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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsArctic Methane Melt ‘Could Cost $60 Trillion’
Arctic Methane Melt Could Cost $60 Trillion
Posted on Jul 25, 2013
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
LONDONThe true cost of an ice-free Arctic summer could be counted in lives lost, communities flooded and economies ruined, three scientists warn.
Methane in the submarine permafrost could be released on such a scale that the cost to the worlds economy could reach $60 trillion. The value of the entire world economy in 2012 was $70 trillion.
Gail Whiteman is at the school of management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Peter Wadhams is a professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge and Peter Hope is at the Judge Business School in Cambridge.
All three argue, in the journal Nature, that while businesses consider the benefits of Arctic warming in terms of shorter sea routes and easier access to fossil fuel reserves, the potentially catastrophic consequences are being ignored. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/arctic_methane_melt_could_cost_60_trillion_20130725/
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Arctic Methane Melt ‘Could Cost $60 Trillion’ (Original Post)
marmar
Jul 2013
OP
"Move along. Nothing to see here. Smirk." - RepubliCorps, Inc. Propaganda Pimps (R)
Berlum
Jul 2013
#2
K&R Putting a dollar amount on the collapse of the biosphere might get their attention.
Egalitarian Thug
Jul 2013
#3
xchrom
(108,903 posts)1. du rec.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)2. "Move along. Nothing to see here. Smirk." - RepubliCorps, Inc. Propaganda Pimps (R)
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)3. K&R Putting a dollar amount on the collapse of the biosphere might get their attention.
I don't think anyone's going to be too concerned with the pricetag as the process grinds on, but maybe this will get the determinedly ignorant to look up for a moment.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)4. To repeat what I posted on another thread on this yesterday
It would cost a lot more than money
It would probably trigger another extinction event.
Our run as dominant species may be over.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)5. humans will have to adapt to breathing increasing methane in the air or die.
nice future for my kids, grand,and great grandkids.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)6. Gas Outlets off Spitsbergen Are No New Phenomenon
September 19, 2012/Kiel. Marine scientists from Kiel, together with colleagues from Bremen, Great Britain, Switzerland and Norway, spent four and a half weeks examining methane emanation from the sea bed off the coast of Spitsbergen with the German research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN. There they gained a very differentiated picture: Several of the gas outlets have been active for hundreds of years.
...
In fact, what the researchers found in the area offers a much more differentiated picture. Above all the fear that the gas emanation is a consequence of the current rising sea temperature does not seem to apply. At least some of the gas outlets have been active for longer. Carbonate deposits, which form when microorganisms convert the escaping methane, were found on the vents. At numerous emergences we found deposits that might already be hundreds of years old. This estimation is indeed only based on the size of the samples and empirical values as to how fast such deposits grow. On any account, the methane sources must be older says Professor Berndt. The exact age of the carbonates will be determined from samples in GEOMARs laboratories.
...
In fact, what the researchers found in the area offers a much more differentiated picture. Above all the fear that the gas emanation is a consequence of the current rising sea temperature does not seem to apply. At least some of the gas outlets have been active for longer. Carbonate deposits, which form when microorganisms convert the escaping methane, were found on the vents. At numerous emergences we found deposits that might already be hundreds of years old. This estimation is indeed only based on the size of the samples and empirical values as to how fast such deposits grow. On any account, the methane sources must be older says Professor Berndt. The exact age of the carbonates will be determined from samples in GEOMARs laboratories.
http://www.geomar.de/uploads/media/pm_2012_67_MSM21-4_Fazit_en.pdf