Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Arctic News Home. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Arctic News Home. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Climate Change Henchmen: Storm, Flood, Heat, Smoke and Fire

As climate change strikes with ever greater ferocity, five henchmen dominate the news: Storm, Flood, Heat, Smoke and Fire.


During the first 6 months of 2021, there have been 8 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events across the United States. The U.S. has sustained 298 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2020). The total cost of these 298 events exceeds $1.975 trillion. The total cost over the last 5 complete years (2016-2020) exceeds $630.0 billion — averaging more than $125.0 billion/year — both new records.

The image on the right shows very high temperatures over North America end July 2021, with fire radiative power as high as 247.3 MW.

The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows large smoke plumes on July 7, 2021, reaching Hudson Bay. Furthermore, large smoke plumes are also visible over British Columbia.


The NASA Worldview satellite image below shows smoke traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast of the U.S. on July 26, 2021.


The Copernicus image on the right shows Siberian fires spreading aerosols over the Arctic Ocean on August 2, 2021 

The NASA Worldview satellite image underneath on the right shows fires (red dots) in Siberia spreading smoke over the Arctic Ocean on August 2, 2021. 

Mainstream media do cover such disasters, often with sensational footage and while pointing at the extensive damage and loss of life caused by such events. 

However, mainstream media rarely point out that climate change is getting worse and and even more so due to feedbacks that can amplify extreme weather events and can further speed up how climate change unfolds.

One of these feedbacks is albedo loss, i.e. decline of the snow and ice cover resulting in less sunlight getting reflected back into space. Fires also come with soot that can settle on snow and ice, resulting in surface darkening that will speed up melting and albedo loss. 

The rapid thinning of Arctic sea ice was discussed in an earlier post and is again illustrated by the image on the right.

The image shows the sea ice (or rather the lack of it) north of Greenland on August 15, 2021. This is where years ago the thickest sea ice was located.

The melt season will continue for at least another month time, so the situation is very worrying, since the disappearance of the thicker sea ice means that the buffer is gone, i.e. that the latent heat tipping point of Arctic sea ice has been crossed.

Here's a link to compare the sea ice north of Greenland between July 29, 2021, and August 15, 2021.

The NSIDC image on the right shows that the proportion of multiyear ice in the Arctic during the first week of August was at 1.6 million km² (618,000 million miles²).

NSIDC adds: The loss of the multiyear ice since the early 1980s started in earnest after the 2007 record low minimum sea ice cover that summer, and while there have been slight recoveries since then, it has not recovered to values seen in the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s. This loss of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic Ocean is one of the reasons why the summer sea ice extent has not recovered, even when weather conditions are favorable for ice retention.

The Naval Research Lab animation on the right shows Arctic sea ice thickness (in m) for the 30 days up to August 27, 2021, with eight days of forecasts included. 

As the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator narrows, the wind flowing north on the Northern Hemisphere slows down, which changes the Jet Stream, resulting in more extreme weather events, including heatwaves and fires. 

One of the most dangerous feedbacks is that, as temperatures of the water of the Arctic Ocean keeps rising, more heat will reach sediments under the Arctic Ocean where huge amounts of methane are stored, causing destabilization. 

[ from the feedbacks page ]
This destabilization threatens to cause huge quantities of methane to erupt and enter the atmosphere, as has been discussed in many earlier posts such as this one and this one. 

This threat becomes dramatically larger as the latent heat threshold gets crossed and the buffer constituted by Arctic sea ice disappears, so further heat entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean can no longer be consumed in the process of melting the subsurface sea ice. 

Ominously, the MetOp-2 satellite recorded a methane level of 2839 ppb at 469 mb on July 30, 2021 pm, as the image on the right shows.

[ peak methane level of 2839 ppb ]
The image underneath shows large quantities of methane over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) at 469 mb on August 4, 2021 pm. 

On August 4, 2021, there still was some sea ice present in the ESAS. While this remaining sea ice does prevent a lot of sunlight from reaching the water and heating it up, the sea ice also acts as a seal, preventing ocean heat from getting transferred to the atmosphere. The water in the ESAS is very shallow, less than 50 meter in most places, which makes it easier for heat to reach sediments, while it also makes it harder for methane that is rising through the water column to get decomposed by microbes in the water.

