CO2? Let Me Introduce You To My Little Friend: CH4 [Methane]!

by Nick Breeze

In the UK, if a person smells any gas in a building or outside, they are told to call an emergency number straight away so that an engineer can come and fix the leak and remove the danger. In the Arctic, atmospheric plumes of gas have been detected that are over 150kms across and likely to have disastrous consequences for our civilisation. We simply cannot ignore this problem; it underpins the fabric of all our lives. We must respond.

Last year I attended the EGU conference in Vienna to meet with Dr. Igor Semiletov and Dr. Natalia Shakhova and was extremely grateful to them for giving me time to discuss the issue of changing conditions in the Arctic. Increased temperatures from human caused greenhouse gas emissions are increasing the risk of methane release from thawing subsea permafrost. These two scientists make annual trips to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), in order to gain a better understanding of what is known to be the largest hydrocarbon store in the world. The methane is trapped in the frozen clathrate deposits that has been frozen for millions of years. In this stable condition we tend to consider the methane less of a risk, however, during the course of the last decade, things have started to change.

It is important to realise that methane (CH4) is approximately 20 x more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100yr timescale. Afterwhich it breaks down into CO2. Obviously with current atmospheric increases in emissions and the effects of warming already being felt, we do not have a 100yrs. In a shorter timescale of 20yrs, methane is estimated to be 100 x more potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Baring in mind that there is currently 5 gigatonnes of methane in the atmosphere and that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) is estimated to have between 100’s and 1000’s of gigatonnes trapped in the permafrost, if there is any destabilisation, supply of methane could rapidly move the world to a much hotter and dangerous state for humans and many other forms of life.

As a species humans add 35 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year in the form of emissions. Over the course of the last 200 years this has caused a global temperature rise of about 0.8 C. Although this seems tiny, we are only just starting to understand how sensitive the Earth is to changes in temperature. Add to this that the Arctic has been warming at around 8 times the speed of the mid latitudes and it’s not hard to see why the Arctic Sea Ice has gone into an accelerated melt.

NASA Image of Melting Arctic Sea Ice

It may seem obvious that if we heat the planet up then we will melt the ice. When joining the dots on the severity of what climate change really means, it is important to grasp “feedbacks”. These are the Earth’s response to changes within the climate system. A general rule of thumb is that “positive feedbacks” generally are bad for us and “negative feedbacks” are not. In the case of the Arctic, it is important to understand that there are multiple feedbacks [watch this comprehensive analysis by David Wasdell, Apollo-Gaia Director for more information] that come into play when the temperature changes. The Arctic sea ice is one that has caught the world’s attention because we are entering a phase where we no longer have a northern polar ice-cap. This is, in turn, setting off other positive feedbacks, one of these being the heating of the Arctic ocean as it absorbs sunlight and starts to thaw the subsea permafrost in the shallow seas of the ESAS. This is effectively removing the seal on a vast store of potent methane greenhouse gases that could take us from a steady increase in temperature to the awful sounding “runaway” global heating.

During the interview with Dr Shakhova, I was chilled when she showed me 2 charts, one with small insignificant plumes of methane from over ten years ago, contrasted with a chart from 2011 where the plumes of escaping gas from the permafrost were over a kilometre wide. Dr Shakhova also stated that in recent years all the conditions were changing making the risk of a game changing release of methane from the ESAS much more likely. Dr Shakhova even pointed out that it was likely “in decades”. Dr Semiletov went further to say “anytime!”.

Below are a few video clips from the interview in April 2012. I am very much looking forward to seeing the new work by Dr’s Semiletov and Shakhova et al that will be released shortly, giving us a far greater understanding, and up to date view, of the state of this all important region in the Arctic.

In the meantime, the methane issue has been the focus of NASA’s ‘Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment’ (CARVE) who have detected 150 kilometre plumes of atmospheric methane. This raises a few questions that are critical to our future civilisation:

1. If the Arctic Sea Ice and permafrost are degrading at 0.8C, are the IPPCC agreed “targets” of 2C really safe? 
2. Have we underestimated Earth’s sensitivity to temperature altogether and sailed blindly over into the wild waters of runaway climate catastrophe?
3. How much longer can we continue to release carbon emissions into the atmosphere before we lose the gift of choice in the matter and the climate shifts to a hotter state increasing sea-levels significantly, and not favouring large-scale agriculture?

