Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3659 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:36 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Cyrus wrote:
Fixing the "no topics displayed on this page" error.
It isn't fixed yet, wish they could figure that one out for good! _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3659 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
[img]http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.11.html[/img]
Beaufort Sea graph _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Jan 14, 2008 Posts: 321 Location: The Yukon
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:49 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
zensui wrote:
I can't remember where "vast amounts of methane waiting to be unleashed" are... I think it's either in the oceans or ice...
There is only minimal land borne methane. There have been lotsa arctic warming spells in the past 15k years but they brought about no significant methane spikes.
The main Methane beds precipitated off the continental shelves and are crucial to the termination of Earth's glacial episodes every 175k yrs. Water pressure keeps them down there. As the ice builds in a typical event, the necessary water from oceans causes the seas to drop about 400' from today's level.
This lack of water pressure allows the methane to percolate up and the atmosphere gets the needed GHG spike to commence agreenhouse cycle, lift temp's five degrees and end the ice age.
Ice melts, oceans rise 400' ... and the cycle repeats.
This of course begs the question that is part of my research, if we extract the methane, is there enuf left to put out the next ice age ... or do we go back to snowball Earth? Not many of us have to worry on this one!! Relatively speaking, we are on day one of the cycle.
And don't worry about the post IPCC AR4 alarmists that are merchandising rapid polar melting. It ain't happening. It was a tiny spike that came at the closing stages of the Report writing and the extrapolations looked ominous. Same as the 1998 el nino mistake that caused the hockey stick fiasco.
Well the hockey stick is gonzo and so is the New York City drowning scenario. Ocean levels are still only going up 3mm a year (13" this century ahead). In fact the anomoly has reversed and seas went down almost half a cm in 2007!!
_________________ www.TrendLines.ca/scenarios.htm Home of the Real Peak Date ... set by geologists (not pundits)
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
FreddyH wrote:
This of course begs the question that is part of my research, if we extract the methane, is there enuf left to put out the next ice age ... or do we go back to snowball Earth? Not many of us have to worry on this one!! Relatively speaking, we are on day one of the cycle.
Following through with this rationale, we may become much more worried about fireball Earth (too much carbon at the surface to get back to the glacial cycle) considering the cubic miles of oil, coal and gas we've burned from the subsurface that does not appear to be related to the cycle you refer to. Seabed methane may be the dealbreaker; turbidite formations could probably shed some light.
I'm sure it will correct itself, whether we're here or not.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3401 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:11 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
FreddyH wrote:
The main Methane beds precipitated off the continental shelves and are crucial to the termination of Earth's glacial episodes every 175k yrs. Water pressure keeps them down there. As the ice builds in a typical event, the necessary water from oceans causes the seas to drop about 400' from today's level.
This lack of water pressure allows the methane to percolate up and the atmosphere gets the needed GHG spike to commence agreenhouse cycle, lift temp's five degrees and end the ice age.
Ice melts, oceans rise 400' ... and the cycle repeats.
Sowers looked at methane trapped in the layers of ice preserved in the GISP II ice core. He sampled the layers every 1,000 years between 8,000 and 25,000 years, and every 30 years during periods when atmospheric methane levels increase abruptly to provide a finer assessment of the cause of the elevated methane levels.
"Hydrogen isotope ratios were stable during these abrupt warming episodes," says Sowers in his report in today's (Feb. 10) issue of Science. "The increased methane that accompanied the warming did not come from marine clathrates."
There is more than enough methane in permafrost to warm us up considerably. Like many you take a slight departure from an overall trend as evidence nothing is wrong.
Figures that you'd be against AGW living in the Yukon, while JD stumps for nuclear and LNG while living in Japan, which has plenty of both.
Fark it! I agree with Rapier's new post: " We Will Never Address Global Warming" _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
Could you slide your shorts down please?
Joined: Jan 14, 2008 Posts: 321 Location: The Yukon
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:33 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
basil_hayden wrote:
Following through with this rationale, we may become much more worried about fireball Earth (too much carbon at the surface to get back to the glacial cycle) considering the cubic miles of oil, coal and gas we've burned from the subsurface that does not appear to be related to the cycle you refer to.