[ large quantities of methane over ESAS ]
The image underneath shows that on August 4, 2021 am, at 293 mb, the MetOp-1 satellite recorded a mean global methane level of 1942 ppb. 

At a 1-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 200, this translates into 388.2 ppm CO₂e. By comparison, the CO₂ level on August 4, 2021, was 414.89 ppm according to the Keeling Curve measurements at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. A GWP of 200 for methane is appropriate in the light of the danger of a huge burst of methane erupting from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, which would, due to the abrupt nature of such an eruption, make its impact felt instantaneously. 

[ mean global methane level of 1941 ppb ]
Methane levels are already very high over the Arctic, so additional methane erupting there will be felt most strongly in the Arctic itself, thus threatening to trigger even further methane releases.

The situation is dire and calls for immediate, comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.


Links



• NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Time Series

• Copernicus - aerosols

• MetOp methane levels

• NSIDC: Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis - August 18, 2021

• Heatwaves and the danger of the Arctic Ocean heating up 
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/06/heatwaves-and-the-danger-of-the-arctic-ocean-heating-up.html

• Arctic sea ice disappearing fast

• When will we die?

• Most Important Message Ever


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Friday, September 27, 2019

IPCC Report Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate


The IPCC has issued another special report: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

How much carbon is there in the Arctic?

[ click on images to enlarge ]
How much carbon is present in the northern circumpolar permafrost region (map)?

According to the report, there is 1460 to 1600 billions of tons of carbon (GtC¹) present in the soil on land. The report also mentions that there is additional carbon present on shallow Arctic sea shelves, but the report doesn't add figures.

Natalia Shakhova et al. once estimated the accumulated methane potential for the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf alone to be about 500 Gt of organic carbon, with an additional amount in hydrates of about 1000 Gt and a further amount of methane in free gas of about 700 Gt. Back in 2008, Natalia Shakhova et al. considered release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time.

Note ¹: 1 billion ton of carbon = 1 GtC = 1.33 Gt of CH₄ (methane) and 1 GtC = 3.67 Gt of CO₂ (carbon dioxide)

How much of these vast amounts could be released to the atmosphere?

The IPCC report projects permafrost near the surface (top 3–4 m) to decrease in area by up to 89% by 2100 under a high emissions scenario (RCP8.5), leading to cumulative release of tens to hundreds of billions of tons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere by 2100.

The report fails to warn that, as the Arctic Ocean keeps heating up, huge seafloor methane eruptions could be triggered, and that this could happen within years, as discussed at the extinction page. Abrupt release of 10 Gt of methane would triple the amount of methane in the atmosphere, resulting in huge heating, while it would also trigger the clouds feedback tipping point to be crossed that in itself could push global temperatures up by 8°C within a few years, as earlier discussed in this post and this post.

Sea ice

The report notes that between 1979 and 2018, the areal proportion of multi-year Arctic sea ice at least five years old has declined by approximately 90%. The report refers to a study by Pistone that concludes that the additional heating due to complete Arctic sea ice loss would hasten global warming by an estimated 25 years. Below is a NASA video showing the melting away of the multi-year sea ice over the years.


The image below shows the difference in Arctic sea ice extent between the years, from an earlier post.


The report concludes that Antarctic sea ice extent overall has had no statistically significant trend. At the same time, the report notes that the Southern Ocean's share of the total heat gain in the upper 2000 m global ocean increased to 45–62% between 2005 and 2017. Below is an image illustrating the difference in Antarctic sea ice extent between the years.


The image below shows how much global sea ice extent has decreased over the past few years.

Sea ice decline makes that less sunlight gets reflected back into space and more heat gets absorbed by the ocean. The report also mentions latent heat changes and increased water vapor and increased cloudiness over the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore, as the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator narrows, the Jet Stream changes, which makes it more likely that a large influx of hot, salty water can enter the Arctic Ocean. While the IPCC acknowledges that permafrost thaw could release large amount of greenhouse gases, it fails to warn people about the potential for a huge, abrupt temperature rise as a result of the combined impact of warming elements, such as the one illustrated by the image below.


Meanwhile, the MetOp-1 satellite recorded a mean global methane level as high as 1914 parts per billion, on September 30, 2019, pm at 293 mb.


In the report launch press conference video below, IPCC authors respond to the question “May we have already passed the tipping point of abrupt and irreversible change and not knowing it yet?”