For a longtime the methane issue has remained outside the larger conversation of impacts of global warming, except by reference to far off future risks. There are a handful of scientists such as Professor Peter Wadhams, Head of the Polar Institute at Cambridge University, who, based on submarine observations of the Arctic sea ice’s collapse in volume, has been pointing out that a methane feedback may not be as far away as we think. Professor Wadhams has made these points in the face of angry cries of “Alarmist” from UK politicians with financial interests in the hydrocarbon industry.

The work of scientists including the Russians, Wadhams and NASA’s CARVE team now means we can no longer ignore the risk of methane as part of the Earth’s complex system of feedbacks to temperature change. It also is very likely that at 2C the world will not be the beautifully hospitable place that it has been for humans for so long. It is very likely that we are close to that “tipping point” of no return where global heating goes into a runaway phase and we lose our only life support system. I sincerely hope this isn’t the case but we have to acknowledge the risk if we are to react appropriately.

In order to answer the third question posited above, we have to comprehend the enormity of the task of transitioning away from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). To say it cannot be done is to kiss the world, as we know it, goodbye. It can be done but it will take the will of all of us together, starting with citizens around the world, to politicians and those in the hydrocarbon business themselves. Whilst in Vienna in 2012, I also interviewed Dr James Hansen, one of the most outspoken climate scientists alive today and former Head of The Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. You can watch a video clip at http://vimeo.com/71179724 on what Hansen proposes as a way to curb emissions and start turning the tide on our collective response to global heating.

So how do we respond? It is clear that we need to make changes at a societal level. Never forget that each and everyone of us is a part of society and, as such, we have influence. The action we need to take is tied in with our attitude to the problems we face. The hydrocarbon industries lobby our governments and institutions to make sure their needs are not ignored. This is for one reason alone: profit. Societal reliance on this form of energy is no longer necessary. We should be transitioning away from hydrocarbon fuels. We can’t because these powerful companies are tucked tight inside the framework of our civilisation. There is no doubt that as such, we are entering a phase of willful self-destruction. The only thing that can stop it is us. A good example of this institutional integration is the Royal Geographic Society where Shell’s logos feature prominently and they even have their own page on the society’s web site aligning themselves with our respected institutions, paying lip service to our future concerns. This is disgusting. We should treat hydrocarbon companies as we did the tobacco industries once it was proven how harmful tobacco is to our health. These companies project the use of oil and gas way into the middle of the century. Don’t believe it. On this course, we will end up clinging to an inhospitable planet, barely recognisable as it is today. Take action.


The first and most effective thing you can do is contact your local elected representative and tell them straight. I sent the following email to my own Member of Parliament, Mary McCleod MP and waiting patiently for a reply. It is critical to remember that they have our future in their hands but we have their vote. Let’s use it!

Dear ____,

As a citizen concerned with the unnecessary proven damage being done to our environment, I am writing with the following conditions that will have to be met if you are to have my vote at the next election:

1. Remove all links to hydrocarbon companies that currently exist within public institutions
2. Ban hydrocarbon company advertising
3. Introduce a fair tax on carbon that will level the playing field for renewable energy sources and force the hydrocarbon industries to clean up their act
4. Implement a framework for a transition to renewable energy immediately

As you represent me on a local and national level I will be listening with interest to all representations you make to government on my behalf. I am also keen to hear your response and will be sharing it with friends and family.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,



____________________________

A note on climate fixes such as ‘Climate Engineering’ (aka geoengineering): I have not mentioned proposed climate engineering proposals in this post as we are currently working on an in depth look at several projects that are already in progress. Climate engineering raises many scientific, political and ethical issues and to many people the idea that man can engineer Earth’s climate is a crazy and hubristic fantasy. No matter what we think, it is important that we are all cognisant of the arguments being put forward. We will be interviewing leading commentators and authorities, not just from the climate and engineering backgrounds but also from ethical and philosophical disciplines to help form a view of this controversial subject. The worst case scenario is that we ignore the subject altogether and the decision to engineer climate falls into the hands of a foreign international power willing to gamble the fate of billions, or, a wealthy individual who can afford to take an equal gamble and become what Clive Hamilton has titled his recent book, an ‘Earthmaster’. Groups such as the Arctic Methane Emergency Group have been calling for climate engineering to be deployed immediately to cool the Arctic and prevent the runaway heating that climate scientists most fear. The argument for both sides is compelling and the more we shy away from zero carbon emissions the more climate engineering solutions start to look like a relatively cheap alternative. It is time for us all to be part of this critical discussion.

