Permafrost Loss Greater Threat Than Deforestation

Pierre Bezukhov writes "Emissions from thawing permafrost may contribute more to global warming than deforestation this century, according to commentary in the journal Nature. Arctic warming of 7.5 degrees Celsius (13.5 degrees Fahrenheit) this century may unlock the equivalent of 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide as soils thaw, allowing carbon to escape as CO2 and methane, University of Florida and University of Alaska biologists wrote today in Nature. Two degrees of warming would release a third of that, they said. The Arctic is an important harbinger of climate change because the United Nations calculates it's warming at almost twice the average rate for the planet. The study adds to pressure on United Nations climate treaty negotiators from more than 190 countries attending two weeks of talks in Durban, South Africa that began Nov. 28."

Comments

And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on their inaction and their stated desire for inaction: Canada, Russia, and the USA.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[war4peace]

That's because both politicians AND industrialists just see lots of fast profit from permafrost thawing, namely more usable land (and whatever might reside beneath).
What would happen with the planet 100 years from now is irrelevant to them; they will be all dead at that time.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Llyr]

Not sure the Canadian North can count as "more usable land" once thawed -- it's largely frozen muskeg swamp at the moment, somewhat usable due to permafrost since at least that way you don't sink into it.
There's some interest in the northern seabed for gas exploration.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ackthpt]

Not sure the Canadian North can count as "more usable land" once thawed -- it's largely frozen muskeg swamp at the moment, somewhat usable due to permafrost since at least that way you don't sink into it.

There's some interest in the northern seabed for gas exploration.

Great bit on the construction of the trans-Alaskan highway, in Mitchner's Alaska. When they tore the top layer off the tundra their equipment, paving, everything sunk into mud. The only way to build roads was on top of the Permafrost. Nobody going to do any mining, drilling or anything else if the ground is thawed and you have the biggest plain of mud in the world between you and your dreamed of profits.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ackthpt]

Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol.

America, fuck yeah.

In Germany you are taxed to death (by 'merkin standards) and the price of petrol is over 12$US per gallon - yet they have among the highest standard of living and the most robust economy in Europe.

When the people in Washington DC hear about raising the cost of petrol, so people won't waste it so stupidly on SUVs in the city and frivolous trips in the auto, they howl that it will destroy the American Way of Life and the Economy.

Fucking daft, scared "leaders" America is dynamic and can adapt, same as Germany did. Charge $10/gal at the pump and people will stop depending so heavily on petrol that the country has to go to war over it.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Genda]

The problem is that besides the fact that you might gain a little land in the extreme latitudes, you render huge regions in the tropical and temperate zones as dessert. The net loss of viable/arrible land for human habitat and development would be mind boggling. Anyone in extreme climates who thinks we should go through the kind of warming being described here, for their own benefit, at the detriment to billions of others living in more central latitudes is a shortsighted despot.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[JWW]

Say, why don't you try looking at a map or a globe and comparing the size of Germany to the size of the US. Now factor in moving goods across each country. What country would suffer more if the cost of gas goes up?

Charge $10/gallon at the pump and then sit back and watch unemployment go from 9% to 19% or more.

I'm not convinced that the dismantling of modern civilization will be less devastating that the affects of climate change.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

There is some really good footage when this happened to already build tracks in Russia. Google for it.

In short: You're going to have to spend HUGE amounts to built any kind of a steel track (and even more to build and maintained a paved road that carries a lot less) to tundra if it thaws. Essentially start hoping that whatever resources you're extracting are close enough to the shore.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Fluffeh]

for their own benefit, at the detriment to billions of others living in more central latitudes is a shortsighted despot.

Welcome to the world we live in. The common good, altruism and generally being the "good guys" are ideologies of generations before the ones currently - at least for the most part. Welcome to the world of no direct consequences, it's like living in the internet, but in real life.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[scamper_22]

I'm neither a politician or an industrialist...

1. There have been reports that we really can't stop global warming anyways. It is "too late".

2. In as much as there are downsides to global warming (floods, heat deaths...), there are benefits (more usable land up north, easier shipping, fewer cold deaths...)

It might be a good idea to just start dealing with a warmer planet. Embrace the good effects. Try to counter the bad ones (build levies/flood protection, move from low lying area...) and address our pollution as technology and time permits.