Valerie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of WG1: “I would like to speak about irreversible change in this report. Irreversible means changes that will not be possible to be avoided on timescales of centuries, and climate change is already irreversible, due to the heat uptake in the ocean. We can't go back whatever we do with our emissions. Climate change is already irreversible.”

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.


Links

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• IPCC special report, The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Most Important Message Ever
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/07/most-important-message-ever.html

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Critical Tipping Point Crossed In July 2019
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/09/critical-tipping-point-crossed-in-july-2019.html

• Radiative Heating of an Ice‐Free Arctic Ocean, by Kristina Pistone et al.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL082914

• Weekly Arctic Sea Ice Age with Graph of Ice Age By Area: 1984 - 2019, by NASA
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4750

• IPCC Report Climate Change and Land
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/08/ipcc-report-climate-change-and-land.html

• IPCC keeps feeding the addication
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/ipcc-keeps-feeding-the-addiction.html

• IPCC seeks to downplay global warming
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/02/ipcc-seeks-to-downplay-global-warming.html

• Just do NOT tell them the monster exists
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/just-do-not-tell-them-the-monster-exists.html




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Monday, February 28, 2022

What the IPCC impacts report is hiding

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Above image is adapted from content by IPCC AR6 WGII and Peter Carter, expert IPCC reviewer and director of the Climate Emergency Institute. 

The IPCC keeps hiding how much the temperature could already have risen and could rise over the next few years, the associated dangers, and the policies that could most effectively improve the situation. 



1. Hiding the potential rise that has already unfolded
One of the first issues that springs to mind is the IPCC's use of 1850-1900 as a baseline, which isn't pre-industrial as the Paris Agreement called for.


Above image, adapted from a NASA image, shows a January 2022 temperature rise of 1.31°C versus 1885-1915. As the box underneath indicates, a further 0.1°C could be added for ocean air temperatures and another 0.1°C for higher polar anomalies. When calculating the temperature rise from pre-industrial, a further 0.79°C could be added for the period from 3480 BC to 1900, resulting in a total temperature rise from pre-industrial to January 2022 of 2.3°C.


2. Hiding the potential rise to come

While a huge temperature rise has already unfolded, the rise is accelerating, as discussed at earlier posts such as this one and as illustrated by the image below, an example from an earlier post. 


In other words, an even larger temperature rise threatens to unfold soon, i.e. this could happen over the course of at few years, as illustrated by the stacked bar next to the cartoon above and as discussed at the extinction page.


3. Hiding the largest dangers

The rise that has already unfolded, i.e. the rise from pre-industrial to 2020, could be as much as 2.3°C, as discussed above and at the pre-industrial page. Furthermore, the temperature rise is accelerating. In other words, Earth is already in the danger zone and the question remains what the implications are of a 3°C, 4°C and 5°C rise.



What would be the impact of a 3°C, a 4°C, or a 5°C rise? 

At a 3°C rise, humans will likely go extinct, as habitat for humans (and many other species) will disappear. Such a rise will cause a rapid decline of the snow and ice cover around the globe, in turn making that less sunlight gets reflected back into space. Associated changes are discussed in more detail at this page and this page, and include that the jet stream will further get out of shape, resulting in more extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves and firestorms. Changes to the jet stream will also contribute to a further strengthening of storms, which threatens to at times push large amounts of hot, salty water into the Arctic Ocean, triggering eruptions of more and more seafloor methane, as discussed in an earlier post.

[ from an earlier post  ]
From a 4°C rise, Earth will experience a moist-greenhouse scenario. As the temperature rise gains further momentum, runaway heating may well turn Earth into a lifeless planet, a danger that was discussed in this 2013 post, warning that, without anything stopping the rise, it will continue to eventually destroy the ozone layer and the ice caps, while the oceans would be evaporating into the atmosphere's upper stratosphere and eventually disappear into space.

At 5°C rise, most life on Earth will have gone extinct. A 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise (see box on the right). As the temperature keeps rising, chances are that all life on Earth will go extinct, as Earth would be left with no ozone layer to protect life from deadly UV-radiation. Furthermore, Earth would no longer have water, an essential building block of life. Soil moisture, groundwater and water in oceans would evaporate and eventually disappear into space, as discussed in an earlier post.

Much of the above was discussed earlier at Most Important Message Ever.

[ from the post When will we die? ]

A rise of more than 5°C could happen within a decade, possibly by 2026. Humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise. In the light of this, we should act with integrity.


