For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1192 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: Runaway Global Warming - Closer that you think
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
A recent scientific theory called the "hydrate hypothesis" says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as "hydrates") spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.
In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.
The "hydrate hypothesis" spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life.
There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.
The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rose by a record amount over the past year. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply. Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear the trend could be the first sign of runaway global warming.
Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth's remaining resources.
Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelarates into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.
link _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Last edited by Cid_Yama on Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:57 am; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
Methane clathrate is not new in this forum. Your specifics however, 2012 as well as the 4.5 B annihilated souls seem rather random. Could you be somewhat more detailed about your source please?!
"The seawater proved to be "highly oversaturated with solute methane," reports Shakhova. In the air over the sea, greenhouse-gas content was measured in some places at five times normal values. "In helicopter flights over the delta of the Lena River, higher methane concentrations have been measured at altitudes as high as 1,800 meters," she says."
It's beginning now. This will not be a gradual trend. This will be an event, a giant methane burp, so to speak.
AWI's results show that permafrost in the flat shelf is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast, the temperature of sea sediment was -1 to -1.5 degrees Celsius, just below freezing.
Another 1-1.5 degrees and the shelf will look like a shook up soda can. An ice-free summer in the Arctic will do it.
Noaa suggested that 2007 had seen a global rise of about 0.5%. Some stations around the Arctic showed rises of more than double that amount.
Rising levels in the Arctic could mean that some of the methane stored away in permafrost is being released, which would have major climatic implications.
Dr Dlugokencky also suggested that the drastic reduction in summer sea ice around the Arctic between 2006 and 2007 could have increased release of methane from seawater into the atmosphere.
An upturn in methane concentrations emissions could have significant implications for the Earth's climatic future.
A sustained release from Arctic regions or tropical wetlands could drive a feedback mechanism, whereby higher temperatures liberate more of the greenhouse gas which in turn forces temperatures still higher.
A particularly pertinent question is whether methane is being released from hydrates on the ocean floor.
These solids are formed from water and methane under high pressure, and may begin to give off methane as water temperatures rise.
The amount of the gas held in oceanic hydrates is thought to be larger than the Earth's remaining reserves of natural gas.
In collaboration with other British institutions, Dr Fisher's team will begin work this summer sampling water near hydrate deposits to look for indications of gas emerging.
Ticking Time Bomb
There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times as much methane as is in the atmosphere. Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
Now here's the scary part. A temperature increase of merely a few degrees would cause these gases to volatilize and "burp" into the atmosphere, which would further raise temperatures, which would release yet more methane, heating the Earth and seas further, and so on. There's 400 gigatons of methane locked in the frozen arctic tundra - enough to start this chain reaction - and the kind of warming the Arctic Council predicts is sufficient to melt the clathrates and release these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Once triggered, this cycle could result in runaway global warming the likes of which even the most pessimistic doomsayers aren't talking about.
link _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Last edited by Cid_Yama on Tue May 27, 2008 5:44 pm; edited 5 times in total
Global warming could destabilise some deep carbon reserves, notably in clathrates - ice lattices that are found beneath the ocean floor and continental permafrost, and even under freshwater lakes like Lake Baikal in Siberia.
These ice structures may hold trillions of tonnes of methane.
"We are extremely concerned that clathrates are the largest single source of greenhouse gases that could be added to the atmosphere," said Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution. "If you raise temperatures even slightly, they could be released," he added.
What do you think the chances are that temperatures will rise in the Arctic 'even slightly'?
There are apparently some people who think that the current "Greenhouse Effect" will simply lead to an "evolutionary" change in the global climate, so that climatic areas in the northern hemisphere like Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska in the U.S., and Antarctica in the southern hemisphere will become like one big tropical resort area like Tahiti, Cuba, or Jamaica. Soon everyone will be enjoying glorious sunshine, and sipping exotic tropical drinks in Nova Scotia, Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, or around the Arctic waters of Siberia, according to people with this apparent view. These people profess a dislike for the cold, and they therefore welcome any change that might eventually get rid of their abhored winter blaaaaahs. _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Last edited by Cid_Yama on Tue May 27, 2008 6:08 pm; edited 6 times in total
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1192 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
Much of the methane produced by crustal methanogens fails to reach the surface. It becomes trapped for long periods in tundra permafrost, and in the icy hydrate crusts that form on sea floors. This submarine reservoir alone is believed to contain roughly 3,000 times the volume of methane presently in the atmosphere.
This is hydrogen’s loaded gun.
Deep-sea hydrates consist of a lattice of ice crystals packed with bubbles of methane gas. Locked in by cold abyssal currents generated by the sinking of dense saltwater in icy polar seas, they remain frozen and stable. But whenever rising temperatures thaw the polar icecaps to any significant degree, the fresh melt-water pools on the surface, inhibiting the driving mechanism that runs the global circulation system. There is now strong evidence to suggest that on some occasions in the recent past those huge gyres shut down entirely.
When this occurred, the hydrates disintegrated, releasing their methane into the atmosphere in a series of gigantic ‘burps’. Some of these methane burps appear to have been large enough to raise the global temperature by 5–10°C in just a few decades.
