You are now entering the nonlinearity zone…

By Paul Beckwith

Adapted from a September 28, 2012, post at the Sierra Club Canada blog

Push something and it moves a little. Push it a little more and it moves a little more. This is called a “linearity” response. But sometimes a little push can lead to something totally unexpected! This is called “nonlinearity” and, contrary to what one might think, nonlinearities are inherent in most systems - like our atmosphere, for example. In fact, abrupt and unexpected change happens at some point in most systems - we even have a saying for such unexpected outcomes: a tipping point.

Until recently, our atmosphere and oceans behaved like linear systems: incremental dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere caused incremental changes, like rising temperatures and predictable rates of ice melt. But things are now changing unexpectedly fast – nonlinearity is kicking in! We only have to look at the rapidly vanishing arctic icecap for astonishing evidence.

A few years ago, I felt compelled to leave my previous pursuits in Engineering Physics (and chess master) to begin a PhD thesis focusing on abrupt climate change. I felt the planet’s climate was approaching several tipping points and analysis of Paleoclimatology records (tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediment, etc.) may provide evidence on what tipping points – nonlinearities – we might expect to see first (and maybe prevent).



Sadly, I’m late to the game. The rapidly disappearing Arctic icecap is a tipping point in motion. In all likelihood, statistically speaking, it’s gone, history. Within a few years when the ice disappears entirely, for the first time in 3 (or as many as 13) million years, hold on because our weather patterns will be drastically destabilized. Most folks in my field are still reluctant to acknowledge this 800 pound gorilla staring us right in the face.

Image credit: Sam Carana in Methane in the Arctic 

Methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas (105 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years, see image left) is a product of ancient wetlands, locked in permafrost and ocean sediments for millions of years. Today, warming air and seawater causes methane to be released more quickly. In the ocean off Siberia, methane plumes greater than one kilometre in diameter have been observed. Shocking stuff in my business.

And other tipping points abound. If the melting Arctic icecap isn’t bad enough, how about persistent droughts turning the Amazon rainforest into dry savannah? Much of the forest would burn first, delivering the double whammy of massive carbon emissions and the loss of a vital carbon sink.

Or how about collapsing boreal forest ecosystems. In Canada, drought-stressed trees, not already under attack by mountain pine beetles and emerald ash borers, would surely burn in the new norm of arid heat waves.

Perhaps the Greenland ice sheet will be the ultimate smoking gun. It contains enough water to raise global sea level by seven metres. With melt rates doubling every few years, knowing what I know, I can honestly say I am gravely concerned. Many models predict Greenland’s ice sheet will be ‘ok’ for another 3 centuries, but as I wrote in my last blog, you can officially pitch those models out the window.

Unlike our ancestors, humanity has a shot at stopping this – that is, if we throw everything we have at it. But we need to urgently focus on doing two things: radically reduce carbon emissions and prevent further warming of the Arctic Ocean; and keep as much methane locked underground as possible (we have the technology to do this today).

We have officially entered the realm of unknown-unknowns; the nonlinearity zone.

The question is will politicians reach the tipping point of reason?

Posted with author's permission. Earlier posted at Sierra Club Canada. Paul Beckwith is a PhD student with the laboratory for paleoclimatology and climatology, department of geography, University of Ottawa. 

Vanishing Arctic sea ice is rapidly changing global climate

By Paul Beckwith

Adapted from a September 21, 2012, post at the Sierra Club Canada blog

About 5 million years ago continental drift pushed North and South America together, creating the Isthmus of Panama where the Central American Seaway ocean passage had previously existed. The Pacific and Atlantic were no longer connected, drastically altering global ocean currents and atmospheric circulation patterns. As the Atlantic Gulf Stream strengthened, it carried vast amounts of moisture into the northern regions. The Arctic eventually cooled and it’s estimated sea ice cover has existed continuously in the Arctic Ocean for 3 million years, possibly for as long as 13 million years.

Slow cycling between cold and warm periods occurred on Earth many times due to the planet's changing orbit, tilt, and position relative to the sun. This caused the sea ice to wax and wane in size but it always persisted, never vanishing. Not any longer. The sea ice will disappear for longer and longer periods over the coming years until it is finally gone for good, likely within a decade.

The world will be a different place - just like the world from 3, or even 13, million years ago. No longer will the bright white parasol on the top of the world reflect sunlight and keep the Arctic cool. Dark seawater will absorb light and rapid Arctic warming will quickly decrease temperature gradients between the pole and equator. Jet streams will slow down, meander and change tracks. Storms will change in location, intensity, frequency, and speed and everything that humans know about weather and seasons for growing food will be obsolete. Everything.

