Faster Global Warming From Permafrost Melt

jc42 writes, "A recent study published in Nature documents the accelerating release of methane from melting permafrost. Methane is a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so this may signal more rapid warming in the near future. If you don't subscribe to Nature, the Guardian has a good summary of the piece." It's not just Siberian permafrost. One of the major concerns is bogs — they account for a relatively small percent of total surface space, but have a large amount of carbon locked up. No one is sure if the greenhouse effect will cause them to lock up more, or to release more carbon.

Comments

Also in a country near you....

[Silver Sloth]

You can bet your last dollar that, if it's happening in Siberia, then it's happening in Canada.

Re:Also in a country near you....

[Walt Dismal]

I always knew blogs were full of methane. -- What? -- Oh, you said 'bogs'. Um, but it's still a lot of stinky vapor.

Oh nOOS

[MindStalker]

Panic!

Re:Oh nOOS

[PrescriptionWarning]

whats that, dogs and cats are sleeping together!?!

Re:Oh nOOS

[MindStalker]

No I'm using my karmac horric +1 to post that ^^. Thats what Oh nOOS.

Re:Oh nOOS

[gx5000]

Step 1 - Create scenario for a disaster and discredit any witnesses Step 2 - Deny occurence and create global Panic Step 3 - Prof$t ! Cheers ! Ceci EST une Signature !

Coming up next

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming up next: american scientists denial of global warming. New device to dig head-sized hole in the ground now for sale at Wal-Mart.

bogs

[gEvil (beta)]

One of the major concerns is bogs -- they account for a relatively small percent of total surface space, but have a large amount of carbon locked up.

They also have a fair number of bogmen in them. Thanks to the highly acidic and low oxygen environment of bogs, the softer parts of animals (skin, hair, organs) remain intact while the bones dissolve. What you end up with is essentially a nice "sack of meat." Totally offtopic, but pretty fascinating stuff, imho.

Re:bogs

[Saven Marek]

There's a new Uwe Boll film in there I'm sure. "Rise of the Global Warming Bog Men"

Re:bogs

[gEvil (beta)]

Now all we gotta do is find a videogame franchise to tie it to. I nominate Syberia.

Re:Can't we provide an artificial albedo ?

[jimstapleton]

why not just manufacture white shingles for houses/buildings, and require they be used. That would reduce AC costs in the summer as well.

The ice method would require so much energy production it would be counter productive.

In light of the article,

[afd8856]

I propose we figure a way to extract the methane from the athmosphere and burn it, thus creating less catastrophic gases :-)

Re:In light of the article,

[Red Flayer]

I propose we figure a way to extract the methane from the athmosphere and burn it, thus creating less catastrophic gases :-)

That's not entirely off base.

Who woulda thunk that swamp-gas flares would actually decrease the greenhouse effect? The only thing I'd be concerned about would be whether the heat released from "wasteful" burning would outweight the greenhouse effect energy trapping.

In addition, there have been several attempts to harness escaping methane for energy before it is dispersed into the atmosphere... from cow flatulence, for example. A little harder to do for dispersed release systems, like permafrost, but if it's going to melt anyway, maybe there's an energy-efficient way to harvest the trapped methane before it escapes?

Re:In light of the article,

[hey!]

I propose we figure a way to extract the methane from the athmosphere and burn it, thus creating less catastrophic gases :-)

Seconded.

And I propose we put Maxwell's Demon in charge of the project.

It's your fault

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that, when the ozon is destroyed and the fish die, they will say "It was everybody's fault. We didn't do anything to stop it". They won't say it was George Bush's fault, or McDonalds fault.

And they will be right. The only way to stop it is to slow down the circulation of money.

Re:It's your fault

[The_Mr_Flibble]

You've seen my bank balance ?

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[Silver Sloth]

The scientists release the facts - that the permafrost is changing. Then the people who pay the scientists say 'Why should we care, why should we pay for your expensive field trips?' and the scientist replies 'Because we need to know, we need to find out what's going on, so we might have a chance of surviving (and me keeping my job)'

So, to sum up, scienists have released some facts - there are significant changes in the permafrost which are yet another significant pointer to global climate change. Furthermore, the released the fact that we don't know what significance this change will take.