What will happen to the planet 100 years from now? I really don't think the planet will be in devastating shape... even with a few degrees warming. Life will go on. Don't think I'm underestimating here. I"m sure many parts of the world will feel the huge impacts, especially coastal cities when sea levels rise. But life will go on and we will adapt, even if we have to evacuate Miami.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Or one can make a corduroy road. It's made of logs and not particularly hard to put together.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Before we commence with the hand wringing, shouldn't we first show there's a problem that will get substantially worse in a mere century? You can't expect someone to change their behavior based on supposition.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

A goodly portion of the reason gasoline is so cheap is because the industry is heavily subsidized to keep voters happy enough to stay away from the polls.

Keep in mind that in the US, gasoline taxes raised about $25 billion per year and that most things considered subsidies for oil are really subsidies for ground vehicles (which happen to burn oil products, but can run on other things) or US defense contractors (who happen to be getting paid lots of money to make weapon systems and provide services to the US military.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[haruchai]

Yes, life will go on and we will adapt but a lot of us will find life to be even nastier, more brutish and much shorter than it is now. The human race is not going to die out but I think a lot of the progress of the 20th century will be reversed, especially in the area of international cooperation. And, if the very worst predictions do start to come through, I wouldn't rule out another World War.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Curunir_wolf]

Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol. America, fuck yeah.

Not that it would have made any difference anyway - Kyoto was doomed to failure by design. Actually, it probably would have made some difference, as the US generally makes very good faith efforts to actually stick to the treaties it signs (by comparison, check out how well the signatories have done meeting their targets). So the recession in the US would probably be considerably worse than it is, and China would have become the biggest source of CO2 emissions even sooner.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ShieldW0lf]

If the permafrost thaws, the way to recover the land would be to borrow from permaculture principles and let nature do most of the work.

First, plant fast growing, cold tolerant plants that fix atmospheric nitrogen like Russian Olives, Bog Myrtles, Northern Bayberries and Buffalo Berries. They'll grow like mad and firm up what soil is there. Then you run an annual slash-and-drop program to build soil. You wouldn't need heavy equipment, just chain saws, because you wouldn't be letting anything get particularly large, and you won't be carting anything in or out, so costs would be relatively low.

Using heavy equipment to cart in material to build up the land when you can let nature do the work would just be stupid.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

You do realize that this wouldn't work? Logs would shift, and the road would destroy itself in a matter of months.

If solution was that simple, they wouldn't have this problem in Russia. Taiga is choke full of trees.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[MightyMartian]

In the short term you may be right, but in the long term, oil is going to run out anyways. And if you think the worst case scenario is $10 a gallon for gasoline, then you're not considering what will happen to innumerable industrial and agricultural processes when we run out of easily obtained long-chain hydrocarbons. The absolutely most moronic, wasteful and short-sighted uses of oil is using it as the energy source for transportation. Nothing demonstrates the sheer awe-inspiring stupidity of the human race than the wasting of long-chain hydrocarbons by sticking them in a gas tank.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[joggle]

America is still a very rich country. Even if we paid $10/gallon at the pump, we'd still be paying lower taxes than Germans (no VAT here and lower income and property tax). We paid very high taxes during WWII and certainly didn't 'dismantle' our modern civilization, quite the opposite actually.

That money doesn't just go 'poof'. In Germany, you can get a free college education (and by 'you', I literally mean you if you are fluent in German regardless of where you're from). They also have high-speed rail, a substantial industrial sector (largest in Europe), and relatively low unemployment.

If gas prices went up, consumption of gas would surely go down, meaning more money would stay in the American economy rather than going overseas.

No doubt it would be painful, but there's no painless way of digging out of the huge debt the US is already in.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[hrvatska]

I don't think you'd see the dismantling of civilization so much as a change in travel patterns, types of vehicles that people choose to purchase and where people choose to live and work. It would lead to more compact suburban communities that could be more easily serviced by mass transit and a further decrease in the population of rural communities. I live in a rural area, and I know if gas prices were gradually increased to $10/gallon it would lead to fewer people choosing to live around here, with most of those who left choosing to live closer to where they work and shop. But again, civilization wouldn't end.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[riverat1]