4. Hiding the very policies that can most effectively improve the situation

The IPCC creates a perception that pollution can continue for decades to come. The IPCC does so by downplaying the size of the temperature rise and the threat of a huge rise within years. The IPCC promotes the idea that there was a “carbon budget” to be divided among polluters that would enable polluters to keep polluting for decades to come. Most importantly, the IPCC has once more failed to do what the Paris Agreement calls for, i.e. for the IPCC to specify the pathways that can best improve the situation, specifically the policies that are needed to facilitate a better future. 

The speed at which a huge temperature rise can unfold makes that many adaption efforts could be wasted or even counter-productive. A 2021 report by Neta Crawford estimates the budgetary costs and future obligations of the post-9/11 wars at about $8 trillion in 2021 dollars. Much of that money was spent on securing the supply and transport of fossil fuel. Governments spend $1.8tn a year on subsidies that harm the environment, a study by Doug Koplow et al. finds. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020 or about 6.8% of GDP and are expected to rise to 7.4% of GDP in 2025, a 2021 IMF report finds. 

Perverse subsidies are even higher when also including money that now goes into constructing transport infrastructure such as roads, highways, tunnels, bridges, railways, airports, etc. Redirecting such funding could enable more people to work and study from home with time to spare and gardens to grow their own food, instead of commuting by car over roads to offices, schools, etc.

[ from earlier post ]
Electric VTOL air taxis can replace a huge part of the traffic that now demands expensive infrastructure such as roads, railways including service stations, parking buildings and strips, bridges, tunnels, etc. Air taxis can facilitate a dramatic reduction in the need for traffic infrastructure, which also includes space now used for garages and parking.

If much of this traffic instead takes place by air taxis, then urban design can have more space for outdoor dining, parks, markets, tree-lined footpaths, bike-tracks, etc. 

Furthermore, drones could be used for transport and delivery of cargo, pharmaceuticals, etc. In many places, cities can become more compact and buildings can be put closer together, thus reducing overall cost and enabling people to reach destinations quicker, either by walking or cycling. Air taxis can bring people to many destinations fast, while people can also using online facilities to further reduce the need for transport and travel infrastructure.

In other places, the space now used for roads and parking could instead be used to create urban forests, to extend gardens and to create community gardens and markets where people can get locally-produced vegan-organic food such as fruit and vegetables.

Much additional infrastructure can also change, such as traffic lights and road signs, streetlights and the electricity grid. Supply of natural gas could be replaced by electric devices such as heat-pumps, induction-cookers and electric water-heaters. Organic waste can be pyrolysed with the resulting biochar added to the soil.

For more on the Urban Heat Island effect, see:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/airtaxis/posts/419568755612304


For more on biochar and pyrolysis, see:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biochar


Conclusion

The situation is dire and calls for the most comprehensive and effective action, as described at the Climate Plan.


Links

• IPCC AR6 WGII - Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

• Is the IPCC creating false perceptions, again?

• Human Extinction by 2022?

• NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (v4)
• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Aerosols
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/aerosols.html

• Clouds feedback
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Could Earth go the same way as Venus?
• Accelerating Methane Rise
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/02/accelerating-methane-rise.html

• Protecting Nature by Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: The Role of Business Prepared - by Doug Koplow and Ronald Steenblik (2022) 
https://www.earthtrack.net/sites/default/files/documents/EHS_Reform_Background_Report_fin.pdf

• The U.S. Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars - by Neta Crawford (2021)
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_U.S.%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Post-9%2011%20Wars_9.1.21.pdf

• IMF - Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004

• Which policy can help EVs most?
• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html




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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Dear Mr. President




Dear Mr President,

Ukraine is clearly another Western geopolitical stunt to stop Russian exports of oil and gas to Europe so they can be replaced by filthy fossil fuels from US fracking and Canadian tar sand oil. We are facing a devastating final show down with Mother Nature which is being accelerated by the filthy extraction of fossil fuels by fracking, tar sands and coal mining and continent wide oil transport in the US.

Call your troops home so they can immediately assist in assembling giant solar power stations, wind farms and converting all road and rail transport to electricity. Immediately terminate all gas fracking, tar sand oil extraction, oil transport, coal mining and all the giant subsidies paid to fossil fuel companies. This money must be solely spent on constructing renewable energy power stations and infrastructure. 