Higher global temperatures will cause more evaporation, putting more water vapor into the atmosphere. Condensing into clouds, huge amounts of heat will be released, fueling even larger and more frequent storms.

Throw out the models that project disturbing climate effects in 2100. They're happening now! Already we're seeing rising sea levels from the massive and accelerating Greenland ice melt. The rapid warming of southern oceans is melting and destabilizing Antarctic ice from below, causing enormous chunks to break off (we’ve all seen them on TV). And big increases in Arctic temperatures mean terrestrial permafrost is melting and the now-warmer continental shelf sea floor is releasing increasing amounts of methane gas, a potent climate change gas.

Why is the sea ice getting hammered? Feedback loops. Unknown unknowns

NASA images showing the difference between sea ice cover between 1980 and 2012.

A very rare cyclone churned up the entire Arctic region for over a week in early August, destroying 20% of the ice area by breaking it into tiny chunks, melting it, or spitting it into the Atlantic. Cold fresh surface water from melted sea ice mixed with warm salty water from a 500 metre depth! Totally unexpected. A few more cyclones with similar intensity could have eliminated the entire remaining ice cover. Thankfully that didn't happen. What did happen was Hurricane Leslie tracked northward and passed over Iceland as a large storm. It barely missed the Arctic this time. Had the storm tracked 500 to 600 kilometres westward, Leslie would have churned up the west coast of Greenland and penetrated directly into the Arctic Ocean basin.

We dodged a bullet, at least this year. This luck will surely run out. What can we do about this? How about getting our politicians to listen to climatologists, for starters.

Posted with author's permission. Earlier posted at Sierra Club Canada. Paul Beckwith is a PhD student with the laboratory for paleoclimatology and climatology, department of geography, University of Ottawa. 

The atmosphere's shift of state and the origin of extreme weather events

By Andrew Glikson, Australian National University

Andrew Glikson, earth and
paleo-climate scientist at
Australian National University

The linear nature of global warming trends projected by the IPCC since 1990 and as late as 2007 (see Figure 1) has given the public and policy makers an impression there is plenty of time for economies to convert from carbon-emitting industries to non-polluting utilities.

Paleo-climate records suggest otherwise. They display abrupt shifts in the atmosphere/ocean/cryosphere system, as manifest in the ice core records of the last 800,000 years. This suggests high sensitivity of the climate system to moderate changes in radiative forcing, whether triggered by changes in solar radiation energy or the thermal properties of greenhouse gases or aerosols. In some instances these shifts have happened over periods as short as centuries to decades, and even over a few years.

Figure 1: Global surface temperature rise trajectories for the 21st century under varying carbon emission scenarios portrayed by the IPCC AR4 2007. A2 represents the business-as-usual scenario consistent with currently rising global emissions. IPCC

Examples of abrupt climate shifts are the 1470 years-long Dansgaard-Oeschger intra-glacial cycles, which were triggered by solar signals amplified by ocean currents, and the “younger dryas” cold interval, which occured when interglacial peaks resulted in extensive melting of ice and cooling of large ocean regions by melt water.

The last glacial termination (when large-scale melting of ice occurred between about 18,000 to 11,000 years ago) is attributed to transient solar pulsations of 40–60 Watt/m2 affecting mid-northern latitudes. This led to a ~6.5+/-1.5 Watt/m2 rise in mean global atmospheric energy level, which meant a mean global temperature rise of ~5.0+/-1.0 degrees Celsius and sea level rise of 120 meters (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Comparison between radiative forcing levels of (1) the Pliocene (~400 ppm CO2; T ~ 2-3 degrees C; Sea level 25+/-12 meters higher than pre-industrial); (2) the last Glacial Termination (~6.5+/-1.5 Watt/m2; ~5.0+/-1.0 degrees C; SL rise 120 meters) and (3) Anthropogenic 1750-2007 warming (1.66 Watt/m2 + 1.35 Watt/m2 – the latter currently masked by sulphur aerosols). Modified after Hansen et al 2008

As shown in Figure 2, anthropogenic carbon emission and land clearing since 1750 have raised the atmospheric energy level by +1.66 Watt/m2. Once the masking effect of industrial sulphur aerosols is taken into account. This totals ~3.0 Watt/m2, namely near half the radiative forcing associated with the last glacial termination.