This post was originally posted at: 
http://envisionation.co.uk/index.php/blogs/72-co2-let-me-introduce-you-to-my-little-friend-ch4-methane

THE TRAGIC FAILURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY TO ISSUE ADEQUATE WARNING RE: THE ARCTIC TIPPING POINT EMERGENCY

by Gary Houser

"Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates. These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity." [1]  ....."We are in a planetary emergency." [2] - World renowned climate scientist Dr. James Hansen

The scientific community must be commended for its efforts to convey to the world the reality of climate disruption caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. That world is now grappling with the politics of whether effective reductions can be achieved in time. But there appears to be a new danger emerging from the Arctic which threatens to accelerate such disruption beyond the reach of any meaningful control. Cutting edge researchers in the field are observing large plumes of methane rising from the shallow seabeds. [3] Others are discovering heightened levels through airborne measurement. [4]  According to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, methane is a global warming gas no less than 72 times more powerful than CO2. [5]

In the course of working on a documentary [6] on this super greenhouse gas and the frightening prospect that such is beginning to thaw and release to the atmosphere in the Arctic, the author has encountered a highly disturbing "disconnect". On the one hand, there are highly eminent scientists - such as James Hansen - warning that the situation in the Arctic could well lead to the crossing of an "irreversible tipping point". On the other hand, such warning is not finding its way into the major scientific reports which government policy makers will use to chart their response. It cannot be found in either the draft of the new IPCC report or the draft of the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

As global climate disruption begins to enter the realm of "tipping points of no return", humanity is coming face to face with a moral crisis inextricably linked to the physical crisis. Scientists are first and foremost human beings. If information is discovered that points to a real possibility that a given situation can abruptly escalate into an existential threat to human survival, there is a profound moral responsibility to issue a loud and unambiguous warning.

There are now several indicators that the factors which could generate such a threat are indeed lining up in the Arctic - such as the ice collapse and the loss of solar reflectivity that will only accelerate further Arctic warming. At this time however, other than a handful of notable exceptions, the scientific community as a whole is utterly failing to issue such warning. This essay is an attempt to grapple with what might be the systemic reasons for such failure. Although the author is not a scientist and addresses the issue from outside that frame of reference, reasons are provided for why such may be an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

The climate science community around the world is performing a tremendous service to humanity. As climate disruption continues to escalate and the threat to our society becomes more grave, its members have worked long hours - in many cases on their own time - to gather the relevant data. As only one example. documentary-related exchanges between the author and scientists working in the Arctic make clear that much personal hardship and sacrifice are being endured in order to conduct such research.

It is well known that in preparation for their work, scientists are taught to exercise great caution in reporting their findings and never stray beyond that for which there is incontrovertible evidence. Even when it appears evidence is present, it is the time-honored tradition of science to still submit any conclusions drawn from such to their peers for review.

In almost every case, this strict methodology has well served the public interest. It has filtered out errors and made solid information available to the public and policy makers. But in the arena of global climate disruption, humanity is now facing something unique and quite un-paralleled by any other issue. There is a point in the process of climate de-stabilization where colossal natural forces can be unleashed which are capable of developing their own unstoppable momentum and spiralling well beyond the reach of human control. When such occurs - the already mentioned "irreversible tipping point".

