Massive Methane Release In the Arctic Region

Taco Cowboy writes "Arctic methane release is a well recorded phenomenon. Methane stored in both permafrost (which is melting) and methane hydrates (methane trapped in marine reservoirs) are vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere as the planet warms. However, researchers who are trying to map atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations on a global basis have discovered that the amount of methane emissions in the Arctic region do not total up. Further research revealed that significant amounts of methane releases came from the Arctic ocean (abstract) — as much as 2 milligrams of the gas is released per square meter of ocean, each day — presumably by marine bacteria surviving in low-nutrient environments."

Comments

It has to be...

[show me altoids]

Algae farts!

Re:It has to be...

[don depresor]

Not algae, Chtulhu farts!!!

Re:It has to be...

[Drey]

I'd say shoggoths, if it were Antarctica.

Re:It has to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo coool *urp*

Re:It has to be...

[14erCleaner]

It's the first indicator of an invasion from Titan! Kurt Vonnegut foresaw this happening decades ago.

Re:It has to be...

[UnknowingFool]

Let's see:
Red Sox wins World Series (2004 and 2007): check
Duke Nukem Forever released (2011): check
Dick Clark dies (2012): check
Antarctica releases methane gases (2012): check

The Mayans were right!

Re:It has to be...

[bryan1945]

Only if the Cubs win it all this year.

Re:It has to be...

[jamiesan]

I propose that we start a new society. One that believes that the earth breaks wind.

We can call it....

The Flatulent Earth Society

Re:It has to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about the Cubs?

Re:It has to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see:

Red Sox wins World Series (2004 and 2007): check

Duke Nukem Forever released (2011): check

Dick Clark dies (2012): check

Antarctica releases methane gases (2012): check

The Mayans were right!

Still got a long ways to go to catch up to cows. 14% of greehouse gases come from cow's rears....

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/mammals/methane-cow.htm

positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Unstoppable positive feedback loop ? So, is it too late to do anything ?

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

Shhh. It's hard enough to get deniers(I hate that term, is there an less biased term that doesn't give them undue credibility like "skeptic" does) to understand the concept of a second derivative, and its importance to the whole thing. Involving diff-eq is just going to lose even more.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

It is you, my friend, who have failed at communicating why skeptic is somehow derogatory (or neutral? I am quite lost why skeptic is so obviously a negative attribute).

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Scaregoat.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there's something we can do! If we assume the worst case scenario, and take this as a sign that we're about to see anther Permian-Triassic extinction event, we can start planning to live in a world that doesn't have enough oxygen for us to breathe over the next million years or so. We can deal with that. We have the technology. Of course, not being able to go outside without struggling for breath will suck, but we can deal with that too.

We might also consider trying to grab samples of absolutely every species we can see, and freeze them all somewhere. Many copies in many places. Some of the critters out there are quite cute and worth saving.

Re:positive feedback loop

[squidflakes]

Its pretty much too late to do anything useful. There are some way out there schemes but the most positive effect for species survival now is figuring out how to sustain our population on a warming Earth. We're going to have to get used to more extreme weather limits and redo our calculations and weather models for starters.

I suspect that cephalopods are about to be in for a pretty wild ride. As the ocean acidifies, shell fish will have less and less protection as the calcium carbonate that makes up the bulk of their shells gets dissolved more rapidly than they can replace it. This may lead to a population boom which will be quickly turn in to a starvation scenario.

If this happens, large marine predatory fish will go through a smaller version of this, which could be followed by the replacement of these fish in their niche by large predatory cephalopods. (most likely the D. gigas or A. dux)

Of course, that's just a guess. Everything in the ocean that relies on calcium carbonate is in for a rough time. This includes fish teeth and cephalopod beaks.

Another whammy is that as the ocean acidifies, the calcium carbonate reacts with the acid to form calcium bicarbonate and carbon dioxide, further increasing the saturation of the surrounding water resulting in a lower pH and a more intense feedback loop.

Re:positive feedback loop

[repapetilto]

Most people who "believe in" AGW are the same...

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh. It's hard enough to get deniers(I hate that term, is there an less biased term that doesn't give them undue credibility like "skeptic" does)

'False skeptic' is an accurate term for many deniers. They claim to be skeptical, but aren't willing to look at all the evidence as a true skeptic would do. Instead many strategically (or subconsciously) select the bit's and pieces that serve their goal of undermining the larger body of evidence for anthropogenic climate change. A true skeptic is open to being convinced by the evidence.
Parent post:

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who thinks the word "skeptic" lends credibility is a dolt who fails at English, and should be treated as such.

I'm skeptical of your understanding of the English language.

Re:positive feedback loop

[triffid_98]

Its pretty much too late to do anything useful. There are some way out there schemes but the most positive effect for species survival now is figuring out how to sustain our population on a warming Earth.

Nonsense. Once we finally run out of food and drinking water the inevitable nuclear holocaust should solve global warming straight away. Which works out great because we're overdue for both another global extinction event and another ice age. Three birds with one stone!

Re:positive feedback loop

[squidflakes]

Its so simple! Its like we should have encouraged global nuclear war in the 80s instead of all of this namby-pamby SALT non-sense and wall removal.