1. There have been reports that we really can't stop global warming anyways. It is "too late".

It's not a binary issue. The more we increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the worse it gets on a smooth curve. There is the global warming that's already occurred and is in the pipeline that we can't stop. That includes the fact that once we get really serious about CO2 emissions it will take 30 or 40 years to to build the infrastructure necessary to convert to non-carbon energy sources so CO2 levels will continue to rise until then. But in the end the total global warming we will see (barring a significant change in the Sun) is largely set by the maximum level that CO2 reaches in the atmosphere. There is good reason to slow down and eventually stop carbon dioxide emissions to keep things from getting worse than they already have to be.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little silly to assume that because the US is larger that it MUST ship goods across its entire breadth. We are divided into states, after all, most of which on a scale similar to European countries. Even Texas, the largest of the contiguous states, has the option (spelled out in its annexation treaty) to split up into 5 states.

Besides, in a global economy with most industrialized nations expanding free trade with their neighbors, is transporting something from Turkey to Germany so different from transporting from CA to NY?

That said, I do agree that a sudden jump to $10/gal will strangle the economy, and anyone suggesting that it wouldn't is unfamiliar with economics. The problem is that we don't have any long term energy policy, short of the occasional destabilization of central and south America and the middle east. If such a policy was put in place that in 10 years our gas prices reached parity with European gas prices, our economy would not only adapt and tolerate it, but would flourish. The harshest stifling factor for any economy is uncertainty, and a clear energy policy would go a long way toward reducing uncertainty.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Moofie]

"ideologies of generations before the ones currently"

*snort* Which generations were those, exactly?

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

You do realize that this wouldn't work? Logs would shift, and the road would destroy itself in a matter of months.

If you had read the Wikipedia article, you'd see that corduroy roads are built even now (they have a picture of a large excavator building a corduroy road) and that sometimes, particularly in acidic conditions, such as muskeg which appears to be the tundra soil type that you're speaking of, the roads can last a number of years (see that link for discussion of modern construction of corduroy roads in precisely the sort of conditions you are speaking of, BTW). For example, parts of the Alaskan Highway used to be gravel over a corduroy road and were in use from 1943 through to the 90s!

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Neil Boekend]

You shouldn't use Germany for that. Use Europe and compare Germany to a state. There is a hell of a lot of international transport here.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Sabriel]

It used to be the atmospheric warming that concerned me, however ocean acidification is a bigger concern. I mean, four degrees warmer? Like you say, pros and cons, even if the weather'll get pretty wild in parts. But the ocean pH worsens by four? Marine life as we know it pretty much goes bye-bye. And even tiny changes in ocean pH is still bad news, since it's a logarithmic effect. Lot of coral reefs are already bleaching out.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[artecco]

Sorry, but I donâ(TM)t see the direct link between cost of gas and unemployment.

My country (Norway) has half the population density of the US, which I believe to be a better indication of the need for moving goods rather than the size of the country. At the same time we are paying approx. 11$/gal and have a unemployment rate at 3,6%.

This is of course in a fascist-liberal-socialist-communist-country; hence none of the above is applicable for the US.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[shilly]

Perhaps you ought to read Collapse by Jared Diamond. It has a famous passage about people chopping down trees.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

What would happen with the planet 100 years from now is irrelevant to them; they will be all dead at that time.

I'm worried that the critical point is much closer than 100 years from now. And while I'm willing to attribute many of Congress's bad decisions to greed and graft, I think a large part of their inaction on climate issues is that they simply can't grasp the concept that global warming can really be a significant problem.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

In the long run, I'm sure the 5% or so of humanity that survives the destruction of most major cities due to direct flooding, the collapse of the ecosystem, the collapse of agriculture, and famine on a scale never experienced before, and has to live with crippling survivors' guilt and massive psychological trauma, and has to completely reinvent food production and rebuild civilization from the ground up, will be fine.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[riverat1]

That's more binary thinking. Why would you think sea level rise would stop at 3 meters? If all of the ice on Antarctica and Greenland were to melt the stopping point would be around 70 meters (230 feet). Of course it would take a thousand years or more for all of that ice to melt but it's inevitable if we continue business as usual. As I said, the sooner we do something about it the less bad the final result will be.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[lexsird]

Hovercraft technology for the win here. Just go sliding across it at about 300 mph trying to bull's eye bears and moose along the way. Seriously people, adapt or die.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

I wonder how taxes stack up if you include your very expensive health care costs in your "taxes". Right-wingers all moan about how taxes will go up if we adopt universal health care like the less idiotic countries do, but I'd wager that taxes would rise less than the cost of insurance, because the insurance companies are parasitic middlemen who do nothing for health care except make it more expensive.