Compounding the major rise in radiative forcing over the last ~260 years is the rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) rise. This has averaged ~0.5ppm CO2 per year since 1750. That’s more than 40 times the rate during the last glacial termination, which was 0.012ppm CO2 per year. The current CO2 rise rate – 2ppm a year – is the fastest recorded for the Cainozoic (the period since 65 million years ago) (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Relations between CO2 rise rates and mean global temperature rise rates during warming periods, including the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Oligocene, Miocene, glacial terminations, Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles and the post-1750 period. Glikson

We have seen this scale and rate of radiative forcing, in particular since the 1970s, expressed by intensification of the hydrological cycle, heat waves and hurricanes around the globe. It imparts a new meaning to the otherwise little-defined term, “tipping point”.

Between 1900 and 2000, the ratio of observed to expected extremes in monthly mean temperatures has risen from ~1.0 to ~3.5. From about 1970 the Power Dissipation Index (which combines storm intensity, duration, and frequency) of North Atlantic storms increased from ~1.0 to ~2.7-5.5 in accord with tropical sea surface temperatures which rose by about 1.0 degree Celsius.

Coumou and Rahmstorf (of the Potsdam climate impacts research institute) state:

The ostensibly large number of recent extreme weather events has triggered intensive discussions, both in- and outside the scientific community, on whether they are related to global warming. Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heat waves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. For other types of extreme, such as storms, the available evidence is less conclusive, but based on observed trends and basic physical concepts it is nevertheless plausible to expect an increase.

Hansen et al analysed the distribution of anomalous weather events relative to the 1951–1980 base line, displaying a shift toward extreme heat events (see Figure 4). The authors observe:

hot extreme[s], which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period (1951-1980), now typically [cover] about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.

Figure 4: Hansen et al 2012 calculate the seasonal mean and standard deviation at each grid point for this period, and then normalize the departures from the mean, obtaining a Gaussian bell-shaped distribution. They plot a histogram of the values from successive decades, getting a sense for how much the climate of each decade departed from that of the initial baseline period. The shift in the mean of the histogram is an indication of the global mean shift in temperature, and the change in spread gives an indication of how regional events would rank with respect to the baseline period. Hansen et al

The consequences for the biosphere of accelerating climate change are discussed by Baronsky et al in the following terms:

Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence.

Climates found at present on 10–48% of the planet are projected to disappear within a century, and climates that contemporary organisms have never experienced are likely to cover 12–39% of Earth. The mean global temperature by 2070 (or possibly a few decades earlier) will be higher than it has been since the human species evolved.

At 400ppm CO2, potential climate conditions have reached levels which last existed in the peak Pliocene epoch (5.3-2.6 million years ago). Given an increase in extreme weather events under conditions of +0.8C, an even higher rate of extreme events is expected under conditions of +2.0C currently shielded by industrially emitted sulphur aerosols.

Current trends in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are evident globally (see Figure 5). In the USA, the number of meteorological, hydrological and climatological events rose from about 20-40 per year during 1980-1988, to about 40-80 per year during 1989-2005, to between 70-100 per year after 2006, consistent with global rise in the frequency of extreme weather events.

Figure 5: Global frequency of natural disaster impacts and associated human and economic losses from the 1970s to 1990s. World Meteorological Organization, 2006 http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/climate-change/community-adaptation/assessments/378

James Hansen states:

There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100% of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.

New solar technologies promise to provide a large part of the answer. Time is of the essence.

Andrew Glikson is Honorary Professor at the Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, The University of Queensland, and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.






This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Expedition to study methane gas bubbling out of the Arctic seafloor

The black rectangle on this map shows the general region
where Paull and his collaborators have been studying
methane releases in the Beaufort Sea. The smaller red
rectangle indicates the edge of the continental shelf and
continental slope where they will conduct research during t
heir current expedition. These areas are shown in greater
detail in the maps below. Base image: Google Maps

Chasing gas bubbles in the Beaufort Sea

In the remote, ice-shrouded Beaufort Sea, methane (the main component of natural gas) has been bubbling out of the seafloor for thousands of years. MBARI geologist Charlie Paull and his colleagues at the Geological Survey of Canada are trying to figure out where this gas is coming from, how fast it is bubbling out of the sediments, and how it affects the shape and stability of the seafloor. Although Paull has been studying this phenomenon for a decade, his research has taken on new urgency in recent years, as the area is being eyed for oil and gas exploration.

In late September 2012, Paull and his fellow researchers will spend two weeks in the Beaufort Sea on board the Canadian Coast Guard ship Sir Wilfred Laurier, collecting seafloor sediment, mapping the seafloor using sonar, installing an instrument that will "listen" for undersea gas releases, and using a brand new undersea robot to observe seafloor features and collect gas samples.