Though a term used frequently in discussions on climate, its full meaning and magnitude have rarely been taken to heart. Far too often, it is simply another "buzzword" dropped into an article and treated only in the most superficial way. Indeed, such usage seems almost to "anesthetize" us to the horrific reality it points toward. In truth, the crossing of some kinds of tipping points can lead to the crushing of our entire civilization on no less of a scale than nuclear war. The devastation can be so sweeping that the concept of "adaptation" becomes meaningless. "Irreversible" refers to the brutal fact that once humanity allows this process to become triggered, there will be no chance to go back, no chance to learn from our mistakes and correct them.

Of the several tipping point scenarios which are possible, one considered especially frightening is the prospect of triggering an abrupt and large scale methane release in the shallow seabeds along Arctic coastlines. The entire climate debate has been dominated by a discussion of humanity's contribution to the problem - which has been the emission of carbon dioxide since the beginning of the industrial age. What science has discovered is that nature has its own vast storehouse of ancient carbon trapped in the ice of the polar regions.

The scenario of most concern to methane "specialists" is what's known as the "runaway feedback" reaction. As described by Dr. Ira Leifer of the Marine Science Institute at the Univ. of Calif.: "A runaway feedback effect would be where methane comes out of the ocean into the atmosphere leading to warming, leading to warmer oceans and more methane coming out, causing an accelerated rate of warming in what one could describe as a runaway train." [7]  A cycle would be initiated which feeds upon itself and therefore becomes unstoppable.

When one looks at the history of the most devastating "wipeouts" of life on earth - such mass extinction events as the PETM or the end-Permian - it is sobering to learn that large scale release of methane has been pointed to as a "probable cause". World-renowned climate science pioneer Dr. James Hansen relates methane to the PETM extinction event:

"There have been times in the earth's history when methane hydrates on the continental shelves melted and went into the atmosphere and caused global warming of six to nine degrees Celsius, which is 10 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit." [8]

The end-Permian extinction was the most colossal mass extinction event, wiping out over 90% of the life forms on earth. According to paleontologist Michael Benton - considered by some to have written the definitive book on this event (When Life Nearly Died):

"Normally, long-term global processes act to bring greenhouse gas levels down. This kind of negative feedback keeps the Earth in equilibrium. But what happens if the release of methane is so huge and fast that normal feedback processes are overwhelmed? Then you have a "runaway greenhouse"...... As temperatures rise, species start to go extinct. Plants and plankton die off and oxygen levels plummet. This is what seems to have happened 251 million years ago." [9]

While devastation on this level is inherently difficult to grasp, one attempt to convey such is provided in the documentary "Miracle Planet". [10] Though absolute certainty on causation may not be attainable, just the possibility that our society may be triggering a force with this kind of power is mind-boggling enough.

Could anything of this unspeakable magnitude be triggered by thawing methane in the Arctic? Again Ira Leifer: "The amount of methane that’s trapped under the permafrost and in hydrates in the Arctic areas is so large that if it was rapidly released it could radically change the atmosphere in a way that would be probably unstoppable and inimicable to human life." [11]  Hansen adds: "It is difficult to imagine how the methane clathrates could survive, once the ocean has had time to warm. In that event a PETM-like warming could be added on top of the fossil fuel warming." [12]  Dr. Hansen - along with Arctic ice and methane experts - address this issue in more depth in a documentary co-produced by the author. [13]

Methane plumes rising from the seafloor

In examining the key reports being made by the scientific community - such as drafts for the new IPCC document and the National Climate Assessment (of the U.S.), one might expect there to be dire warnings about a potential "point of no return" if these forces are unleashed. We do find a discussion of the various consequences of climate disruption that are hitting right now - Arctic and glacial melt, extreme weather, more powerful hurricanes and storms, increases in drought, food shortages, wildfires, and flooding. But where is the discussion of what these symptoms of disruption are leading to? One of the most frightening spectres looming over humanity - the tipping point of a methane "runaway" - is completely ignored.

How can this be possible? Several factors may be combining. As stated earlier, scientists are trained to only make statements based on "hard evidence". In the case of a potentially abrupt methane runaway, it is not possible to pinpoint a specific moment in time when such may be initiated. It cannot be stated with certainty whether this will happen in 2017, 2027, or 2037. Without this ability to pinpoint and quantify, the response of science has been to simply not address it.