In terms of cause and effect

[justthinkit]

It seems that pollution is the cause. Specifically, soot lands on snow, the snow becomes less reflective than it was, absorbing more sunlight energy and melting more. This is causing major environmental damage (i.e. to glaciers throughout the world). Methane release is a consequence of this, but will now have its own consequences as well.

The die is cast. Humans have majorly polluted the planet and the planet is fighting back, however gradually. I predict the final score will be planet 1 : humans 0.

Re:In terms of cause and effect

[rk]

Yes, plus the Earth doesn't really like being anthropomorphized all that much, so if you won't stop for environmental science, stop for the sake of Earth's feelings.

Re:In terms of cause and effect

[Gothmolly]

Spoken like someone who's a little uncomfortable about their college major, undoubtedly studied while living in their parents' basement.

Re:In terms of cause and effect

[amliebsch]

Dammit, Jim, I'm an attorney, not an environmental scientist. But what I studied is irrelevant; anthropomorphization nearly always impedes clear thinking.

Yum!

[Pao|o]

Hmmmmmmmm... permafrost melt.... :P~~

Vox?

[whoop]

If permafrost melts, what ever will become of Lady Vox? Long as she doesn't hook up with Nagafen, we'll be alright...

The Gurdian lies

[lrohrer]

The Guardian says "This means that a kilogram of methane warms the planet's atmosphere 23 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide."

A gas can not warm the planet. The sun is the main heat source for the planet. We have to assume that the planet's own heat is constant. Increase the sun's output by fractions of a percentage to produce very dramatic warming on the earth. Greenhouse effect only relates to how much (or how little) the earth cools after it's been heated by the sun. Even man's exhaust from all sources can not warm the first 500 feet of the ocean anywhere close to what the sun does. The oceans and its currents affect weather far more than anything man does or at present can do.

I note that the study was purposely trying to find locations on a lake and lakes that spew larger amounts of methane. So the intent was to find more gas. The intent was to collect it better than previous studies. With out satelite confirmation over the same areas, it is a biased study.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[tverbeek]

A gas can not warm the planet.

Slimy Defense Attorney: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution has told you that my client the defendant ran over the deceased several times. But my client has knee injury and cannot run, let alone run over a person. And the deceased was covered by tire tracks, not footprints. The prosecution is obviously lying!"

Weary District Attorney: "As the jury obviously understood, I meant that the ran over the deceased with his car."

Re:The Gurdian lies

[robertjw]

A gas can not warm the planet.

Sure it can, just light a match.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[Scrameustache]

The Guardian says "This means that a kilogram of methane warms the planet's atmosphere 23 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide."

A gas can not warm the planet.

So neither can a blanket warm you, then.
Any other sophistries you'd like to share?

Re:The Gurdian lies

[gx5000]

Anybody saying that a gas (or a plethora of gasses) cannot warm the planet (or the family bathroom) has not experienced their Forty-year-old Father using the facilities in the evening. I suggest leaving the family Canary firmly in it's cage in the Kitchen. Thank you.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[ThosLives]

Actually, a blanket cannot warm you just as a gas cannot warm you.

What both can do, incidentally, is keep you warm. A blanket just keeps your metabolic waste energy trapped close to you as warmth. Various gases just keep solar energy trapped close to the planet longer.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[Scrameustache]

A blanket just keeps your metabolic waste energy trapped close to you as warmth.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

For your next trick, please explain that water is wet. This ought to keep you missing the point for another short while.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[Sique]

This is not exactly true, as the ocean itself is influenced by Man. What we have here are multiple feedback loops, some are positive feedbacks, increasing the force, others are negative feedbacks, leading to a balance. One of those loops is closely connected to the sun's energy received by the earth. If the temperature of the earth is constant, it just means, that the earth itself radiates exactly as much energy as it receives from the sun (not necessarily in the same frequency range though). If the earth radiates less, the temperature of the earth increases (by absorbing the not reflected energy and thus turning it into warmth). If the earth radiates more, the earth cools down. The energy an object radiates is proportional to the forth power of its temperature, if the object itself doesn't change. So for a stable object we have a negative feedback loop, leading to a balance: As soon as the object gets warmer, it increases its energy radiation, until it reaches balance with the incoming energy. As soon as an object cools down, it's energy radiation is dropping until it reaches equilibrium with the incoming energy.

