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GliderGuider

(21,088 posts)
Thu Jul 25, 2013, 09:29 PM Jul 2013

Large, Troubling Methane Pulse Coincides With Arctic Heatwave, Tundra Fires

Large, Troubling Methane Pulse Coincides With Arctic Heatwave, Tundra Fires

Yesterday, I reported that a large Arctic heat wave had settled over Siberia, once again setting off tundra fires. The heat wave was so intense that it pushed temperatures in a range of 77 to 86 degrees all the way to the shores of the Arctic Ocean even as it caused numerous massive blazes to emerge both on open tundra and throughout Siberia’s arboreal forests. Atmospheric conditions — a Jet Stream mangled by human caused climate change and a large heat dome had enabled the formation of this heat wave.

But now we find something even more ominous than evidence that human global warming is moving the Jet Stream about all while pushing polar amplification into such a high gear that the terms ‘Arctic Heat Wave’ and ‘Tundra Fire’ have now become common meteorological parlance. And that thing is a large and disturbing methane pulse.



On July 21-23, a large methane emission in which numerous sources caused atmospheric spikes to greater than 1950 parts per billion flared over a wide region of Arctic Russia and the Kara Sea. This event was so massive that an area of about 500 x 500 miles was nearly completely filled with these higher readings even as a much broader region, stretching about 2,000 miles in length and about 800 miles at its widest, experienced scores of large pulses. You can see a visual representation of these emissions in yellow on the image above, provided by Methane Tracker which compiles data provided by NASA’s Aqua Satellite.
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Large, Troubling Methane Pulse Coincides With Arctic Heatwave, Tundra Fires (Original Post) GliderGuider Jul 2013 OP
I need popcorn Hydra Jul 2013 #1
looks like my kids and grandkids future is very grim madrchsod Jul 2013 #2
Another Snowden thread Skink Jul 2013 #3
true undergroundpanther Jul 2013 #4
Looks like the sleeping giant is awakening NickB79 Jul 2013 #5
Oh shit Champion Jack Jul 2013 #6
"methane pulse" ... only very slightly less bad than "methane catastrophe" phantom power Jul 2013 #7
The methane pulse jet carries the methane bomb to its point of impact like a WWII V-1... nt GliderGuider Jul 2013 #8
On the other hand, "Don't worry - be happy" (according to Andrew Revkin, anyway) GliderGuider Jul 2013 #9
This scepticism may be justified cprise Jul 2013 #10
Here is Wadams, et al response cprise Jul 2013 #11
Damn. Gavin paying minimalist. joshcryer Jul 2013 #13
Revkin is discussing subsea methane release, though NickB79 Jul 2013 #12
Wadhams is talking about subsea too. joshcryer Jul 2013 #15
You know shit is fucked when Gavin and Revkin play minimalist. joshcryer Jul 2013 #14
Gavin: Pulse would be clear in ice cores. joshcryer Jul 2013 #16

Hydra

(14,459 posts)
1. I need popcorn
Thu Jul 25, 2013, 10:40 PM
Jul 2013


It's not every day you get to see a mass extinction event in slow motion real time, let alone your own.

madrchsod

(58,162 posts)
2. looks like my kids and grandkids future is very grim
Thu Jul 25, 2013, 11:27 PM
Jul 2013

ya we are looking at the beginning of the end of human race as we know .

undergroundpanther

(11,925 posts)
4. true
Fri Jul 26, 2013, 12:46 AM
Jul 2013

we are so screwn Only a matter of time,now. We should have listened to Prez Carter regarding fossil fuels,that speech that ended his presidency...back then maybe we could have changed things,but the manipulating,sociopath selfish greedy assholes played upon people's stupidity and car culture..and here we are.We watch our own demise unfold on the web.

 

GliderGuider

(21,088 posts)
9. On the other hand, "Don't worry - be happy" (according to Andrew Revkin, anyway)
Fri Jul 26, 2013, 09:37 AM
Jul 2013
Arctic Methane Credibility Bomb

A catastrophic release of the potent greenhouse gas methane in the Arctic could cause a sudden warming with massive economic consequences says a commentary published in the esteemed scientific journal Nature Wednesday. Yet most everything known and published about methane indicates this scenario is very unlikely. This piece should never have been published without discussing this critical point.