Secondly, scientists are human. All of us have great difficulty in truly facing and absorbing the full implications of a complete collapse of human society and even a wiping out of most or all life on the planet. It is human to utilize methods of psychological denial to block out such a staggeringly horrific threat to our collective existence. In this instance, scientists are no different. Unless there is "absolute proof" staring us in the face, the overwhelming tendency is to push such thoughts out of our consciousness so we can "get on with our day".

A third factor is that the current methodology for the reporting of climate science is fundamentally flawed and dysfunctional in regard to the challenge at hand. The single most important such report is that issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is based on a consensus process and an intensively time-consuming level of peer review. Under normal circumstances, such would be seen as positives. But in a situation where humanity may come under severe threat in the very near term future, these reports are essentially looking backward at where science has been for the past 7 years rather than reporting the cutting edge trend lines. A glaring example is how the IPCC completely missed on predicting the speed at which the Arctic would melt.

The tremendous danger with this situation is that by the time any kind of "absolute proof" is gathered, it will very likely be too late to stop the conditions bringing on the dreaded runaway reaction. An unspeakably terrifying process will already have been set into motion and humanity at that point will be helpless to stop it. Temperatures on earth could eventually skyrocket to a level where mass famine is initiated.

What are the potential solutions to these terrible problems? One would be procedural. A special section of such reports should be dedicated to communicating the work of those scientists whose research is on the cutting edge of dealing with potentially huge climate impacts and yet still "in progress" in terms of gathering the relevant data. For example, even though the precise timing of a methane runaway cannot be predicted, there should be a report on the trend lines and the extent to which the conditions that could bring on a runaway are manifesting. If those conditions are lining up to a considerable extent, then an appropriate warning should be issued.

A second corrective step is more related to basic philosophy and morality. At the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, representatives of the world's nations agreed to apply the precautionary principle in determining whether an action should go forward to prevent irreversible damage to the environment. Principle #15 of the Rio Declaration [14] states that:

"In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."

In a further treatment of the meaning of the precautionary principle, it has been stated that there must be

"a willingness to take action in advance of scientific proof of evidence of the need for the proposed action on the grounds that further delay will prove ultimately most costly to society and nature, and, in the longer term, selfish and unfair to future generations." [15]

A methane runaway in the Arctic more than meets the criteria of being a "threat" which can bring about "irreversible damage". Due to its potential to create an unstoppable wave of continually rising temperatures capable of initiating something as horrendous as a mass extinction event, its irreversible damage could be of the most frightening magnitude imaginable. If humanity failed to recognize this danger and allowed its occurrence, such would most certainly constitute an irreparable crime against future generations. The most fundamental tenet of human morality demands that in such a unique situation the scientific community act on the basis of the precautionary principle and issue the appropriate warning.

In his powerful book on the ethics of nuclear war, Jonathan Schell wrote: "To kill a human being is murder, but what crime is it to cancel the numberless multitude of unconceived people?" [16] In the words of the ecological ethicist David Orr: "Climate destabilization, like nuclear war, has the potential to destroy all human life on Earth and in effect 'murder the future'......... Willfully caused extinction is a crime that as yet has no name." [17]

Is it possible that the very pillar of science which has served our society so well - the uncompromising demand for incontrovertible "evidence" - has in this unprecedented current crisis become a dangerous obstruction? Is it possible that this requirement of absolute "proof" is creating a perceptual blindness that could pave the way for the most horrendous suffering in the history of civilization?

To the scientists who may read this essay, an appeal is made in the name of our collective humanity to truly confront and grapple with the meaning of the term "irreversible" and weigh the potentially horrific consequences of silence. It is no violation of scientific "objectivity" to look at trend lines and determine whether their continued trajectory might well carry our civilization over the cliff. And if this possibility is there, is there not a profound moral obligation under the precautionary principle to issue a loud and unambiguous warning to humanity?

Before arriving at an answer, the reader - and especially any member of the scientific community - is invited to view a powerful film that is simply entitled "HOME". [18] In this artistic masterpiece, images of life on earth convey beyond the reach of words the incredible magnificence of what will be lost if climate disruption is allowed to escalate into an unstoppable "wipe-out". It also describes the methane lurking in the Arctic as a "climatic time bomb". Please watch and please speak out before it is too late. As James Hansen says: "We are in a planetary emergency."