What we now have is not a stable object, we have the earth with an atmosphere and ocean currents and reflective surfaces at the poles and on the glaciers, and with chemical reactions using incoming energy to create compounds with higher chemical energy, or releasing chemical energy with was used to create those compounds before. Each of them has a different balance temperature than the others, so the average balance temperature of the whole earth depends on how much energy each of the different parts reflects or radiates. It gets more complicated as the earth's atmosphere reflects in both ways: Incoming sun rays and also warmth radiated by the earth's surface items (energy they absorbed from sunlight before, or they got from the cooling of the earth core, or from radioactive decay). Because the earth's atmosphere is much more reflective for warmth than for sunlight, the equilibrium temperature of the earth is higher than for an atmosphere-less object at the same orbit than the earth (it's estimated to be about 10-15 Celsius). This is called the Green House Effect. Everything that influences the difference in reflectivity for warmth and sunlight in the atmosphere directly affects the Green House Effect. Dust in the atmosphere for instance increases the reflectivity for sunlight, thus cooling the atmosphere (the Green House Effect gets smaller). Methan and Carbondioxide keep the reflectivity for sunlight about the same, but increase the reflectivity for warmth, thus increasing the Green House Effect.

Each square meter of the earth's surface gets about 1.5 kJoule of energy per second from the sun. With the reflectivity of the atmosphere only about 150 Joule per square meter and second are reaching the earth's surface. That means that nearly 90% of the sun's energy are reflected immediately and not even warming the earth's surface. If we would lower the reflectivity of the atmosphere around 10%, we suddenly got 300 Joule per square meter and second, in fact doubling the heating of the earth! So even a small change in the atmosphere can have huge impact on the earth's surface temperature.

We should keep that in mind when we start discussing the man made Green House Effect and its strength.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[jc42]

Technically the sun's heat isn't coming from its gasses; the heat comes from the part that's a plasma. The gaseous part is called its "atmosphere", and it doesn't really contribute to the heat. It just scatters the photons produced down in the plasma portion.

Yeah, I know; picky, picky, picky ...

Re:The Gurdian lies

[TapeCutter]

"Actually, a blanket cannot warm you just as a gas cannot warm you."

So we can all save a fortune next winter by throwing away our gas heaters and electric blankets?

Disclaimer: The above statement is just as silly as your attempt to nit-pick.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[TapeCutter]

Not a bad summary. I am probably not telling you anything new but one of the best places on the web for in depth reporting of climate science is RealClimate. It's also and excellent source for articles that debunk common myths and assumptions. One of my favorite examples is the false (but common) assumption that economic models are more robust than climate models, leading to the politicaly inspired myth that international regulation of CO2 emmisions will "destroy the economy".

As for TFA, methane from permafrost is nothing new to people who follow the science. I think it was last year when they picked out the large methane "anomoly" hovering over siberia. What is new (and bad) is the observed rate (5X what was expected). Another study observed a huge increase in the number and area of fresh water lakes across siberia and interpreted the results as a faster than expected permafrost melt. Same sort of results from a study looking at the output from siberian rivers.

Results from climate models have consitently underestimated the volatility of permafrost. A half dozen years ago models were predicting permafrost would start melting in 20-50yrs, yet buildings, bridges and roads in Russia and Alaska are already sinking into the ever expanding mud. The one ray of hope in all this is that acctuaries in the big insurance companies have taken a good look at the risks and those (very influential) companies are now starting to act accordingly.

Do I think it's "the end of the world"? No, but what happens when I combine "global warming" with "peak-oil" and "the sixth great extinction"? Suddenly my grandkids suffering through a major downward "correction" for the "population explosion", followed by a second dark-age in an environment only fit for goats, becomes a very real possibility. Much more real than someone like OBL enforcing it on us via kamakazi tactics and home made videos.

Re:The Gurdian lies

[jc42]

Hey, fart jokes are common even among scientists when discussing atmospheric methane. It's been known for a couple decades that roughly 1/3 of the methane in our atmosphere comes from the digestive systems of ruminants (cattle, etc.), so fart jokes are inevitable. Actually, a recent report claimes that cattle produce most of their methane by belching, which sorta took a bit of the fun out of it. But cattle also fart a lot.