You will be held accountable by US citizens and the world if you do not stop this extreme American pollution, the fast approaching methane firestorm and our extinction by 2050.

Yours Truly,

Malcolm Peter Light (Dr)
Earth Scientist

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Sunday, January 7, 2024

2024 looks to be worse than 2023


The year 2024 looks to be worse than the year 2023. The above chart shows sea surface temperatures that were extremely high in 2023 followed by a steep rise in 2024, crossing 21°C in early January 2024.

The chart below illustrates this further, showing the daily sea surface temperature anomaly using 1 Sep. 1981 to 31 Dec. 2023 data versus the 1982-2011 mean for latitudes between 60°S and 60°N.

The importance of sea surface temperatures

Slowing down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) results in less ocean heat reaching the Arctic Ocean and, instead, a huge amount of ocean heat has been accumulating in the North Atlantic in 2023.

Much of the heat in the North Atlantic could soon be pushed abruptly into the Arctic Ocean, as storms can temporarily speed up currents strongly, carrying huge amounts of ocean heat with them into the Arctic Ocean.


The mechanism behind this has been described often in earlier posts and this page. Meltwater and rain can cause a freshwater lid to form and grow at the surface of the North Atlantic and this, in combination with greater stratification as ocean temperatures rise (above image), can enable more ocean heat to increasingly travel underneath this lid from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean, and especially so at times when Jet Stream changes are causing storms that speed up ocean currents along this path.


The danger is illustrated by the above image, showing a forecast for January 11, 2024, with the Jet Stream moving almost vertically over the North Atlantic to the north. The image below shows heat over the North Atlantic, with temperatures reaching as high as 10.5°C or 50.8°F over Greenland (at the green circle) at 1000 hPa on January 10, 2024, 07:00 UTC.


The image below shows 2 meter temperature anomalies on January 11, 2024. 


Very high sea surface temperature anomalies can occur in the path of the Gulf Stream, as illustrated by the image below showing high sea surface temperatures on January 3, 2024, as high as 11.7°C (21°F) at the green circle, over the counterpart of the Gulf Stream in the Pacific, off the coast of Japan. 


Earlier posts have warned about this, such as this post and this video, almost seven years ago. This could cause events during which much ocean heat moves abruptly into the Arctic Ocean, resulting in seafloor methane releases, overwhelming of the latent heat buffer and causing sea ice loss (and thus albedo loss), as well as loss of lower clouds (thus causing further albedo loss), while open oceans are also less efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared region of the spectrum and while an ice-free Arctic Ocean will also release more ocean heat into the atmosphere.


Arctic sea ice volume is very low for the time of year, as illustrated by the above image.

A large part of the thicker sea ice is located off Greenland's East Coast, as illustrated by the above image. Much of the sea ice will therefore rapidly disappear as the water heats up in 2024.


The above image, adapted from tropicaltidbits.com, shows a forecast for October 2024 of the 2-meter temperature anomaly in degrees Celsius, based on 1984-2009 model climatology. The anomalies are forecast to be very high for the Arctic Ocean.

In the video below, Jennifer Francis is interviewed by Nick Breeze. 



The importance of daily air temperatures, Northern Hemisphere


[ from the Extinction page ]
The situation is dire. The Northern Hemisphere is getting hit hardest by high temperatures, as illustrated by the above image. 

The Northern Hemisphere is home to some 90% of the world population of more than 8 billion people, with much of them living in South-East Asia.

As more people become aware of the dire situation, widespread panic may set in.

People may stop showing up for work, resulting in a rapid loss of the aerosol masking effect, as industries that now co-emit cooling aerosols (such as sulfates) grind to a halt.

Many people may start to collect and burn more wood, resulting in an increase in emissions that speed up the temperature rise.

As temperatures rise, more fires could also break out in forests, peatlands and urban areas including landfills and waste dumps, further contributing to emissions that speed up the temperature rise.

The image on the right illustrates how fast a huge temperature could unfold.

As a somewhat sobering footnote, humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise, as discussed in an earlier post.


Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.