LINKS

[1] Bloomberg, August 17, 2012
[2] AFP: 'Planetary emergency' due to Arctic melt, experts warn
[3] Vast methane 'plumes' seen in Arctic ocean as ... - The Independent
[4] Danger from the deep: New climate threat as methane rises from ...
[5] www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-5.html
[6] [Documentary co-produced by author]: Arctic News: Arctic methane: Why the sea ice matters
[7] Interview with Leifer for documentary
[8] Interview with Hansen http://youtu.be/ACHLayfA6_4
[9] Wipeout: the end-Permian mass extinction
[10] 6 minute clip from "Miracle Planet": http://youtu.be/exfNNDExxIc
[11] Interview with Leifer for documentary
[12] Hansen's book: Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate ...
[13] Same as link at #6
[14] Rio Declaration
[15] www.dieoff.org/page31.htm
[16] The Fate of the Earth - The New York Times
[17] Thinking About the Unthinkable by David Orr We ... - Moral Ground
[18] [Link to free full film]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Remarks at the White House - by James Hansen

Remarks at the White House¹

15 January 2013

James Hansen, screenshot

Let us return for a moment to election night 2008. As I sat in our farm house in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama's victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America.

We had great hopes for our new President. It is appropriate, it is right, in a period honoring Martin Luther King, to recall the hopes and dreams of that evening, and the hopes and dreams that we…will… never  -  give up.

We have a dream – that our President will understand the intergenerational injustice of human-made climate change – that he will recognize our duty to be caretakers of creation, of the land, of the life on our planet – and that he will give these matters the priority that our young people deserve.

We have a dream – that our President will understand the commonality of solutions for energy security, national security and climate stability – and that he will exercise hands-on leadership, taking the matter to the public, avoiding backroom crippling deals with special interests.

We have a dream – that the President will stand as firm as Abraham Lincoln when he faced the great moral issue of slavery – and, like Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, he will speak with the public, enlisting their support and reassuring them.

It is not easy to find an Abraham Lincoln or a Winston Churchill. But we are here today looking to find that in you, Mr. President. And until you summon it within yourself, let me assure you that we will return, and our numbers will grow.

Mr. President, we will be here until the promise of a safe world for our children and grandchildren, and your children and grand children – is not a dream. We will be here until we are assured that the history books will rightfully record – that you were the person we were looking for  - the person who turned these dreams…into reality.

______________________________
¹ Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Pray-in at NY Ave. Presbyterian Church and the White House
(www.interfaithactiononclimatechange.org) on Martin Luther King's birthday.
"We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…" Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Arctic methane: Why the sea ice matters

Arctic methane: Why the sea ice matters 

a new film by Envisionation.co.uk

Interviews with:

James Hansen - NASA

Natalia Shakhova - IARC

Peter Wadhams - Cambridge University, UK

David Wasdell - Apollo-Gaia Project

Arctic Methane: Why The Sea Ice Matters

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSsPHytEnJM

Short link: https://youtu.be/iSsPHytEnJM

James Hansen: If it begins to allow the Arctic Ocean to warm up and warm the ocean floor, then we'll begin to release methane [from] hydrates, and if we let that happen, that's a potential tipping points that we don't want to pass. There are now observations that methane is beginning to be released by both melting tundra on the land and bubbling up in the Arctic Ocean, indicating some warming of the Arctic Ocean.

Natalia Shakhova: The total amount of methane in the current atmosphere is about 5 Gt. The amount of carbon preserved in the form of methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is ~ from hundreds to thousands Gt. What divides this methane from the atmosphere is a very shallow water column and a weakening permafrost, which is losing its ability to serve as a seal. This area is very seismically and tectonically active and there was some investigation that the tectonic activity is increasing.

Peter Wadhams: At the rate we're going, it will bring us to an ice-free Arctic in about four years time. [The Arctic Ocean] now warms up to about 5 degrees [5°C or 41°F, i.e.] enough to start warming up the seabed. The seabed at the moment is frozen, but it's now starting to melt. That's allowing a lot of methane which is trapped under the permafrost to be released. That's a large boost to global warming, because methane is an extremely powerful climatically-active gas. 