+1

I know many people who have moved from the US to Canada and vice-versa. I also know people who have moved their businesses.

It's pretty much widely regarded in Canada that the employer-supported cost of health care is much higher than the tax-supported cost of provincial health coverage. Businesses moving across the border generally have their "net costs" decreased when moving to Canada. The only place where this is not the case is businesses that have to deal with the VAT (GST), which combined with local taxes makes sales tax quite high.

Income taxes in Canada (which support the government health care) aren't much higher than in the US and most businesses are paying almost 10% of worker outflows into benefits.

The argument that government health care is somehow more expensive than what is currently in the US is a big fat red herring, or lies. I'm not quite sure which, probably a bit of both.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Reservoir Penguin]

Simply because you are hiding your unemployment problems behind extreme welfare benefits (which are only possible because you have a population of just 5 million people and a shitload of gas&oil). According to WP 22% of Norwegians are on welfare and 13% are too disabled to work. id Norway fighting a secret war somewhere? Lack of workplace safety? Perhaps it's engulfed by an epidemics of a nasty disabling decease? How do you nords account for the highest disability rate in the world?

Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

If clathrate gun hypothesis is correct, the things may become interesting during our lifetime (which may be a shorter one).

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Nidi62]

If clathrate gun hypothesis is correct, the things may become interesting during our lifetime (which may be a shorter one).

It seems that, even if this hypothesis were to be true, our lifetimes would not be affected, nor would those of many generations. You're very source says, in the introduction:"In its original form, the hypothesis proposed that the "clathrate gun" could cause abrupt runaway warming in a timescale less than a human lifetime,[1] and might be responsible for warming events in and at the end of the last ice age.[2] This is now thought unlikely.[3][4] However, there is stronger evidence that runaway methane clathrate breakdown may have caused drastic alteration of the ocean environment and the atmosphere of earth on a number of occasions in the past, over timescales of tens of thousands of years;"

Even were it to happen, it seems that the methane released by the Arctic permafrost would have an effect equivalent to doubling the levels of CO2. It is certainly serious, but it would not be an immediate extinction event, although there could certainly be localized loss of life through droughts and famine. Of course, I am just a layman and certainly not a climatologist, so my initial, and admittedly superficial interpretation could be way off.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

The simple rebuttal is why hasn't the "clathrate gun" gone off some time in the past 650,000 years? From the link:

The ice core data also shows that CO2 and methane levels have been remarkably stable in Antarctica--varying between 300 ppm and 180 ppm--over that entire period and that shifts in levels of these gases took at least 800 years, compared to the roughly 100 years in which humans have increased atmospheric CO2 levels to their present high. "We have added another piece of information showing that the timescales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system," says Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern in Switzerland, who led the research.

There have been several shifts from glacial to interglacial climates during that time. My view is that if massive methane releases were a threat now, then we would have seen something similar during one of these times.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[phantomfive]

You see... I willing to bet the last 650,000 years didn't see an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico either.

You might lose that bet. A LOT of oil spills into the gulf every year naturally, and it wouldn't be surprising if there were a rupture after an earthquake that released a lot of oil at the same time.......at least once in the last 650,000 years.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

You know, my investment institution makes the point of "Past performance is not an indication of future performance" quite often, so I'm not quite willing to consider the question of "Why hasn't it gone off?" as a rebuttal... even though it does have a value as a question.

The point here is that Earth has gone through several very significant bouts of global warming in the past 650k years which more or less are similar to the situation that you are worried about. If there had been a history of methane spikes in the record, then your concerns would have merit. But scientists apparently do not see a record of that.

Unlike the financial performance of ephemeral investment brokerages, there really is a case for past performance indicating future performance.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Neither did they see a so high concentration of power in the hands of pure economically (read: "greed") driven and short term focused (read: "Next bonuses round") entities.

In other words, the Dirt God is going to strike us down because our leaders are self serving bastards. I thought that kind of thinking stopped working early on in the Age of Enlightenment, centuries ago.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Stephan Schulz]

Why are they using multiple models? Surely one is better than the others??

