signs of melt in the Artic last year; signs of instability in Antartic ice; predator-prey relationships getting out of whack due to an earlier spring melt. A few years earlier, Otzi melting out of the Alpine snow for the first time in 5000
Re:yeah. great. (Score:1)
Fact is, I've always seen "Global Warming" as a bunch of balony... the Earth goes through Cycles. Ice ages, warmer periods, etc. There are a lot of paranoid people out there.
Yes, pollution harms the environment, but it happens slowly. People like Green Gore that want to eliminate the Internal Combustion engine overnight are just nuts. This technology needs to Develop proper
Never mind ARCTIC ice... (Score:3, Insightful)
nice theory, but -- (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is where today's science becomes guesswork, however. Less ice could actually be better. Scientists still know very little about how the Arctic Ocean processes carbon, and a competing theory holds that open water could actually pick up more greenhouse gases.
If human activity is turning "much of the Arctic into a polynya (a body of water that doesn't freeze in winter), then the Arctic or polar seas may become much more effective at removing the atmospheric carbon than they currently are," Papakyriakou said.
The poster of this article (and those discussing the potential positive feedback mechanism that kicks in if ice is a greater sink than open water) are really smudging the issue here, and smudging it for political effect without regard either for the necessarily tentative nature of science at the margins (here, the untested margins of modelling an entire planetary ecosystem) or for the consequences of making scientists look like ridiculous Chicken Littles.
I ride a bicycle to work, take the train, and am generally supportive of environmentally friendly living and governance. But, as a scientist, I am severely disappointed when other scientists (let alone journalists or Greenpeace) take an unfinished scientific debate and use it to propose sweeping changes in our lives -- changes that woud plunge a huge number of people into poverty (I live an environmentally sustainable life, but it does cost a lot more and I wouldn't demand that a single mother of two do it as well -- hey, you driving that pickup! shell out $50,000 for an electric car.)
This is turning into a bit of a rant, but if you want to learn what other enivronmentalists -- who are also scientists -- think about the current fights over the greenhouse effect, GMOs, etc, you should read Patrick Moore [taemag.com]'s recent article (Moore was the cofounder of Greenpeace.)
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
How the #$#@ is one supposed to pull a trailer or get hay with a wimpy $50k electric car? Especially when one can get a recent used pickup for $10k and pay less than half the insurance to boot?
If it's used exclusely as a commuting vehicle, perhaps I can see your objection. But a truck is a working ve
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:1)
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
And sorry.. you hit the button on the 'wasteful polluting pickup' and got the stock response. (What kind of milage does that hybrid get hauling a 2 horse trailer? No? How about a ton of grain? A couple sheets of sheetrock and a dozen 2x4s?)
Now the just for show 'don't come near it or you'll scratch the paint' trucks
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
Heads up: different poster now.
I don't think anyone's saying that if you really have a need for a large vehicle, that you shouldn't use that vehicle. I don't think anyone's ever said that. If you need a truck, then when people say we need to cut down on trucks and SUVs, they clearly aren't talking to you.
What is more often complained about is people who only think they need a truck or SUV. My girlfriend is a case in point. Much as I would like her to simply get a small car, she won't for a couple reason
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:3, Interesting)
But, as a scientist, I am severely disappointed when other scientists (let alone journalists or Greenpeace) take an unfinished scientific debate and use it to propose sweeping changes in our lives...
Are you sure you're a scientist? Most scientific theories are continually debated and the debates are never finished. There will never be certainty on this issue. That's the nature of scientific theories. Playing the uncertainty card is the tactic of corporate spin-meisters who are content to drag this issu
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2, Interesting)
Playing the "playing the card" is the tactic of far too many people.
Some science is better understood than others. Tobacco causes cancer: p
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:2)
Have you considered the vast economic disruption that would be caused by stopping all CO2 emissions instantly?
Ironically, the biggest single change - moving to an all-Nuclear electric grid with off-peak electricity used to make some liquid fuel (Methanol being my preference) would actually lead to cheaper and more reliable electricity, as well as slashing CO2 emissions.