OTOH, a few years ago some researchers tracked down the source of another 1/3 of the methane: termites. Most people don't suspect how incredibly many termites there are on this planet. They are all digesting plant fibers via a process similar to that of cattle (and using some of the same bacteria). This produces the image of trillions and trillions of tiny little termite farts.

That discovery did pretty much account for most of the methane. Aside from those two major sources, there are thousands of small sources, none of them very good sources of humor.

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[ZakuSage]

This wonderful country of Cananda. Could you point it out on a map for me, I've never heard of it.

Chicken-little titles...

[phayes]

The title to the story is "Faster Global Warming from Permafrost Melt" yet TFA & even the extract say
"No one is sure if the greenhouse effect will cause them to lock up more, or to release more carbon"...

Sensationalist titles like this are why I still have my doubts about global warning. Every time any climate data is released, the global warning crowd comes out with another sensationalist global warning blurb.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[tverbeek]

Ignore the headlines. Read the articles and look at the data. Once you do, you'll start writing alarmed headlines as well.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[robertjw]

Try reading *real* scientific journals, such as Nature. You'll find there is no debate over global warming within the scientific community.

OK, AC troll, I'll bite.

First, AFAIK, 'real' scientific journals can be very elitist and very narrow minded. What gets published in most journals must be acceptable to the community at large for the journal to remain a respected institution. On top of that, article submission is expensive, difficult and lengthy, even if you do have a nice safe acceptable paper to submit. Scientific journals may or may not provide evidence of cohesive thought on global warming.

Second, while there may be no debate over the occurance of global warming, there is great debate over the causes, impact, solutions, etc... Is it only greenhouse gasses? Are the other contributing factors? Are we in a feedback loop? Is there anything that can be done? Will the result be warmer temperatures, or another ice age? Will humanity survive? These are all questions highly debated everywhere - if you know of a scientist that can tell us definitevly of the causes, solutions and results I would love to hear it.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[Scrameustache]

Sensationalist titles like this are why I still have my doubts about global warning.

Ok, ignore the JOURNALIST'S READER-BAIT title, and think for a moment about the fact at hand:

The permafrost is melting.
The layer of soil named after the fact that it is permanently frozen is melting.

Think about it.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[hey!]

First, AFAIK, 'real' scientific journals can be very elitist and very narrow minded. What gets published in most journals must be acceptable to the community at large for the journal to remain a respected institution. On top of that, article submission is expensive, difficult and lengthy, even if you do have a nice safe acceptable paper to submit. Scientific journals may or may not provide evidence of cohesive thought on global warming.

This is an ad hominem attack known as poisoning the well.

Plus most of what you assert here is untrue.

If what you said was true, then papers which call the scientific consensus into question would never get published. And thus the scientific consensus would never change. But contrarian papers get published all the time. And the consensus does change.

The problem is that the standards of proof are high, and the larger the claims, the greater the standards of proof. You may want the scientific consensus to change, and you may have evidence which supports your position, but you are not going to get published if you demand the that everybody change their mind. Your study is only a one study, after all, and you have to set your evidence against a body of evidence that is larger and more tested than yours. The way to get a contrarian paper published, and to change the scientific consensus, is to draw your conclusions narrowly, e.g. some particular carbon sink absorbs more carbon than we thought, or the effect of increased cloud formation on global temperatures is greater than we thought.

You can't take one study and push the opinion of science in a totally new direction. Science is a conservative business. You have to undermine the consensus in enough key places, then scientific opinion will change, almost overnight. There's no evidence this is happening on global warming, although I wish it were.

With respect to elitism, that is absolutely true, if by that you mean that most arguments are not considered worthy of publication in a peer reviewed journal. For one thing, you are required to give the devil his due, to make it possible for an independent reader to dispute your evidence or your reasoning from your evidence. Right off the bat, this makes it impossible formany kinds of articles to get published, viz., those that have no empirical basis or which draw wildly inflated conclusions from small bodies of evidence.

Second, while there may be no debate over the occurance of global warming, there is great debate over the causes, impact, solutions, etc... Is it only greenhouse gasses? Are the other contributing factors? Are we in a feedback loop? Is there anything that can be done? Will the result be warmer temperatures, or another ice age? Will humanity survive? These are all questions highly debated everywhere - if you know of a scientist that can tell us definitevly of the causes, solutions and results I would love to hear it.