Nature, the same journal which published Wednesday’s commentary, published a scientific review of methane hydrates and climate change by Carolyn Ruppel in 2011 which suggests the scenario in said commentary is virtually impossible. The review states:

Catastrophic, widespread dissociation of methane gas hydrates will not be triggered by continued climate warming at contemporary rates (0.2ºC per decade; IPCC 2007) over timescales of a few hundred years. Most of Earth’s gas hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by warming over even (1,000) yr.

So, spark up a doobie and dance, y'all. We're cool .... for now.

cprise

(8,445 posts)
10. This scepticism may be justified
Fri Jul 26, 2013, 10:57 AM
Jul 2013

They appear to be using a counter argument based on paleoclimate (i.e. such a release doesn't show up in the ice cores at these levels of ocean surface exposure).

OTOH, Wadams et al are using models to project the future.

Its possible the modelers are closer to the truth if the *rate* and temp starting point of warming make a significant difference, because the current rate is unprecedented especially from a cool, more methane-laden period like ours. A past warming event at a gradual rate allows the biosphere to head-off methane buildup, storing that carbon as other forms.

cprise

(8,445 posts)
11. Here is Wadams, et al response
Fri Jul 26, 2013, 11:14 AM
Jul 2013
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/a-response-to-methane-mischief-misleading-commentary-published-in-nature
...

What is happening is that the summer sea ice now retreats so far, and for so long each summer, that there is a substantial ice-free season over the Siberian shelf, sufficient for solar irradiance to warm the surface water by a significant amount – up to 7C according to satellite data. That warming extends the 50 m or so to the seabed because we are dealing with only a polar surface water layer here (over the shelves the Arctic Ocean structure is one-layer rather than three layers) and the surface warming is mixed down by wave-induced mixing because the extensive open water permits large fetches. So long as some ice persisted on the shelf, the water mass was held to about 0C in summer because any further heat content in the water column was used for melting the ice underside. But once the ice disappears, as it has done, the temperature of the water can rise significantly, and the heat content reaching the seabed can melt the frozen sediments at a rate that was never before possible.

The 2008 US Climate Change Science Program report needs to be seen in this context. Equally, David Archer’s 2010 comment that “so far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that (a catastrophic methane release) happen” was not informed by the Semiletov/Shakhova field experiments and the mechanism described above. Carolyn Rupple’s review of 2011 equally does not reflect awareness of this new mechanism.

...


That heat-transfer mechanism may be newly-discovered, but in reality it probably was in effect during past warming episodes (the paleoclimate counter-argument). I am just a lay person, but I think the counter-argument may lack a certain degree of validity due to the warming rate and initial conditions I mentioned earlier.

NickB79

(19,258 posts)
12. Revkin is discussing subsea methane release, though
Fri Jul 26, 2013, 03:36 PM
Jul 2013

Most of the methane releases we're seeing in the image in your OP are land-based methane bleed-offs. And that's a shitload of methane being released from all that thawing permafrost.

Slightly less bad, but still REALLY. FUCKING. BAD.

joshcryer

(62,276 posts)
15. Wadhams is talking about subsea too.
Sat Jul 27, 2013, 04:13 AM
Jul 2013

But what Wadhams is pointing out is the effect the arctic ice has on temperature of the sea and land which isn't being considered by others and really while other scientists put their heads in the sand over arctic melt.

joshcryer

(62,276 posts)
14. You know shit is fucked when Gavin and Revkin play minimalist.
Sat Jul 27, 2013, 04:12 AM
Jul 2013

Holy shit.

Gavin's tweets in particular are damning because he keeps saying "we may get there but we're not there yet" while in fact Wadhams makes it abundantly clear we're on the fucking precipice. Holy fucking shit. I am really bothered by this.

joshcryer

(62,276 posts)
16. Gavin: Pulse would be clear in ice cores.
Sat Jul 27, 2013, 04:27 AM
Jul 2013

What the fuck Gavin. There would be no ice core to represent said pulse because the fucking ice would melt! Eemian was only slightly warmer than today, but it took centuries for Eemian to reach that level. No pulse happens because methane has a short half life in the fucking atmosphere. Of course Eemian isn't going to show a fucking goddamn pulse! Eemian had pre-industrial CO2 levels, to top it off, so in the end it was a purely Milankovitch cycle effect and glaciation likely also contributed to ocean cooling.

In summation there was no massive ocean heat uptake, no massive melting of arctic ice, and the Eemian is simply not comparable. Everything else is fucking invalid.

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