Sorry Basil but i can't agree. Using the TrendLines AVG (93-mbd Peak in 2013), Peak Coal & Peak Nat'l Gas projections, i've found that i agree with Kjell over at ASPO and Jean Laherrrere that there just ain't enuf remaining fossil fuels to generate the carbon emissions that IPCC had forecast. NOT EVEN CLOSE!
Provided the electrical generation industry goes nuclear, clean coal and sequestering to the degree that they have pledged at the recent World Energy Congress (and lead up conferences), the chance of exceeding 435ppm & 2C added temp is zilch.
_________________ www.TrendLines.ca/scenarios.htm Home of the Real Peak Date ... set by geologists (not pundits)
Last edited by FreddyH on Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:01 pm; edited 2 times in total
Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 6422 Location: Oil-addicted Southern Californucopia
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
FreddyH wrote:
...Provided the electrical generation industry goes nuclear, clean coal and sequestering to the degree that they have pledged at the recent World Energy Council...
Are you trying to be funny? Is this some kind of joke? _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6487 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
FreddyH wrote:
basil_hayden wrote:
Following through with this rationale, we may become much more worried about fireball Earth (too much carbon at the surface to get back to the glacial cycle) considering the cubic miles of oil, coal and gas we've burned from the subsurface that does not appear to be related to the cycle you refer to.
Sorry Basil but i can't agree. Using the TrendLines AVG (93-mbd Peak in 2013), Peak Coal & Peak Nat'l Gas projections, i've found that i agree with Kjell over at ASPO and Jean Laherrrere that there just ain't enuf remaining fossil fuels to generate the carbon emissions that IPCC had forecast. NOT EVEN CLOSE!
Provided the electrical generation industry goes nuclear, clean coal and sequestering to the degree that they have pledged at the recent World Energy Council (and lead up conferences), the chance of exceeding 435ppm & 2C added temp is zilch.
This graph is fantasy.
Yes, fossil-fuel-based emissions could fall as shown. BUT:
CO2, once released, dwells too long in the atmosphere for such a sudden reduction in concentrations to occur. The range of dwell times is 50 to 200 years, with an average of over a century. So, how do you get around that simple fact?
Also, what about all the positive feedback loops now in motion? They could contribute even more CO2 than the fossil fuels did.
PLUS, a weakening of CO2 sinks is under way. It's going to be much harder to get rid of the stuff in the future. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 1008 Location: "Mad as Hell !"
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Heineken wrote:
This graph is fantasy.
Yes, fossil-fuel-based emissions could fall as shown. BUT:
CO2, once released, dwells too long in the atmosphere for such a sudden reduction in concentrations to occur. The range of dwell times is 50 to 200 years, with an average of over a century. So, how do you get around that simple fact?
Also, what about all the positive feedback loops now in motion? They could contribute even more CO2 than the fossil fuels did.
PLUS, a weakening of CO2 sinks is under way. It's going to be much harder to get rid of the stuff in the future.
Yes, to the above, and lets not also forget that a reduction in atmospheric aerosol sulfates (Global Dimming) on the downslide, would even now, possibly add an additional 2C degrees to world temps. _________________ The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
... Theodore Roosevelt
Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 639 Location: No man's land
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:51 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
It seems to me, based upon the images here, that there is going to be LOTS of open water once we move a couple months into the melt season. The old ice is not covering nearly as much territory as it was after the 2007 melt season ended. The albedo situation has worsened considerably since September.
See the Quikscat animation (recording Sept 7, 2007 to Jan 4, 2008 ice movement) _________________ "It is no measure of health to be deemed sane in an insane society" J. Krishnamurti
Joined: Jan 14, 2008 Posts: 321 Location: The Yukon
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Heineken wrote:
Yes, fossil-fuel-based emissions could fall as shown. BUT:
CO2, once released, dwells too long in the atmosphere for such a sudden reduction in concentrations to occur. The range of dwell times is 50 to 200 years, with an average of over a century.