Every model has to abstract from certain things - the only thing that is a perfect model of a system is an exact copy of the system, and we don't have a second Earth stashed away in the backyard. Different models made different simplifying assumptions (use different cell size for the simulation, incorporate different feedbacks, use simpler couplings between ocean and atmosphere, and so on). By using a range of different models, we get an idea of how much these simplifications affect the results. So we get a range of results, which hopefully bracket the behaviour of the real system. It's a bit like a shotgun - only a few pellets hit a bird, so why fire a full load?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Stephan Schulz]

Are you suggesting that they dont know which model is best, or likely best? Seriously?

Yes. Indeed, I'll even argue that there is no single linear ordering from better to worse. What's better, a 747 or an Ohio class submarine? A garden chair or a Harley Davidson? A C64 or a Sinclair spectrum? It depends on what you want or need to do (a C64 is a lousy computer, but a great door stop - no, I'm not biased, why?). A model that simplifies surface details but has better ocean mixing will make better global results than a model that takes more topographical features into account but uses a slab ocean model. On the other hand, the more topographical model is better able to predict local effects like rain shadows. Both in computing resources and in actual modelling, you have to make a trade-off, and you concentrate on the set of features you think are most important or most relevant for a particular set of questions.

Jobs

[masternerdguy]

Permafrost makes it harder to dig, hurting the economy and killing jobs. That's why everyone hates it.

Re:Jobs

[DanDD]

Permafrost makes it harder to dig, hurting the economy and killing jobs. That's why everyone hates it.

Permafrost gives villages something firm to set buildings and roads on. When the permafrost melts, areas typically turn into a marshy bog. This increases the cost of living, travel, infrastructure, etc. The increased insects increase disease.

If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it. Perhaps you can explain the benefits to the rather annoyed polar bears, or to all the farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, and most of Colorado and Kansas who will see their land turned into an arid desert.

Re:Jobs

[Llyr]

If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it.

The 600,000+ people living in Washington, DC don't seem to mind too much.

Some politicians are sufficiently toxic that I doubt the bugs would go after them.

Flawed data

[Waffle Iron]

Arctic temperatures are *not* rising. The data is flawed because the sensors are all set up near Santa's Village, which has been experiencing massive growth over the past few decades as increasing numbers of spoiled kids get more gifts each year. The resulting urban heat island effect (amplified by primitive and inefficient elven HVAC technology) has severely skewed all the Arctic numbers, and the rising temps are just an illusion.

Re:Flawed data

[TapeCutter]

No, it's Anthony Watts.

I don't even read these stories anymore

[paiute]

Because 1. Man is influencing the climate, 2. Most of this change is going to be bad, 3. There is no political or social will to change our current behavior, and 4. Once shit hits the ecological fan, those with resources will shield themselves from the effects and those without resources will be fucked.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[Nursie]

Yup.

Came to this conclusion a long time ago. Humanity ain't gonna get off its collective backside and do anything, least of all when there's profit in breaking any collective agreements, so I may as well just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[EdIII]

There really isn't any point.

1) The majority of people are split across party lines and anti-science.
2) Religious nutbags are everywhere that have the sole justification that climate science is wrong because scientists calculated the age of the Earth incorrectly, and that Man could not possibly affect God's creation.
3) The absolutely ludicrous position is put forward constantly that business and economic considerations must be factored in. That's like arguing on a sinking ship about the value of the cargo.

Irrational and illogical behavior coupled with outright greed and shortsightedness makes it impossible to affect change through legislation. I honestly could not give a fuck about any further research. It does not take a rocket scientist (or a climatologist) to figure out that we have an affect on our environment through our actions with 7 billion people on the planet.

There is one person that I control. Myself. To that end, I do what I can to minimize my own footprint on this planet, and that is all I can do.

Talking is bullshit because nobody is capable of listening, and anyone that does actually listen, is marginalized and has practically no effect. You nailed that. Social will is non-existent. Basically, no one is willing to suffer to get things back to where they need to be. That goes for a lot more than the environment.

I can explain, politely, why it is such a bad idea to buy bottled water, etc. but friends and family still do it anyways because of convenience. I actually got asked why I did not have bottled water from a guest like I was a bad host. I pointed to the glasses and the RO system and this person was indignant because that seemed like more work than getting a bottle from the refrigerator.

Technology and science is not our problem. We are the problem because of how we act globally as a group.