David Wasdell: The warm water from the surface is now being mixed down to those areas that it never reached when the whole area was covered in sea ice. As soon as the area is open water, you have a process of heating that goes right down to those clathrate deposits on the seabed. The more the methane is released into the atmosphere, the faster the heating goes. It's probably the greatest threat we face, as a planet. We're already in a mass extinction event.

Further quotes
Further videos
News reports
FAQs
Facts

Saving the Arctic Ice (#2)

By Nathan Currier Greenpeace, Greenwashing and Geoengineering

Nathan Currier, senior climate advisor for Public Policy Virginia

I've been discussing the Greenpeace "Save the Arctic" campaign in light of the reality there, where we will likely reach near-zero summer arctic sea ice in just the next few years. Before exploring, in the next post, direct climate interventions that could really help save the arctic, we now must look at all our other options -- just as, in a medical crisis, one eliminates other options before opting for surgery.

Of course, one option is to blithely say, "Look, the ice can come back later," and therefore do nothing to impede the arrival of an ice-free arctic ocean. At the recent Greenpeace New York meeting, this seemed to be the tacitly assumed option. Now, I am quite aware of modeling studies demonstrating sea ice loss itself to be readily reversible. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times asked James Hansen at the meeting about the Eemian interglacial (~130,000-115,000 yrs ago), its ice loss and recovery -- seemingly keen to highlight this comforting reversibility. But this reversibility depends on environmental conditions. One minor detail that wasn't mentioned was that CO2 was then around pre-industrial levels (280ppm), hardly soaring up around 400ppm as now, a level possibly not seen on Earth for 15 million years, so one should hardly expect the planet to give an Eemian-style response now, either in the long-term or next year (for a variety of reasons aside from CO2 levels, in fact).

What about green energy, solar panels and the like, the kinds of things proposed at the Greenpeace meeting? Anyone contemplating emissions strategy ought to keep the UNEP graph (Shindell et al, 2011) in my first post up on their walls: Even pretty large CO2 source reductions won't bring relief from warming until about 2040 (and could bring near-term warming). By that time, the increased insolation to the arctic ocean might have gone so far as to give an ice-free arctic for a considerably larger chunk of the year, with really drastic effects. Is that a plan for "saving" the arctic?

The only way through emissions to have an impact on what is going on there right now is through non-CO2 reductions like black carbon and methane. And aside from that, there's nothing left except direct intervention -- which could cover a wide variety of options, some of them being what I'll call "localized geoengineering," and will discuss next time.

Now, Hansen has been the primary advocate of the concept of using non-CO2 reductions to help bridge the time gap of getting reduced warming from CO2 reductions, so my one question for Hansen at the meeting was whether he thought that could still be used alone to confront the arctic crisis. Hansen's answer was frank and accurate. As Hansen said, and I hope Greenpeace, Bill McKibben and all the others present heard, "If you need a rescue package, to some degree it inherently is geoengineering."

He didn't say that non-CO2 reductions wouldn't still be helpful (they are 100 percent necessary right away, just as massive CO2 reductions to near-zero by mid-century are necessary), but he certainly didn't say that they could halt the loss of the sea ice now alone, either -- indeed, I believe that the numbers show that they can't. It has now become clear that emissions reductions alone can no longer save the arctic ice. This is a big deal, and it needs to sink in.