First of all, if what you say here is true, and "These are all questions highly debated everywhere," then you have undermined your own assertion that the global warming consensus is the product of academic closed mindedness.

Now the answer to most of your questions are well known to anybody who reads the scientific press -- Scientific American, Science News, etc.

Q: Is it only greenhouse gasses? / Are the other contributing factors?
A: probably not and possibly so. For example in the last couple of decades, average Total Solar Irradiance has increased by a very small amount, 0.1%, which is about half of its daily variability. While this amounts to a vast amount of energy, it is not enough that, over the time scale, you would expect significant climate shifts.

Q: Are we in a feedback loop?
A: Yes. Climate models are, for practical purposes, collections of feedback loops that are tuned by experimental or theoretical results. This very story we are commenting on is about a positive feedback loop. The problem is that current data seems to point towards an equillibr

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[ccmay]

We might also precipitate a new Ice Age if we follow your recommendations. You can't prove that it wouldn't.

-ccm

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[jc42]

Others have pointed out the logical problem with Pascal's Wager. I'll just mention a more relevant argument: No matter what the situation, we're better off understanding what's going on that we'll be if we don't understand.

If we act without understanding, the outcome is unpredictable, and is as likely to be worse as it is to be better. If we understand the system, and can thus predict the outcome of our actions with some accuracy, we stand a much better chance of fixing whatever problems actually exist.

Most of the anti-climate-change rhetoric has the goal of suppressing scientific research. This is most likely a losing wager, no matter what's happening.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[aussersterne]

Right, so rather than do something preventative just in case likely global warming is occurring, it's clear that we should instead WAIT AND SEE if our species dies out and mass extinctions radically alter the face of the planet. Then, and only then will we know who is right, which is what REALLY MATTERS.

Of course, that will still leave the question of WHOSE FAULT IT IS, man or nature, so clearly since the whole thing will never prove someone right, we should simply not worry about it at all, because it's ONLY WHO'S RIGHT that matters.

Re:Chicken-little titles...

[phayes]

Oh sure, so we humans have become the most adaptable species ever, yet we are supposedly all going to die because of a minor climate change? Much like the preachers who scream "REPENT! THE END IS NEAR! OBEY ME OR ALL IS LOST!", you lose most of your credibility when you attempt to paint everything using only two colors.

I can remember back to the 70's when most climatologists were warning about our impending doom from an impending Ice Age! Niven & Pournelle wrote a book about it. When you see the same people completely changing directions it tends to make you doubt that this time they're not wrong.

I don't deny that the climate is changing. I don't deny that some people will be hurt by it either, I just don't jump to the automatic conclusion that climate change is somehow "unnatural", that this change has only negative attributes and that after the human race adapts to it that we won't all end off better for it.

Re:A solution

[phayes]

Those "rising columns of hot air" barely reach the stratosphere even in major events like a major volcano eruption. Your fears of running out of atmosphere through global warming are unfounded. Look at Venus: Hot as hell (literally) yet it still has an atmosphere denser than Earth's.

Feedback: why climate research is expensive

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Here we've got a positive feedback loop. The warmer it gets, the more CH4 is presumably released from permafrost.

There are also negative feedback loops. The warmer it gets, the more water evaporates, the more clouds there are, and clouds reflect sunlight. On the other hand, clouds can also hold heat in, and water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

If you want to make forecasts you have to put numbers on all those effects, and they have to be fairly precise numbers or you get hit by the uncertainties of (approximate large number minus other approximate large number). You've also got to account for discontinuities, things that only start happening at threshold temperatures (permafrost melting) or that stop happening after some amount of C)2 gets absorbed (oceanic absorption).

That's where all your tax money is going. It's paying to send highly trained people to uncomfortable places to get hard facts.

That also tells you that it's taken a huge amount of field data to get general agreement on what our CO2 output does to climate.

Actually it's simpler

[Colin Smith]

Make energy expensive.

http://www.whynot.net/ideas/2195

People in hot areas will start adding insulation, whitewashing their houses, adding trees and ivy people in cold areas will start adding insulation, heat pumps etc.