Northwest Passage

[cosm]

As the globe continues to warm, eventually the Northwest Passage will be a viable route for less ice-hardy vessels more times out of the year, providing economic benefit for those who could utilize the shipping routes. I imagine there are lobbies that would love to see this happen. This is speculation, for I do now know if people actively encourage warming. Looking at the CO2 data and its positive correlation to the mean global temperature increase, it seems we may see that route in our lifetime.

Also as the permafrost disappears, another side affect is a cascading result in the loss of surface ice/snow pack. As the surface area of the snow/ice/arctic shelf shrinks, the Earth's regional albedo will be reduced, ie there will be less radiational cooling and more energy absorbed by the surface. Cycles such as this create feedback loops in the environment that cause these affects to amplify. Lower albedo -> less permafrost/snow/ice/glacier coverage -> more heat -> lower albedo -> ad inifinitum.

I am not a meteorologist, but based on some cursory research these seem to be realistic eventualities.

Re:Northwest Passage

[JoeMerchant]

As the globe continues to warm, eventually the Northwest Passage will be a viable route for less ice-hardy vessels more times out of the year, providing economic benefit for those who could utilize the shipping routes.

Yes, but a Northwest Passage is a lot less meaningful today than it would have been when Lewis and Clark were looking for it.

I imagine there are lobbies that would love to see this happen. This is speculation, for I do now know if people actively encourage warming.

With a national population of 300 million, I am virtually certain that there are lobbies that would love to see almost anything happen. The trick, as a representative of your constituents, is to only listen to those lobbyists who are pushing an idea that will benefit the majority of your constituents without completely screwing some of them. At the national level, this is generally too complicated to evaluate by a mere Congressional staff office, thus explaining the propensity of our representatives to support lobbies that support their re-election campaign instead.

Looking at the CO2 data and its positive correlation to the mean global temperature increase, it seems we may see that route in our lifetime.

Looking at the "consensus curve" of warming estimates since 1990, I don't see any oscillations or pullbacks, only continuous upward revision across the board. I can only surmise that future estimates of future warming will, based on this meta-analysis of the estimating trend, be higher than today's estimates for some time to come.

Living in Florida and expecting my children to die around the year 2080, I'm most interested in sea level rise estimation. Sadly, it does not look like my children will be enjoying my parent's waterfront property in their later life.

Also as the permafrost disappears, another side affect is a cascading result in the loss of surface ice/snow pack. As the surface area of the snow/ice/arctic shelf shrinks, the Earth's regional albedo will be reduced, ie there will be less radiational cooling and more energy absorbed by the surface. Cycles such as this create feedback loops in the environment that cause these affects to amplify. Lower albedo -> less permafrost/snow/ice/glacier coverage -> more heat -> lower albedo -> ad inifinitum.

Sooner or later, we will also discover serious mitigating effects, such as increased algal blooms in the ocean that act to sequester carbon, or similar things.

I am not a meteorologist, but based on some cursory research these seem to be realistic eventualities.

I don't think the coming generation will escape the Chinese curses: "May you live in interesting times," nor "May the government be aware of you." But since this generation (and the previous) has mostly experienced the worst one: "May your wishes be granted," the next generation or two may be spared that one.

Re:Northwest Passage

[TapeCutter]

Yep the albedo feedback is the cause of "polar amplification" - the name given to the faster rate of warming in the Artic mentioned in TFS. It's yet another example of a succesful prediction of a previously unknown phenomena by climate models from the 1980's.

2 week vacation in South Africa

[Gothmolly]

If nothing else, soft-science and government types get a taxpayer paid trip to South Africa for 2 weeks. Do you think they really want to FIX global warming?

Re:2 week vacation in South Africa

[Jeremi]

If nothing else, soft-science and government types get a taxpayer paid trip to South Africa for 2 weeks. Do you think they really want to FIX global warming?

Don't you ever get tired of your mindless, knee-jerk cynicism?

I think maybe at one time it might have been clever and refreshing to groundlessly accuse people of having a selfish ulterior motive for everything they do. But now that every single freaking person on the Internet automatically responds that way every time anyone does anything, it's just tedious and depressing.

Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[JoeMerchant]

Think about Alaska, think about the size of Alaska, now, cover it in a layer of mossy stuff several feet thick. That mossy stuff is muskeg, and if you've ever stepped in a soft spot in the muskeg and sunk up to your hip in the muck, you can easily imagine the whole thing decomposing into methane when it gets warm.