This will be Paull's third Beaufort Sea expedition. As in previous expeditions, he will be working closely with Scott Dallimore of Natural Resources Canada's Geological Survey of Canada and Humfrey Melling of Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Paull's work in the Arctic started in 2003, with an investigation into the enigmatic underwater hills called "pingo-like features" (PLFs) that rise out of the continental shelf of the Beaufort Sea. (Pingos are isolated conical hills found on land in some parts of the Arctic and subarctic.)

Over time, the focus of the team's research has moved farther offshore, into deeper water. Their second expedition in 2010 looked at diffuse gas venting along the seaward edge of the continental shelf. The 2012 expedition will focus on three large gas-venting structures on the continental slope, at depths of 290 to 790 meters (950 to 2,600 feet).

This idealized cross section of the continental shelf and
continental slope in the Beaufort Sea shows zones in the
seafloor where permafrost and methane hydrate are
likely to exist, as well as hypothetical locations of methane
seeps on the seafloor. Ocean depths not shown to scale.
Image: © 2012 MBARI

Frozen gas—a relict of previous ice ages

The Beaufort Sea, north of Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories, is a hostile environment by any definition of the term. It is covered with ice for much of the year. Historically, only from mid-July to October has a narrow strip of open water appeared within about 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 miles) of the coast. Even at this time of year, winds often howl at 40 knots and temperatures can drop well below freezing at night. Researchers must allow extra time for contingencies such dodging pack ice and having to shovel snow off the deck of the research vessel.

Average annual air temperatures along the coast of the Beaufort Sea are well below freezing. Thus deeper soils remain permanently frozen throughout the year, forming what is called permafrost. Around the Beaufort Sea, permafrost extends more than 600 meters (about 2,000 feet) below the ground.

Permafrost also exists in the sediments underlying the continental shelf of Beaufort Sea. This permafrost is a relict of the last ice age, when sea level was as much as 120 meters lower than today. At that time, areas that are now covered with seawater were exposed to the frigid Arctic air.

As sea-level rose over the last 10,000 years, it flooded the continental shelf with seawater. Although the water in the Beaufort Sea is cold—about minus 1.5 degrees Centigrade—it is still much warmer than the air, which averages minus 15 degrees C. Thus, as the ocean rose, it is gradually warmed up the permafrost beneath the continental shelf, causing it to melt.

Quite a bit of methane, the main component of "natural gas," is trapped within the permafrost. As the permafrost melts, it releases this methane, which may seep up through the sediments and into the overlying ocean water.

The deeper sediments of the Beaufort Sea also contain abundant layers of methane hydrate—an ice-like mixture of water and natural gas. As the seafloor has warmed, these hydrates have also begun to decompose, releasing additional methane gas into the surrounding sediment.

These maps show the area to be studied during the
current expedition. The lower map shows the continental
shelf and continental slope of the Beaufort Sea. The
upper image shows detailed seafloor bathymetry of a
portion of the continental slope that will be studied
during the current cruise, as well as the three seafloor
mounds that the researchers will explore using their
new ROV. Lower image modified from Google Maps.
Upper image: Natural Resources Canada.

A tantalizing glimpse

A 2010 expedition by Paull and his colleagues provided a tantalizing glimpse of how much methane is present on the continental shelf of the Beaufort Sea. Using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with video camera to explore the shelf edge, they found white mats of methane-loving bacteria almost everywhere. They also videotaped what turned out to be methane bubbles emerging from many of these mats. Based on these observations, as well as the contents of sediment cores collected by the Geological Survey of Canada, the researchers concluded that the shelf edge is an area of "widespread diffuse venting" and that "methane permeates the shelf edge sediments in this region."

During 2010, the research team also conducted ROV dives on a shallow underwater mound called Kopanoar PLF. At the top of this mound they discovered "vigorous and continuous gas venting" that released clouds of bubbles and sediment into the water. In one ROV dive, the researchers saw something no one had ever seen before—a plume of gas bubbles that moved rapidly along the sea floor, apparently following a crack in the sediment that was in the process of being forced open by the pressure of the gas coming up from below.

The researchers also studied several deeper PLFs during the 2010 expedition. They dropped core tubes into the tops of these mounds. When the cores were lifted back onto the ship, the sediments inside fizzed and bubbled for up to an hour. The sediment was chock full of methane hydrates. Paull said, "We knew that there was a lot of gas venting going on down there, and now we have good reasons to believe that methane hydrates are present within the surface sediments. But our ROV couldn't dive deep enough, so we weren't able to go down and see what these areas actually looked like." That's one reason the team is heading back to the Arctic in 2012.