Of course, suggesting a technically feasable and affordable solution that requires no major lifestyle changes, eliminates acute pollutan
Re:nice theory, but -- (Score:1, Funny)
Oh my god! They had the temerity to express a dissenting opinion? Off with their heads. In science there is no room for debate, only blind adherance to the status quo.
Yikes (Score:2)
Solar, solar, solar, solar. Switch to solar now.
And now for further details.... (Score:3, Funny)
In a most impressive statement of The Blindingly Obvious, Professor Julian Something-Thriller was heard commenting that
"See-oh-two is a GreenHouse Gas, every conference and research project on Global Warming involves vast amounts of rather heated debate greatly increasing the output of said GreenHouse Gas due to the aspirations of the entire scientific community"
When asked why nobody had seen this coming he retorted that "Even a bumbling fool knows that most GreenHouse gases are invisible to the naked eye."
I often wonder (Score:1)
When I die of starvation (Score:2)
What we need... (Score:1)
And the journalists can all go to hell...
Re:What we need... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a problem with this, real math is not sensationalist journalism, and it wont get the public attention required to continue scraping out grants for research.
This whole issue of warming, it's all sensationalized, and, the single biggest factor is completely ignored. If you read the common media, you are left with the impression that because we release a little more co2 than we used to, a whole bunch of heat gets trapped, and everything changes. Well, hat
Re:What we need... (Score:5, Informative)
A range of solar radiation hits the Earth, a chunk of which is passed unimpeded by the CO2 in the atmosphere. This radiation hits the ground, water, whatever, gets bounced around a bit, absorbed and re-emitted preferentially at frequencies at which CO2 is more opaque. Thus CO2 in the atmosphere has a greater effect on decreasing the energy radiated part of the equation and less on the energy absorbed part.
If this picture is correct, a greater CO2 percentage in the atmosphere, other things being more or less equal, would lead to a higher steady state mean temperature.
PS: I'd wager most serious climatologists don't get a kick (or kickbacks) from scaring the population with the spectre of global warming. In fact, if you're looking for kickbacks, you're much more likely to find them on the other side of the fence. There is a real fear, backed by observed facts and admittedly primitive models, that the effect of mankind's activities on the environment will yield severe changes in climate in the not so distant future. Given how painful such changes would be, this ostritch approach towards the issue seems incredibly stupid.
Re:What we need... (Score:2)
Therein lies my whole point. The assumption of 'other things being more or less equal'. Look again at the equation, accounting for what you bring up.
Xfa-Yfb=E
X = Input from the sun
Y = Radiation to space
fa= Filter factor for atmosphere incoming
fb= Filter factor for atmosphere outgoing
If the change in atmosphere composition affects the
Re:What we need... (Score:2)
Historically, variation in X does not plausibly explain the variation in mean temperature shown over last hundred years or so. Looking forward, it seems unlikely (although not impossible) that X will drop enough over the next hundred years to coun
Re:What we need... (Score:2)
It is transparent to most of the energy coming from the Sun, which gets through and is absorbed by the land and sea (but not by ice, which reflects just about all of it).
The warm land and sea then radiates heat. BUT, it is not nearly as hot as the sun, so it radiates at much longer wavelengths. CO2 is opaque to these wavelengths, so it absorbs this energy and re-radiates part of it downward.
A planet with a CO2 atmosphere (eg Venus) receiving the s
Re:What we need... (Score:1)
thier entire arguement is based on the premise that the heat output from the sun is NOT changing.
Liar [aip.org]
Reading the rest of your post, do you seriously think that the scientists have not thought of this (and a whole lot more besides)? Do you bother to look at the science behind the headlines?
All the maths in the world... (Score:2)
So really, don't get your panties in a know every time a new alarm sounds.
Unstable (Score:2)
Re:Unstable (Score:2)
You left out (c) that human acitvity will be just enough to push the system out of the current equilibrium.
I wonder if, when the climate goes bonkers, God
Re:Unstable (Score:2)
For that matter, (d) natural changes occurring as a result of other non-climatological cycles (solar activity, volcanic activity) could be to blame. Either of those could also nudge the system off the equilibrium point.
"I wonder if
Coming, to a theatre near you (Score:1)
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/dayaf