It doesn't cover all of Alaska, but then, it's not only in Alaska, it's also all over Canada and Siberia.

PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[tjstork]

Let's see - France has better looking women, better food, better wine, better movies and better art, and has been a world leader in aeronautics since Bleriot through Arianespace and Bleriot. Their mintel predated and pioneered the idea of a pervasive online service, they've made tremendous contributions in math. And even though they took it on the chin from Germany in World War II, they had incredible artillery and aircraft in World War I, and previously, pioneered everything in engineering from steel warship construction in the La Gloire, and finally, they gave us mayonaisse.

Re:PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[Sique]

Actually, the mayonaisse comes from the town of Mahón (cast.) or Maó (kat.), the capital town of Menorca, one of the islands of the spanish Baleares.

Re:USA USA USA!

[NeutronCowboy]

1) And the US has a metric shit ton more resources than Germany. Your point?
2) You fail basic economics. If the mark or the euro are overvalued, exports are terrible because they're more expensive than local goods. Try again.
3) A declining population has nothing to do with economic greatness. Unless you're thinking immigration - in which case, the US is trying real hard to come down to Europe's level.
4) You know squat about German corporate taxes, squat about US taxes and even less about real corporate taxes that arise from such niceties as the dutch sandwich or various indirect contributions.
5) You also know squat about the German university system. Anyone can go to University, except those who keep failing their High School classes. Those that do fail classes go to technical trade schools. It's exactly like the US system, except it's predicated on grades rather than money.
6) Your choice.
7) You're making a lot of assumptions about future events. Would you also like a pony?
8) No idea how that bit of (factual, for once) information relates to how well Germany is doing.
9) Yes, you can get fancy food all over the place. That said, I'd rather walk into a random Braustaette than a random American diner.
10) Your info is about 3 years out of date. In the meantime, the Porsche Panamera bettered the laptime by about 4 seconds.

There are a ton of reasons why Germany has a ton of problems and is worse than the US, but for some reason, you managed to barely allude to only one in your list of ten.

Re:USA USA USA!

[nedlohs]

2) Germany's standard of living is based on an export driven economy that essentially relies on the fact that first the mark and now the euro are way overvalued relative to the us dollar.

An overvalued currency harms exports - it makes your prices higher than those of places without overvalued currencies. (And nothing is overvalued relative to the US dollar - well OK, US treasuries but those are really just future US dollars anyway).

3) Germany has a declining population - if Germany was so great, why do they have a forecast net population decline? By contrast, the USA has a population that is growing the fastest out of any of the NATO nations.

So your logic has Ethiopia, Liberia, Somalia, etc. as being "greater" than the US? And Luxemburg and Turkey have faster growing populations than the USA so your facts are wrong too.

4) German corporations have a -lower- tax rate than American ones do. Oops, did I say that? Also, German laws are absolutely brutal for debt collection compared to American ones. If you, in America, blow off paying a loan bank, you get a bunch of angry letters and pissy phone calls and for the most part that's really all about they can do to you. In Germany, they can just come and start taking your shit away.

15% business tax + 15% corporate tax + 5.5% solidarity tax is much lower than a 15-35% federal + 0-12% state progressive scheme? That would depend entirely on which two locations in the countries you are comparing the income of the corporation. Pick a US corporation booking its income in a state with a 12% corporate income tax then sure, saner corporations not so much.

  And having consequences for your actions is a bad thing now?

7) Speaking of taxed to the hilt, Germans are actually more in debt per capita than Americans are, and the American financial picture improves rather dramatically when the Bush tax cuts expire, and the budget sequesters kick in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

You ignore half the equation. Germany has more external assets than the US. if I owe $5,000 on my credit card but have $6,000 in my checking account I'm in better shape than the guy who only owes $4,000 on his credit card but has $3,500 in his checking account.

Subtract external debts from external assets and Germany is at +$1.2 trillion (USD) while the USA is at -$2.4 trillion (USD). Note that Japan, whom Americans who like to pretend debt doesn't matter love to cite, is at +$3.4 trillion (USD).

Corduroy fabric in Danish is Jernbanefløjl

[G3ckoG33k]

Apropos "corduroy roads", corduroy fabric in Danish is Jernbanefløjl, which translated literally means - railway velvet! :)