Re:Actually it's simpler

[kestasjk]

> Make energy expensive.

1) Make energy expensive
2) Piss off businesses and consumers who want luxury and economic security now
3) Along comes a guy who promises to lower energy prices
4) Get voted out

Re:Actually it's simpler

[Burlap]

6) go surfing in Hudsons Bay

Re:Actually it's simpler

[pclminion]

Good ideas, but I'd nix the ivy. In most regions it is considered an invasive species. Its roots pulverize house siding over time, the cuttings take root and grow in unpredictable places, the vines wrap around and choke the growth of trees, etc. Ivy, particularly English ivy, is a hellish plant that should be ripped up and burned when found, not encouraged. (Unless of course it's in its native environment where the other members of the ecosystem have found a balance with it.)

Re:Actually it's simpler

[Colin Smith]

You reduce income and sales taxes in concert. Businesses and individuals have more money to spend, how they do it is up to them, but there's all that energy to pay for, or they can invest in ways of reducing their energy usage.

Decimal places

[Quiet_Desperation]

No one is sure if the greenhouse effect will cause them to lock up more, or to release more carbon.

Oh, well, case closed then!

On Facts and Theories

[PIPBoy3000]

Furthermore, the released the fact that we don't know what significance this change will take.

Fact is a pretty strong word in science. Instead you'll generally see "consensus" or "strongly suggests" or "the theory supports". Facts tend to be only used when discussing measurable data, and even then they discuss margin of errors and possible problems in taking the readings.

If I jump off a building, a group of scientists would cheerfully predict when I'll hit the bottom and with how much force, though they'll admit that they can't account for confounding variables like wind speed and the possibility that Superman might wander by. There might be one chap who scoffs at the others and says it's worthless making a prediction as we can't tell if I has a parachute tucked away somewhere.

I see global climate change the same way. It's a complex issue and there's lots of details that still need to be sorted out. Still, if you ask a bunch of scientists their opinion on it, the consensus is that it's real, man-made, and will likely hit the bottom with a loud splat sooner rather than later.

Re:On Facts and Theories

[Silver Sloth]

Indeed, good science has NO facts, just the latest hypothysis (sp?) which has yet to be proven wrong. However, the original poster was using 'fact' for 'data' so I continued his usage.

Re:On Facts and Theories

[jc42]

Indeed, good science has NO facts, just the latest hypothysis (sp?) which has yet to be proven wrong.

Actually, typically we have both. Except that "fact" isn't a common technical term, perhaps because it's monosyllabic. Usually scientists talk about "observations" or "data". "Fact" is just the informal (layman's) term for observed data.

The release of methane from permafrost isn't a hypothesis. It's observed data, as described in the recent Nature article. The recent increase in the release rate is also observed data. Just what it means is up for hypothesizing. This is going to include the fact (verifiable in laboratories anywhere) that methane is a strong "greenhouse gas".

Predicting the effects of the methane really isn't hypthesizing, but rather calculating from the documented physical properties of methane. The main unknown here is the pending rate of methane release. Stay tuned to data from people making precise methane measurements in various parts of the world. Data from Canada and Alaska is probably in the pipeline.

There's also the lurking bogeyman of the huge deposits of methane-ice "clathrates" in the deep oceans. That one is currently in the "conjecture" phase, with researchers applying for grants for more field trips to make the needed measurements. Again, the physical properties of these ices are well known. What's not known is how big the deposits are and how close they are to a phase change.

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[malsdavis]

It's almost as bad as those evolutionary biologists who don't bother examining if their are any effects from God's guiding hand when documenting a species' genetic make-up. How dare scientists base their research on extremely well researched facts and not on the views of American right-wing fundamentalists.

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[ameline]

Let me help you.

http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/00b9a680/5d e73104

Old news, sorry

[Gothmolly]

This is more like "scientific fact, long ago known, by anyone who's followed global warming", not "News". What's next, a Ric Romero story about how the oceans store tons (literally) of CO2?

So...

[Kesch]

Let me get this straight. Globabl warming is caused by farts from Siberian snow?

There's a bad Soviet Russia joke in here.

Chemistry

[Cybert4]

Let's see, Hydrogen monoxide and nitrous sulphur? I don't think any of those are even stable. Oh, and you must have expected this reply on /. .