Greenpeace's campaign aims to make the arctic a sanctuary, by which they primarily mean keeping out the fossil industry. Hansen himself has many papers stating that easily recoverable fossil sources inevitably will get used. The arctic's resources are obviously getting more easily recoverable by the season. Keeping the fossil industry away without cooling it is probably impossible -- and, at a certain level, might even be destructive. What if Greenpeace succeeded, but the arctic were left to melt? Picture some natural disaster, akin to the Macando well disaster, but happening all on its own. No, I don't mean an oil spill -- I mean a bunch of methane bubbling up from the seabed and reaching the atmosphere in large ongoing belches. This kind of thing is likely to start at some point if we let the sea ice disappear, as Hansen himself discussed at the meeting -- and it won't stop like an oil spill, but rather will likely become an ongoing process. Then we will actually need the fossil industry's expertise to go in there and help trap as much as possible. Believe me, I am not saying this to invite the fossil industry in. I am saying this because we must somehow keep the arctic cool. Lastly, ships and refineries both emit black carbon, which has an extremely strong but complex to quantify effect on local warming, and ice and snow-covered places are the most vulnerable to its effects because it settles on them and changes their reflectivity. So, even without fossil extraction, just if arctic ship traffic picks up dramatically, this could greatly accelerate ice (and snow) losses, helping ensure that this theoretical reversibility remains just that, something we'll never see. I'm sure Greenpeace means well, but currently their campaign most resembles those full-page greenwashing fantasies from Shell and PB, "Creating Your Clean Energy Future," and so on. At present, it's a sham.

The unquestioned reliance upon ice loss reversibility at the Greenpeace meeting might have been correct from a purely physical viewpoint alone, but was highly pernicious all the same, because it masks that we are about to quietly walk through the most monumental climate threshold we have yet crossed, and will then almost certainly discover, for a whole array of reasons -- all those minor physical mechanisms I elaborated last time, or the issues regarding the fossil industry I have just mentioned -- that it's difficult to turn around. Folks, what I am trying to say is: You can't let this happen, and yet you definitely can no longer prevent this happening just through emissions alone. That means that some form of direct climate intervention will be necessary there.

The clincher is this: When Hansen mentioned at the meeting that we could reverse ice loss, he also added, "And the truth is, we have to do that."

That is, he said, in order to avoid other major tipping points that clearly aren't reversible (ice sheets, methane hydrates). So the only remaining question is precisely when it must be reversed. London-based group AMEG, of which I am a member, takes the position: right away. Think of what this all means: It's completely impossible to achieve that reversal through emissions for many decades, even in the most optimistic scenario for large-scale emissions reductions -- and it would be far too dangerous to leave this unattended for that amount of time. So you will end up needing geoengineering in any case, just to achieve the reversal. Now, if you will quickly need to undo something that's about to happen, and potentially you might have great trouble undoing it at all later -- and the means will need to be the same in each instance -- then, isn't it far, far better to prevent that thing from happening, rather than trying to reverse it later?

Bill McKibben spoke with mild resignation about losing the sea ice, as though it were a pity, adding that we might "learn from it." But he's been profoundly ill-advised on the science, I'm afraid. If we don't fight this, we'll be "learning" like players of Russian roulette learn. And each decade left untreated might be like adding a bullet to the round.

Instead, we urgently need for Bill to understand this situation, and to start a "1250.org" (a 1250ppb target for methane) right away to complement his 350.org (Hansen's CO2 ppm target), and get his people back in the streets. Greenpeace must meet again with those scientists -- many more of them -- but with "time translators" present, so that Director Naidoo understands why Jim Hansen calls geoengineering a rescue package.

Trying to save the arctic is currently the most vital thing in the world, the front lines of the climate war, so let's all applaud Greenpeace for taking up the cause. Now they just have to bite the bullet, and recognize it's a fantasy unless two things happen right away, together at once:

1. A number of complementary direct arctic interventions (I'll discuss these soon).

2. Complete restructuring of the programs designed to reduce non-CO2 emissions (a long list of acronym-laden things like the M2M, GMF, GMI, CCAC), so that they really work -- and make this a public rallying cry, a global "1250" movement to help save ourselves.

[First posted at the Huffington Post; posted with author's permission]

Tipping Points

The increasing melt may be a harbinger of greater changes such as the release of methane compounds from frozen soils that could exacerbate warming, and a thaw of the Greenland ice sheet, which would contribute to rising sea levels, NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, said in an e-mail interview, reports Bloomberg.

“Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates,” Hansen said. “These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity.”

Above image shows methane levels over a period of four years, from August 1, 2008, to August 1, 2012.

Above image shows methane levels over one years, from August 1, 2011, to August 1, 2012. This shows a marked increase in methane levels on the last of the four years further above.

Above image shows methane levels from August 1, 2012, to August 15, 2012. The image shows high levels of methane across the northern hemisphere. Note the high levels above Greenland.