MBARI researchers tested this new mini-ROV
in the institute's test tank before sending it out
to face the challenges of the Arctic Ocean.
Image: Todd Walsh © 2012 MBARI

Heading back for more

For the 2012 expedition, the team will continue its strategy of following the topography to study areas of gas venting in the Beaufort Sea. They plan to focus on three circular, flat-topped mounds on the continental slope. The researchers believe that these pingo-like features form at the tops of "chimneys" or conduits where methane is seeping up from sediments hundreds of meters below the seafloor.

During his previous cruises, Paull used a small ROV that could dive only about 120 meters below the surface. However, the mounds on the continental slope are in about 300 to 800 meters of water. So MBARI engineers Dale Graves and Alana Sherman designed and built an entirely new ROV just for this expedition. The new ROV is small, portable, agile, relatively inexpensive, and can dive to 1,000 meters. It can also be launched and operated by just two people (for the 2012 expedition, those two people will be Graves and Sherman).

Amazingly, the new mini-ROV went from initial design to final field tests in only 15 months. But the vehicle's simple yet elegant design reflects Graves' decades of experience designing ROVs and underwater control systems. "It was a fun project for me," Graves said. "A dream come true. We designed it from scratch with a budget of just $75,000, not including labor. We mostly reused parts from MBARI's older ROVs, and built the rest in house. MBARI's electrical and mechanical technicians and machinists worked on it in between their other projects."

In addition to a state-of-the-art high-definition video camera, the ROV carries a special system for collecting methane gas bubbles. This is not as easy as it sounds, because the methane gas has a tendency to turn back into solid methane hydrate, which blocks the flow of any additional methane gas into the system. The new ROV's gas collection system includes a built-in heater to melt the hydrates and keep the gas flowing.

In addition to collecting samples of gas, the ROV will be used to look for communities of tubeworms or clams that typically grow around seafloor methane seeps. Paull said, "Nobody has ever found a living chemosynthetic biological community in the Arctic proper. But I think we have a good chance of finding them at the tops of these structures."

Dale Graves tests the control system for MBARI's new
mini-ROV in the lab before the Arctic expedition.
The entire system fits in just three small shipping cartons.
Image: Todd Walsh © 2012 MBARI

Addressing the big questions

Although the researchers have begun to understand where the gas in the Beaufort Sea is coming from, many other questions remain. One of the big questions the researchers are trying to answer is whether the three gas chimney structures on the continental slope are related to the gas venting systems in shallower water, on the continental shelf. As Paull put it, "Are they independent gas-venting structures that just happen to be together, or are they all part of the same system?"

Another important question is how all this methane gas affects the stability of the seafloor. When methane hydrates warm up and release methane gas, the gas takes up much more space than the solid hydrate, putting pressure on the surrounding sediments. Similarly, the decomposition of either methane hydrate or permafrost can reduce the mechanical strength of the surrounding sediment. Either process could make the seafloor more susceptible to submarine landslides.

Undersea landslides are common along the continental slope of the Beaufort Sea, but researchers do not yet know when or how they form. However, decomposing methane hydrates are believed to have triggered major landslides in other deep-sea areas. Such landslides could potentially destabilize oil platforms, pipelines, or other equipment on the seafloor, and have the potential to generate tsunamis.

If there is time during the 2012 cruise, the researchers hope to perform ROV dives on one or more underwater-landslides. In Fall 2013, when the team returns to the Beaufort Sea for a fourth time, these features will become the primary focus. During that expedition, the team also hopes to use one of MBARI's autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to make very detailed maps of the shelf edge, the underwater landslides, and areas where methane is bubbling out of the seafloor.

Oil and gas companies have known for decades that deep oil and natural gas deposits exist in the sediments below the continental slope of the Beaufort Sea. With the warming of the Arctic and the retreat of sea ice, these hydrocarbons have become more accessible. However, it remains to be seen whether they can be extracted safely, economically, and without excessive environmental damage. Thus, the team's research will not only provide new insights into previously unknown geological processes, but will also provide important information for decision-makers involved in oil and gas permitting.

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For more information on this article, please contact MBARI.

Related links:

• Charlie Paull's web site describing first-hand observations of methane bubbling out of seafloor during the Arctic 2010 expedition (includes video clips).
• Article describing the origin of seafloor mounds in the Beaufort Sea.
• Article on Paull's initial research regarding pingos and pingo-like-features on the seafloor.
• Charlie Paull's web site
• Web site of the Geological Survey of Canada

Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute news release