Links
• Climate Reanalyzer 
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• Nullschool

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023 - by Lijing Checg et al. (2024)

• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/cold-freshwater-lid-on-north-atlantic.html

• Extinction







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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Proposal to extract, store and sell Arctic methane


A Proposal for the Prevention of
Arctic Methane Induced Catastrophic
Global Climate Change by Extraction
of Methane from beneath the Permafrost/
Arctic Methane Hydrates and its Storage and
Sale as a Subsidized "Green Gas"
Energy Source
By Malcolm P.R. Light
PhD. UCL
May 27th, 2012
DEDICATION

This proposal is dedicated to my Father and Mother, Ivan and Avril Light,
both meteorologists and farmers who knew about the vagaries of the weather;
and to all our grandchildren whose entire future depends on its successful outcome.



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Methane hydrates (clathrates) exist on the Arctic submarine shelf and slope where they are stabilized by the low temperatures and they have a continuous cap of frozen permafrost which normally prevents methane escape (Figure 1 below).


However, recent research has shown that millions of tons of methane are already being released in the Siberian Arctic through perforated zones in the subsea permafrost cap with the concentrations reaching up to 100 times the normal, such as in the discharge region of the Lena River and the junction of the Laptev and East Siberian Seas (Shakova et al. 2010).
Mean methane concentrations in the Arctic atmosphere showed a striking anomalous buildup between November 1-10, 2008 and November 1-10, 2011 (Figure 2 above)(Yurganov 2012 in Carana, 2012a).

The surface temperature hotspots in the Arctic caused by global warming correlate well with the anomalous buildups of atmospheric methane in the Arctic (Figure 3 right, in Arctic feedbacks in Carana, 2012a).

This indicates that there is a strong correlation between the dissociation of Arctic subsea methane hydrates from the effects of globally warmed seawater and the increasing size and rate of eruptions of methane into the Arctic atmosphere.

  • Methane eruption zones (torches) occur widely in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) (Shakova et al., 2008; 2010), but the largest and most extreme are confined to the region outside the ESAS where the Gakkel "mid ocean" ridge system intersects at right angles the methane hydrate rich shelf slope region (Figure 9 above and Figure 17 right). 

    The wedge-like opening and spreading of the Gakkel Ridge is putting the formations and overlying methane hydrate sediments under torsional stress and in the process activating the major strike slip faults that fan away and thrust faults that radiate from this region (Figure 16 below). 

    Light and Solana (2002) predicted that the north slope of the Barents - Laptev - East Siberian seas at the intersection of the slowly opening Gakkel Ridge. This region would be especially vulnerable to slope failures where unstable methane hydrate would be affected by seismicity from earthquakes with magnitudes greater then 3.5 Richter and at depths of less than 30 km. Many earthquakes occur along the Gakkel Ridge often with magnitudes greater than 4 to 6 and at depths shallower than 10 km (Avetisov, 2008) continuously destabilizing the already unstable methane hydrates there (Figure 16 below). 


  • Major and minor strike slip and normal faults form a continuous subterranean network around the Gakkel Ridge and are clearly charged with overpressured methane because methane gas is escaping from these fault lines many hundreds of km up dip and away from the subsea methane hydrate zones through which these fault zones pass (Figures 9 above and Figure 18 right).
     
  • One small methane eruption zone occurs directly over the centre of the Gakkel Ridge and probably represents thermogenic deep seated methane being released by the magmatic heating of adjacent oil/gas fields by rising (pyroclastic) magma (Figure 9 above)(Edwards et al. 2001). This surface gas eruption appears to only represent a tiny percentage of the total gas released from other sources such as methane hydrates, as do methane eruptions around Cenozoic volcanics offshore Tiksi on the East Siberian shelf (Figure 11 right and Figure 16 above).