Re:Chemistry

[MindStalker]

Thank you for making me laugh today.

It's not the titles, it's the editors

[Eevee]

The title deals only with permafrost, while the comment from the editor deals with bogs, something that has nothing to do with permafrost aside from being another kind of terrain common in more nordic regions. If the editor had stayed on track, there wouldn't be any confusion.

As for the articles, the only thing remotely close to disagreement is the comment that if if it gets hot enough for all the permafrost underneath the lakes to melt then the water will be able to sink into the ground and you won't have a permafrost lake anymore. (Although I'm not sure how saying that once the permafrost is melted we don't have to worry about excess greenhouse gasses from permafrost is in any way reassuring.)

Did you pass basic reading comprehension?

[Pentagram]

The title to the story is "Faster Global Warming from Permafrost Melt" yet TFA & even the extract say
"No one is sure if the greenhouse effect will cause them to lock up more, or to release more carbon"...

Um no. First of all, you obviously haven't read TFA because it doesn't say this. It was apparently written by the /. submitter, who is in any case referring to uncertainty over bogs, not the melting permafrost.

Sensationalist titles like this are why I still have my doubts about global warning.

You decide whether or not to accept scientific studies based on Slashdot headlines? We're in more trouble than I thought.

Re:A solution

[rohar]

No, the tower is bi-directional in moderate climates and in no means tall enough to cause this problem.

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[gx5000]

HUh, oh....argh..LOL...you are joking right..ah ? I have to slow down and read /. at a better pace... Ya almost had me going there.. Cheers

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[jc42]

Shouldn't it be more like "Faster Global Warming Possible From Permafrost Melt?" or "Major Climate changes could happen from Permafrost Melt".

Well, I tried a few such headlines, but found that /. has a rather small limit to the length of an article's title. So I went with a shorter one that didn't get truncated.

(But /. does allow longer headlines than just about any newspaper. ;-)

Not a problem.

[Cybert4]

The /. ideals must be upheld!

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[qeveren]

It's kind of sad, how lately I've been viewing our neighbors to the south (rather, their military-industrial Administration), that this scenario seems frighteningly likely in the non-too-distant future. :(

Sorry, I am still sceptical

[Anon-Admin]

The weather man can not predict the weather 7 days in advance, why should I believe that weather predictions in the 10, 50, 100, or 200 years from now range are going to be right? I am sorry; I just can not swallow that one!

Re:Sorry, I am still sceptical

[soft_guy]

This isn't about predicting the weather. It is more similar to predicting that summer will be hot in Texas.

Re:Sorry, I am still sceptical

[geekoid]

yes, let your complete igorance guide you. Perhaps invisible ponies will fix everything just fine.

Consideringe climatology is different from meterology, I would say you comparison is....crap.
I predict that comparison will still be crap in 100 years.

Re:Sorry, I am still sceptical

[Cedric Tsui]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Te mperature_Record.png

Have a look at this graph. There's a lot of noise. If you were to look at 3 years in a row, it's pretty much impossible to guess what the temperature will be in the next year. But if you look at the whole graph, then it's pretty clear that things are on the whole getting hotter. Notice especially how fast the heating trend is in the last 10 years (9 of which are the hottest years ever recorded)

It's actually easier to predict things in the long term (given enough data) than it is to say, predict the weather in a week's time. Random fluctuations tend to even themselves out given enough time. That being said, the graph above isn't really enough data to show conclusively what is going to happen.

Ced

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I know an easy way to make sure it's the second- use the melting tundra to grow pine trees.

Re:A solution

[bwcbwc]

It's not the rising columns of air, but increased kinetic energy and momentum in general. Earth's atmosphere is constantly losing particles that escape into space. This is compensated from particles that fall into our gravity well. It's more an effect of brownian motion and individual molecules achieving escape velocity than air currents, though.

There are several factors involved in determining the rate of exchange. Increased temperature implies increased average energy level in the atmosphere and increased volume (the atmosphere extends further away from the surface). Carbon dioxide is heavier than both H2O and O2, so increased levels of CO2 will tend to push those molecules away from the surface and into the upper atmosphere. Also a collision between a CO2 molecule and a water or oxygen molecule will impart greater velocity to the lighter molecule. Conversely, methane is lighter than O2 or H2O, so it will rise with/above them.

