Arctic Ice Holds Much CO2

scottie2shoes writes "The Edmonton Journal is reporting fascinating research on the role of arctic ice in absorbing carbon dioxide. It seems that (contrary to what was previously thought) arctic ice actually absorbs significant quantites of CO2 and is thus a key player in the 'greenhouse gas game'. So melting the ice caps won't just flood thousands of square miles of land and wipe out thousands of species, now it is is starting to sound serious..."

Comments

Re:Circular

[Molina the Bofh]

Not only this, but the Arctic ice melting decreases Earth's albedo, thus melting more ice and releasing more greenhouse gases.

Re:Circular

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that there is also the posibility that the open seas that replace the ice will absorb more carbon dioxide than the ice itself did, regulating the whole mess and stopping any runaway effect. Of course it's only a theory, and not one I'd bet the farm on. More research is needed (when isn't it?).

More Info?

[Overdrive_SS]

The article seemed pretty light on the details. How do they go about measuring these things? Is it possible that there was just more CO2 in the atmosphere when the ice formed?

Is this new?

[RevAaron]

Is there anything new with this? I thought this was something known for quite a while.

Another nasty factor contributing to the runaway positive feedback loop is the warming of bogs. The strip of bogs around the northern part of the world holds 25% of all of the world's carbon- it's one helluva sink. As the climate warms up, the bogs start warming up, which will start releasing a lot of methane and CO2. A professor here at my school (John Pastor) has been doing work measuring this. Spooky stuff.

Where does it go?

[jgoemat]

I don't quite get what they are trying to say... If the ice is "sucking down" the carbon dioxide, where is it going? It's not a black whole to get rid of carbon dioxide. Is it putting it down through the ice into the ocean? Is it storing it in the ice itself? Is the ice absorbing oxygen and nitrogen as well?

If passing the CO2 down to the ocean, I think it would be beneficial to have less ice to allow more plankton in the open water to convert CO2 to O2.

If absorbing in the ice, are there huge bubbles? What is the capacity? Has the ice not reached it's capacity over the last several thousand years? If not, then when would it reach it's storage capacity anyway?

What is the mechanism for the transmission of CO2 through solid ice?

How did the earth get rid of CO2 before man started generating it by burning fossil fuels?

Buoyancy please....

[CrosbieFitch]

Did someone say caps?

Plural?

Remember that melting the north polar ice cap will not raise sea level...

co2 sequestering in ice in prehistoric times

[neuraloverload]

http://www.theecologist.org/archive_article.html?a rticle=272&category=56 this gives a decent overview of the issue. effectively it states that co2 levels were much higher in the past, and as the climate turned a significant portion of it was locked in the ice sheets that up until recently were pretty stable. not any more. other concerns are methane gas pockets from rotted plant deposits that were eventually covered by the oceans or ice as well as bacteria colonies (http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-04/cover/) and could cause some pretty serious problems from a bunch of different angles. things like- you can't breathe co2 or methane with much success, so, like the big bubble that rose out of the lake in south africa http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issue s03/sep03/killer_lakes.html and killed a bunch of people in the immediate vicinity. or tsunami activity. heck, a bubble coming up under a carrier battlegroup would probably swallow it whole and start another war, which would keep our minds and mouths occupied with everything but the selfextinction of man.

Re: yeah. great.

[Black Parrot]

> Unless people are actually dying at an alarming rate, no amount of evidence is going to change anything.

I think the Great Melt is already upon us. Just look at the news of the past few years: Glacier National Park is becoming Bare Rock National Park; unprecedented signs of melt in the Artic last year; signs of instability in Antartic ice; predator-prey relationships getting out of whack due to an earlier spring melt. A few years earlier, Otzi melting out of the Alpine snow for the first time in 5000 years.

Places like New Orleans and Venice, already having trouble due to subsidence, are going to be in "deep" trouble, and the cost is going to be phenomenal.