  • An elongated set of methane eruption zones occur on the submarine slope north of Svalbard flanking the Gakkel Ridge and result from methane hydrate decomposition caused by sudden changes in pressure and temperature conditions due to submarine slides/slumps (Figure 9 above). These submarine slides/slumps were evidently set off by seismic activity along the Gakkel Ridge which lies a short distance to the north in an area where the ridge opening is the widest (Figure 16 above). This may be similar to the Storegga slide (Light and Solana, 2002; NGI, 2012). Light and Solana (2002) predicted that the western slopes of Norway and along the Barents Sea to Svalbard, would be especially vulnerable to slope failures in regions of unstable methane hydrate. Here the slowly spreading Gakkel Ridge runs as close as 30 km to the slope. Earthquake activity along the Gakkel Ridge often has magnitudes greater than 4 to 6 at depths shallower than 10 km (Avetisov, 2008) and will also be destabilizing the already unstable methane hydrates here leading to eruptions of methane into the atmosphere (Figure 9 above and Figure 16 above).
There are some 1000 Gt to 1400 Gt (10^9 tonnes) of carbon contained in the methane hydrates on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf and 700 Gt of free methane is trapped under the Arctic submarine permafrost (Shakova et al. 2008, 2010). Shakova et al. estimate that between 5% to 10% of the subsea permafrost (methane hydrates) in that region is now punctured allowing methane to escape at a rate of about 0.5 Mt (500,000 tonnes) a year and that up to 50 Gt (10^9 tonnes) could be released abruptly at any time soon. Release of this subsea Arctic methane would increase the worldwide atmospheric methane content about 12 times equivalent to doubling the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. This "methane hydrate gun", which is cocked and ready to fire at any moment, is an extremely serious scenario that will cause abrupt climate change (CCSP, 2008; IMPACTS 2008). Even if this subsea volume of Arctic methane is released over a longer interval of some ten to twenty years it will still result in a massive feedback on global warming and drive the Earth on an irretrievable plunge into total extinction.
Figure 5. From: Carana 2012b, originally from: arctische pinguin - click to enlarge

After 2015, when the Arctic Ocean becomes navigable (Figure 5 above, Carana 2012b) it will be possible to set up a whole series of drilling platforms adjacent to, but at least 1 km away from the high volume methane eruption zones and to directionally drill inclined wells down to intersect the free methane below the sealing methane hydrate permafrost cap within the underlying fault network (Figure 18 above).

High volume methane extraction from below the subsea methane hydrates using directional drilling from platforms situated in the stable areas between the talik/fault zones will reverse the methane and seawater flow in the taliks and shut down the uncontrolled methane sea water eruptions (Figure18 above). The controlled access of globally warmed sea water drawn down through the taliks to the base of the methane hydrate - permafrost cap will gradually destabilize the underlying methane hydrate and allows complete extraction of all the gas from the methane hydrate reserve (Figure18 above). The methane extraction boreholes can be progressively opened at shallower and shallower levels as the subterranean methane hydrate decomposes allowing the complete extraction of the sub permafrost reserve (Figure18 above).

The methane and seawater will be produced to the surface where the separated methane will be processed in Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facilities and stored in LNG tankers for sale to customers as a subsidised green alternative to coal and oil for power generation, air and ground transport, for home heating and cooking and the manufacture of hydrogen, fertilizers, fabrics, glass, steel, plastics, paint and other products.

Where the trapped methane is sufficiently geopressured within the fault system network underlying the Arctic subsea permafrost and is partially dissolved in the water (Light, 1985; Tyler, Light and Ewing, 1984; Ewing, Light and Tyler, 1984) it may be possible to coproduce it with the seawater which would then be disposed of after the methane had be separated from it for storage (Jackson, Light and Ayers, 1987; Anderson et al., 1984; Randolph and Rogers, 1984; Chesney et al., 1982).

Many methane eruption zones occur along the narrow fault bound channels separating the complex island archipelago of Arctic Canada (Figure 6 and 9). In these regions drilling rigs could be located on shore or offshore and drill inclined wells to intersect the free methane zones at depth beneath the methane hydrates, while the atmospheric methane clouds could be partly eliminated by using a beamed interfering radio transmission system (Lucy Project) (Light 2011a). A similar set of onshore drilling rigs could tap subpermafrost methane along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya (Figure 6 below and 9 above).

Methane is a high energy fuel, with more energy than other comparable fossil fuels (Wales 2012). As a liquid natural gas it can be used for aircraft and road transport and rocket fuel and produces little pollution compared to coal, gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels.

Support should be sought from the United nations, World Bank, national governments and other interested parties for a subsidy (such as a tax rebate) of some 5% to 15% of the market price on Arctic permafrost methane and its derivatives to make it the most attractive LNG for sale compared to LNG from other sources. This will guarantee that all the Arctic gas recovered from the Arctic methane hydrate reservoirs and stockpiled, will immediately be sold to consumers and converted into safer byproducts. This will also act as an incentive to oil companies to produce methane in large quantities from the Arctic methane hydrate reserves. In this way the Arctic methane hydrate reservoirs will be continuously reduced in a safe controlled way over the next 200 to 300 years supplying an abundant "Green LNG" energy source to humanity.


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