This appears to have been the case about 55 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary when the release of some 1,200–2,500 gigatons of hydrate methane generated a sea-temperature rise of 4°–5°C, triggering a mass extinction of marine species. The global temperature spike of 8°–10°C that occurred at this time appears to have been vastly greater and more abrupt than could possibly have been generated by the gradual rise in atmospheric CO2 that preceded it.
Life’s Narrow Escape
Something similar also appears to have occurred about 250 million years ago during the massive Permian extinction when some 95% of all known species disappeared from the fossil record. New stratigraphic evidence from Greenland and Russia22 suggests that a massive cosmic impact combined with associated vulcanism in Siberia to trigger a protracted extinction process around the world. The ensuing biological decay then injected so much CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere that the planet gradually warmed by 4°–5°C. This appears to have crossed the ‘hydrate threshold’, triggering a massive release of abyssal methane and forcing the global temperature to rise by a further 5°. The magnitude and speed of this second temperature rise pushed almost all ‘higher’ life to extinction.
The northern tundra is currently warming faster than most other regions of the planet. Its permafrost is melting and bacterial methane that has been locked away for tens of thousands of years is now beginning to escape. Similarly, many abyssal hydrate beds are riddled with melt-holes and are highly unstable. Hydrogen’s loaded gun is now on a hair trigger.
Ice ages consist of a series of glacial episodes separated by brief interludes of warmth. These interglacials begin abruptly and end with a slow descent into a new glacial. The Vostok drill core in Antarctica reveals the pivotal role that methane has played in shaping this temperature roller coaster during the past 400,000 years. Ancient air bubbles trapped in the ice show that a major spike in atmospheric methane coincided with the beginning of each of the four interglacials of that period. It indicates that a methane surge provided the hair trigger that sent global temperatures rocketing upwards.
This well-documented link between methane and temperature suggests that it hardly matters what causes the initial temperature rise. What matters is that methane emissions explode at some stage during that rise. Ominously, annual methane emissions have more than doubled in the past two centuries, and most of that increase can be blamed on human activities, especially pastoralism, irrigation and energy generation via hydroelectricity. But if the current collapse of methane hydrates continues, our species will be unlikely to survive this century.
link _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Wild monkeys are often trapped by placing a banana
inside a box with a small hole.
The mark, thinking he's getting something for nothing,
grins slyly around to make sure no other monkeys are watching
and then reaches through the hole and grabs the banana.
He's already picking out the tree he will dine in when a problem pops up.
The banana won't come out through the hole,
and letting go is not an option.
You must remember that a banana to a monkey is an important matter.
Second to romance, it's the biggest thing in his career.
Like millions of human car "owners",
the monkey begins to believe the item is his,
just because he has a grip on it.
If you walked up to that trapped monkey
and offered him an equivalent banana to let go,
he would turn you down.
Furthermore, he would disparage your banana.
He has pride of ownership.
When they carry him away
his hand will still be clenched stubbornly inside the hole.
They'll have to take box and all,
or they'll get no monkey.
On any business day you can see ships
loaded to the brims with monkeys with their hands in boxes,
crowding shipping lanes all over the seven seas.
They've sold themselves into slavery for their materialism.
Nothing down, pay forever.
Monkeys are the second greediest animals on earth.
Now look at this article about using methane clathrates to solve the energy crisis:
The technological challenge is vast, but no more so than the potential economic rewards. The trick is to get the gas(banana), without the pains(being trapped).
In the side bar of the article:
Vast releases of methane from clathrates are widely thought to have played a part in two global temperature spikes that led to mass extinctions about 250m and 55m years ago.
Mankind has hit an evolutionary dead end, unfortunately we are taking the rest of the planet with us. _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 1969 Location: Democratic People's Republic of Washington
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:00 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
Cid_Yama wrote:
Mankind has hit an evolutionary dead end, unfortunately we are taking the rest of the planet with us.
Not necessarily. Look at the Chernobyl exclusion zone. At the time, it was deemed unfit for human habitation, and hazardous to life. Yet after 22 years of mankind abandoning the area, nature is beginning to take back the land. Just look at Prypiat using Google Earth.
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1192 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
This extraordinary episode of global warming, often referred to as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, is unique in Earth's history in terms of magnitude and rate of warming, as well as in the manner in which it began.
"Several of us suspect that the melting of clathrates and rapid release of methane was initiated by gradual warming that pushed the climate system across a physical threshold," Zachos said.
The initial results also suggest that the deposition of carbonate shells on the deeper reaches of the seafloor did not resume for at least 50,000 years, and that the total recovery time to a "normal state" took as long as 100,000 years. This result suggests that full recovery from these extreme events takes considerable time.
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 10:55 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
why do you post this CidYama? Any hope?
I'm quite pessimistic, as politicians won't do ANYTHING as they rarely do anything of importance at all. A Grassroots revolution is too slow. The only thing is we can hope that the industrial society comes tho a halt as soon as possible.
But there is still China and India which are strong. Even if the US tumble within a year the Asian countries will still be growing and making up for the US.
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:47 pm Post subject: Re: Runaway Global Warming - Closer than you think
Cid_Yama wrote:
...And no, no hope. Even if all carbon emissions stopped this moment, there is a lag that will take us well beyond the threshhold.Lovelock says some few may survive up near the Arctic circle. Be one of those, if you want....
Your lead article by John Stokes says that 4.5 bln people will die (by 2012); but Lovelock suggests that everyone except a few arctic eskimos will die.
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