Post peak, the solid fuscia line is emissions and the dashed line is residual co2. Thanx y'all for the advice but the models have incorporated co2 decay & postive feedbacks for many years... _________________ www.TrendLines.ca/scenarios.htm Home of the Real Peak Date ... set by geologists (not pundits)
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6487 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
FreddyH wrote:
Heineken wrote:
Yes, fossil-fuel-based emissions could fall as shown. BUT:
CO2, once released, dwells too long in the atmosphere for such a sudden reduction in concentrations to occur. The range of dwell times is 50 to 200 years, with an average of over a century.
Post peak, the solid fuscia line is emissions and the dashed line is residual co2. Thanx y'all for the advice but the models have incorporated co2 decay & postive feedbacks for many years...
I'd say the model makers have a few loose screws. Either that or they work for Exxon. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3659 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:49 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
billg wrote:
It seems to me, based upon the images here, that there is going to be LOTS of open water once we move a couple months into the melt season. The old ice is not covering nearly as much territory as it was after the 2007 melt season ended. The albedo situation has worsened considerably since September.
See the Quikscat animation (recording Sept 7, 2007 to Jan 4, 2008 ice movement)
I see what you are talking about, the circumpolar current has been breaking and distributing the multi season ice along the Banks island shore out into the mass of fresh thin ice. Now look at the animation again and focus on the ice rounding the northern shore of Greenland, you will notice a fair amount of multi season ice being flushed out the straits where it will drift south as icebergs early next year to melt forever.
By the end of this winter the Arctic will have even lower levels of multi season ice than it did last fall when freeze up began. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3659 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:53 am Post subject: Re: Record ice loss in Arctic
Heineken wrote:
FreddyH wrote:
Provided the electrical generation industry goes nuclear, clean coal and sequestering to the degree that they have pledged at the recent World Energy Council (and lead up conferences), the chance of exceeding 435ppm & 2C added temp is zilch.
This graph is fantasy.
Yes, fossil-fuel-based emissions could fall as shown. BUT:
CO2, once released, dwells too long in the atmosphere for such a sudden reduction in concentrations to occur. The range of dwell times is 50 to 200 years, with an average of over a century. So, how do you get around that simple fact?
Also, what about all the positive feedback loops now in motion? They could contribute even more CO2 than the fossil fuels did.
PLUS, a weakening of CO2 sinks is under way. It's going to be much harder to get rid of the stuff in the future.
You got me thinking and playing with numbers again Heineken, which is always a good thing. Under the rule of 72 if the CO2 sinks are weaker than they have been in the past, and this seems to be the case in 2007 vs 1987 for instance, then the dwell time or half-life of CO2 in the air increases. If we be moderate and work with the half life of 125 years and a bottom level of 280, how long would it take to go from 425 peak in 2025 back down to the 'natural' 280?
425-280=145
72/(100/125)=90 (the half life)
Ten half lives puts you easily within the seasonal variation so we can confidently say that using FreddyH's peak we will fall back to 'normal' within 900 years. HOWEVER this scenario assumes no futher man made or natural emmisions added to the air after 2025!
Now here is the rub, because of the compounding effect what shape does the drop take? Well in that first 90 years CO2 would drop from 425 to 352. My projection with a 125 year dwell time gives the CO2 level in 2100 as 72.5*(75/90)=60, 425-60=365 ppm.
Rememeber this is the no added emissions of CO2 scenario.
So how did they get 348? Simple, they used a slightly shorter dwell time for CO2, a slightly more optimistic scenario than my numbers. They also negrlected to account for all man made CO2 emissions from 2025 to 2100. Ooops.
From looking at the graph they are assuming that in 2050 emissions will have fallen to 2006 levels. That is all well and good, but with a time just 45 years in the future the graph shows CO2 at 390 ppm, just above where it is today at 383. IOW the dwell time they used for a dwell on that graph has to be somewhere around 20 years instead of the more realistic 125.
Look at a graph showing oil discover and peak production. You get a nice relatively smooth double peak, one for discovery and one for production. Even if this graph is perfectly accurate for everything but residual CO2 it should show two seperate peaks, peak emissions and peak concentration. The two data points can not be the same peak! Well I guess in theory they could meet at the peak, but because of dwell time the peak concentration will plateau as the fossil fuel emissions fall off, then start its own down slope at a different rate. This graph shows the two numbers tied together for the first 15 years after peak instead of a growing seperation, followed by a parallel delayed fall off in CO2. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
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