Yedoma, that bubbling permafrost methane, 500 gigatons to be released

[sdowney717]

Very sensational to read, do you truly believe it?

http://www.spotlightingnews.com/article.php?news=2748

The emission of methane from lakes in Siberia is "... five times higher than previously estimated," according to a study published in "Nature" by Katey Walter:

"We realized that our previous estimates were missing a very large and important component of lake emissions - in these bubbles were the dominant source of methane from lakes."

The Siberian permafrost that was monitored holds 500 gigatons of carbon, according to Katey Walter:


AND the biggy is
"This newly recognized source of methane is so far not included in climate models."

[Meerkat]

Oh boy, the world is going to smell like cow fart!

[Phillip Allen]

I have known a number of college proffs in my lifetime. One must bear in mind that those noble bastions of intelligence and morals and humanism are getting a lot of their lucre from writing grants for ""studies"...no studies...can't publish...publish or parish... (If you need this explained further, it won't do any good to have it done...I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you!)

[Milo Christensen]

Wow, that's great, forget all that switchgrass and rapid charge ceramic lithium ion battery stuff. Just suck in the mix, compress it, apply a spark.

No smoking, though.

[Bob Adams]

Wow, that's great, forget all that switchgrass and rapid charge ceramic lithium ion battery stuff. Just suck in the mix, compress it, apply a spark.

No smoking, though.

Really, it is a damn shame there is no way to harvest it.

[Milo Christensen]

Both CO2 and Methane liquefy out of the atmosphere at pretty high (relatively speaking) temperatures. It probably wouldn't take much to set up plants in the high Arctic to chill this stuff out in the winter time. But, nobody really seems to want to talk about terraforming measures to bring the atmosphere back where it needs to be.

[Oyvind Snibsoer]

And how, exactly, do you suggest we collect the methane so that we can process it?

[Bruce Hooke]

I have known a number of college proffs in my lifetime. One must bear in mind that those noble bastions of intelligence and morals and humanism are getting a lot of their lucre from writing grants for ""studies"...no studies...can't publish...publish or parish... (If you need this explained further, it won't do any good to have it done...I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you!)

I take it you are suggesting that these are bogus findings? The only other interpretation I can come up with for what you are saying is that you think it was a waste of time to study this effect, whatever the outcome, which makes no sense given the obvious implications of the findings. So, assuming you meant the former...

To suggest that scientists are knowingly publishing "findings" that are false is simply absurd. Here are a few reasons why:

Professors also gain status by finding holes in other people's research. Research results that lack a solid scientific foundation don't get published because it makes the publishing journal look stupid when someone points out the holes. If bad research does get published it usually gets pointed out pretty damn quickly, and retracted or corrected. Someone who publishes research findings that don't hold up to scrutiny is likely to have a very hard time getting funding for future research and may even risk loosing their job if they did something blatant like falsifying data. This is not to say that scientists don't sometimes reach the wrong conclusions or misinterpret data or make errors in gathering data or even in rare cases falisfy data. Nobody is perfect. But, by the time a paper gets into print in a prestigous journal like Nature it has been pretty carefully vetted and over time errors are generally uncovered. In the case of a high-profile finding like this you can bet that other scientists are going to be scrambling to look into the issue in greater depth so if anything was done wrong in the original study it will be uncovered when others try to repeat the results.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

.... to bring the atmosphere back where it needs to be.

The atmosphere has needs! now there really is news.

Quite apart from Milo's point.

I am - in the old phrase - sick to the back teeth - of reading posts which say either;
A - A calamity (which I don't understand) is coming.
or
B - We will be saved by a technology (which I don't understand).

The only part of these posts which is consistent is the implicit lack of understanding - of the political implications, the physics, the maths, or the economics.

That the climate will change is a given - that sea levels will change is another given - mans influence on these may be debated for intellectual stimulation but such debate will have no utility.

The serious questions are about how we as individuals, and as societies, hope to weather these changes.

[Meerkat]

But cher newt, ze wringing of ze hands and ze waving of ze arms, she is so much easier! ;)

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

And, it must be said, the wringing of the necks - so much more satisfying.

[Phillip Allen]

I take it you are suggesting that these are bogus findings? The only other interpretation I can come up with for what you are saying is that you think it was a waste of time to study this effect, whatever the outcome, which makes no sense given the obvious implications of the findings. So, assuming you meant the former...

To suggest that scientists are knowingly publishing "findings" that are false is simply absurd. Here are a few reasons why:

Professors also gain status by finding holes in other people's research. Research results that lack a solid scientific foundation don't get published because it makes the publishing journal look stupid when someone points out the holes. If bad research does get published it usually gets pointed out pretty damn quickly, and retracted or corrected. Someone who publishes research findings that don't hold up to scrutiny is likely to have a very hard time getting funding for future research and may even risk loosing their job if they did something blatant like falsifying data. This is not to say that scientists don't sometimes reach the wrong conclusions or misinterpret data or make errors in gathering data or even in rare cases falisfy data. Nobody is perfect. But, by the time a paper gets into print in a prestigous journal like Nature it has been pretty carefully vetted and over time errors are generally uncovered. In the case of a high-profile finding like this you can bet that other scientists are going to be scrambling to look into the issue in greater depth so if anything was done wrong in the original study it will be uncovered when others try to repeat the results.

They may be right or wrong...but they are not a disinterested party...take it with a grain of salt. In one way, they are like our news media (they being another form of media), with the news, if it bleeds, it leads. Similarly, with the education/reserch media (dependant on their own form of hoopla) if it leads, it bleeds.