In general, though, I expect global warming to cause a measurable increase in the level of atmosphere lost to space (at least anything lighter than CO2). Given the amount of water in the environment, and the ability of plants to lock up CO2, I don't expect it to turn earth into a venusian hell-hole, let alone lose the entire atmosphere. We're talking millions of years, even if we humans manage to release all of the fossil CO2 from the pre-Cambrian era and kill off all vertebrate animal life in the process.

I seem to remember...

[GWBasic]

I seem to remember watching a documentary on Discovery HD about how, in one of the past instances of global warming, methane was released from deep in the sea and caused a mass extinction. This news doesn't surprise me at all.

OH PLease !

[gx5000]

WOn't ANYONE think of the Children !!! ..Actually why not in this case... Doing nothing is in effect wagering our children's future.. (I can't beleive I just typed that...the new Simp season just started right ?)

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Now someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that water would actually become *cheaper* given a higher global temperature. More heat = more evaporation = more precipitation going even further inland from the ocean?

Re:This is why people can't rely on spin doctors.

[jonskerr]

"Facts do not change because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

CLIMATE != WEATHER

[TapeCutter]

How much longer do we have to put up with the "weatherman" red herring. Climate is the long term statistics of weather, if you can't understand that then you are either a troll, willfully ignorant, or simply a wanker without a clue.

Opps

[TapeCutter]

Should read: as silly as the GP's attempt to nitpick.

Re:A solution

[geekoid]

"I don't expect it to turn earth into a venusian hell-hole, let alone lose the entire atmosphere."

for our purposes, in only has to become inhabitable to us to be a problem. A problem we might want to think about seriously.

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[geekoid]

'all siginifigant data shows trhat the permafrost melting will increase global warming.' would be more accurate.

Re:This is why people can't rely on science.

[geekoid]

"Stories like this show why people can't rely on science to show the way forward with so many rumours and mis-ideas about global warming."

scare mongering media and politicos catering to ignorance cause rumours and mis-ideas about global warming, not science.

All sciences starts with observation.

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[sisakat]

It would go farther inland, not only in lakes and rivers but it would raise the ocean levels too. So there would be more salt water, which isn't safe to drink. You would have to distill it, which takes a while (I think..) and takes a lot of energy to do, so the cost of energy and water would go up.

Also, the oceans would get watered down and the lower amount of salt would screw up the climate and all the ecosystems in the ocean. (I don't think it would get watered down enough to drink though.)

The ocean has a specific density with the salt and has a balence that creates the currents that warm the northern/southern areas and cool the areas near the equator. Toss that out and it will get colder in Europe and hotter in Eastern North America, and who knows what'll happen in the rest of the world.
Many large coastal cities and countrys would get covered with water.
Ecosystems that have lasted for thousands of years would be completely wiped out because the speed of the change wouldn't allow them to evolve and adapt fast enough to be able to survive.

Re:What I'm really curious about is....

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

True - I was just referring to the actual precipitation and access to water. Intuitively, there should be an increase in rainfall (freshwater - not salt).

Global warming will be a distaster, but I don't think we're going to stop it. Even if we all make the effort now to change our ways, there is simply too much inertia. Our next step shouldn't be aimed at stopping it, but slowing it down, and beginning to prepare for the effects.

Personally, I'm not too worried about thousand-year-old ecosystems. They've been wiped out before in non-manmade climate change, and will be again. I think we're doing more damage in our hunt for resources and more land than climate change will ever do - evolution has proven resilient to climate change, I don't know if it is as resiliant to a species' takeover of the earth - creating unnatural barriers in the form of dams and roads and cities.

I also think it's time to start talking about specific effects - and planning for them. And we should be talking about the good along with the bad. Higher precipitation going further inland could open up deserts to irrigation and colonization. Same goes for the excess heat opening up the Canadian and Russian northlands. Should we start building infrastructure towards these places so that when the time comes, they'll be ready?

I don't expect anyone to celebrate global warming - it's a disruption in how the earth as we know it is working. But unless we can stop it - and most accounts I've heard have said the best we can hope for is slowing it down decades from now - we should start preparations.