[Bruce Hooke]

They may be right or wrong...but they are not a disinterested party...take it with a grain of salt. In one way, they are like our news media (they being another form of media), with the news, if it bleeds, it leads. Similarly, with the education/reserch media (dependant on their own form of hoopla) if it leads, it bleeds.

I'm sorry, but this does not refute any of the detailed points I made, which I my opinion pretty throughly refute all of the above. Also, media attention (from the popular press) does very little for a scientist when it comes to getting more grants, and overblowing the importance of a discovery in the actual scientific paper will be seen through pretty quickly be other scientists and called what it is.

If there is an issue here with the story being overblown I would look first to the popular press' retelling of the findings because the popular press has a much bigger motivation to make something look dramatic than the scientific press does.

[Phillip Allen]

I've seen this before...some people get so much invested in their own sacred cows that there is no plan B...all those eggs in the same basket may work out but then it HAS to work out.

[brad9798]

So- are you going to invest in it??? ;)

[Milo Christensen]

The atmosphere has needs! now there really is news.

Twit.


I am - in the old phrase - sick to the back teeth - of reading posts which say either;
A - A calamity (which I don't understand) is coming.
or
B - We will be saved by a technology (which I don't understand).

Above statement logically inconsistent with:


The only part of these posts which is consistent is the implicit lack of understanding - of the political implications, the physics, the maths, or the economics.

You previously admitted to a lack of understading. Do you know the implications, the physics, the math, the economics? If so, you are morally obligated to tell us, if not, perhaps just keeping out of the debate whilst doing some basic reading would help.


That the climate will change is a given - that sea levels will change is another given - mans influence on these may be debated for intellectual stimulation but such debate will have no utility.

The sky is filling! The sky is filling! Situations only become givens when people give up.


The serious questions are about how we as individuals, and as societies, hope to weather these changes.

Your positive input here is welcome and would be valuable. The debate is after all, perhaps the most important one of the century. Sdowney is still discovering the problems, I've accepted the problems, realized the futility of expecting anyone to change their lifestyle to reduce global warming, and have moved on to discussing whether there is any hope of remediating the changes thru theoretically sound technologies.

[Bruce Hooke]

Let me put it differently. There is often an interest in puffing up the importance of an overall field of study. If you can convince people that climate science is more important than migratory bird research then more money is likely to go to climate science. Ditto on a smaller scale for a person's particular branch of, say, climate science.

On the other side of the coin, what I remember from reading geology journals a number of years back now is that the authors tended to be very cautious about making projections regarding the future significance of a particular finding. Scientists like to deal in facts, so each assertion had to be backed up. Yes, it makes sense to try to make your work sound important (see the paragraph above), on the other hand the best way to do this is to make your case using the data you have collected. So on the one hand I am agreeing with Phillip, on the other hand I am saying that there are some fairly effective limits on how far someone can go with this.

Ultimately, I think the much bigger danger zone for scientific findings being overblown is when the popular press gets its hands on a story and tries to summarize it. A dramatic story sells news so they tend to focus on the worst case side of the picture. So, I tend to be very cautious about how I interpret science news in the popular press. On the other hand, I get pretty sick of what appear to be an endless string of reasons for setting aside exactly those studies which, if correct, are most inconvenient to our current ways of doing things.

[sdowney717]

I used to think people could logically change their way of doing whatever it is they do thru discourse or arbitration. But I have come to realize that some of the largest conflicts get decided for us without any input or influence on our part. We basically need to go on a global war footing with global warming, and that just wont happen. So I am somewhat fatalistic.
Most of us in this world go thru life day to day just struggling to get by.
There is an ever growing restless mass of people born into this world.
These people have all sorts of needs, medical, food, spiritual, energy, housing.
There are so many many people and only just so much planet to go around.

There are technologies that could help immensely. Like a massive buildup of nuclear power, wind power, tidal power. Energy technologies that dont create greenhouse gasses. But just who is going to do it?
India and China are starting on a course that mirrors are own.
Economies based on burning OIL.
Perhaps 'peak oil' is not such a bad thing, if it forced countries to pursue 'green energy'.

Current climate models did not have the siberian information so of course, its much worse than thought.
Its not just the arctic meltdown, its also Greenland. If the glaciers dissapear off Greenland, seal levels will rise at least 7 meters.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4864
This article was written before the siberian permafrost was discovered to be such a huge problem, so everything is accelerating much faster than anyone had thought. Its becoming like a runaway train and the end is getting closer faster.

[Milo Christensen]

Well, methane liquefaction is a not-gonna-happen. My apologies for wasting folks time on this part.

Other concepts for further research: catalysis, high-affinity oxidation methanotrophic bacteria.

Meanwhile I think we need to strengthen our resolve with some famous quotes from famous Americans in really, really bad situations:



from Off Scarborough
September, 1779
by Bret Harte


...through
Smoke and flame and bitter cry,
Hailed the "Serapis:" "Have you
Struck your colors?" Our reply,
"We have not yet begun to fight!"
went shouting to the sky!...




General Tony McAuliffe, the American commander of the encircled forces in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge received this communication from the German commader:


The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note....


When McAuliffe heard that he laughed and said: "Us surrender? Aw, nuts!"

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

...
Your positive input here is welcome and would be valuable. ...
have moved on to discussing whether there is any hope of remediating the changes thru theoretically sound technologies.

No - there isn't.

Live with what happens, or not.

[Tristan]

When I was taking graduate courses in Marine Science in 1965 global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps was predicted and the mechanisms whereby it would/could happen were discussed in class. Unfortunately the leaders of world governments are not interested in events that are predicted to happen tens of years down the road, only what's going to happen during the next election cycle.

[Phillip Allen]

yep...