Wow, what fools we were.

Re:positive feedback loop

[amRadioHed]

What wrong with calling them deniers? You have a bias against them, an entirely appropriate bias based on their behavior, so why try to hide it?

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

Could you clarify? Is there some sort of skillset that you feel is lacking in the observations of people who would identify AGW as factual? I, of course, don't mean "people in the street" kind of way, but people making public arguments about AGW?

What I observe in debates I've seen are people saying things like changes in temperature exist in a natural cycle, we've seen them before, and that current temperatures are not unprecedented in nature. But these observations neglect the incredibly high second derivative of temperature over time in the past century or two.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Carl would disagree with you most strongly if he were still with us and he was not a dolt.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

> I suspect that cephalopods are about to be in for a pretty wild ride. [...] This may lead to a population boom which will be quickly turn in to a starvation scenario.

I suggest seeing post re: Cthulhu above, and ask yourself - starvation scenario, or evolutionary push toward finally rising from the depths to devour / enslave our pitiful species?

Re:positive feedback loop

[Ichijo]

Its pretty much too late to do anything useful. There are some way out there schemes but the most positive effect for species survival now is figuring out how to sustain our population on a warming Earth.

You mean like moving from sprawling, single family ranch-style homes, which are expensive to cool, into the city? And planting trees and other vegetation in order to reduce the urban heat island effect? And switching to energy efficient appliances and using them at night in order to reduce cooling costs?

Seems the way to sustain our population on a warming earth is to do what we should have been doing all along.

Re:positive feedback loop

[HornWumpus]

Second derivative? You are just repeating what you have heard! The data is noisy. The second derivative is much noisier.

You are thinking of the first derivative. Have you even passed real calculus? (not the business/CS major version)

Re:positive feedback loop

[HornWumpus]

When they come to get a few AC's please volunteer to be frozen.

Re:positive feedback loop

[akboss]

(I hate that term, is there an less biased term that doesn't give them undue credibility like "skeptic" does)

Anyone who thinks the word "skeptic" lends credibility is a dolt who fails at English, and should be treated as such.

you even provided a link to the meaning of the word yet you failed to grasp how your meaning isnt correct.

1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. 2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh. It's hard enough to get deniers(I hate that term, is there an less biased term that doesn't give them undue credibility like "skeptic" does) to understand the concept of a second derivative, and its importance to the whole thing. Involving diff-eq is just going to lose even more.

You mean like the noted environmentalist James Lovelock:

The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock saidThe world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising - carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.

u kan reed, but u kant think.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Dunbal]

It will stop eventually at a new equilibrium. Of course the coral reefs and many other species will be extinct but hey, mass extinctions happen all the time on this rock.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Mindcontrolled]

I am, however, personally interested in not taking part in the next one, especially not on the side of the extinct species.

Re:positive feedback loop

[CanHasDIY]

1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. 2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

Nothing in either of those definitions infers credibility on the part of the skeptic. For example, I can openly question the validity of the results of the LHC experiments, but that by no means lends any credibility to me, nor does it detract from the credibility of the scientists doing the research.

I think maybe you misunderstand the meaning of the word credible.

Re:positive feedback loop

[NatasRevol]

Dinosaurs lived at much higher temperatures.

They ate all the people back then though.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost constant...isn't actually constant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet#The_melting_ice_sheet

Re:positive feedback loop

[Penguinisto]

You mean like moving from sprawling, single family ranch-style homes, which are expensive to cool, into the city?

Seems someone already suggested a means to hurry that part of it up, starting with the skeptics. To wit:

"We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued."

(...mind you, this is originally posted in jest, but it points to some pretty scary shit that some folks are willing to suggest, just to whip up the crowds.)

Re:positive feedback loop

[squidflakes]

Yes, changing our living situations and expectations are a part of it, as is changing the way we manufacture and receive goods, distribute food, etc.

You're absolutely right that we should have been doing these things all along, but dammit, there was just so much profit to be made.

Re:positive feedback loop

[squidflakes]

I read the blog post you linked, and it struck me as a bit of a Tom Swiftian solution. However, I think there is a kernel of wisdom in there. If you don't remove the short-term incentive for a behavior or set of actions, you will have a much harder time controlling it.

That's how regulation is supposed to work, but along comes regulatory capture to stop all that noise.

Its sad really, that the short term has taken such a superior position in the thought and actions of many people and corporations. Its almost as if, as a culture, we have lost a critical ability to think metaphorically ahead of our next meal.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like moving from sprawling, single family ranch-style homes, which are expensive to cool, into the city?

Seems someone already suggested a means to hurry that part of it up, starting with the skeptics. To wit:

"We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued."

(...mind you, this is originally posted in jest, but it points to some pretty scary shit that some folks are willing to suggest, just to whip up the crowds.)

My goodness. A suggestion that people who lie to detriment of all humanity face consequences? What would happen to our society if that maniacal idea were adopted. We could breed politicians out of the species. I'd explain why that is a horrifying possibility, but, I don't have time.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't give a fuck less. I'll be dead by the time this means any real problems. The rest of the human race can fry like beacon. Fuck them.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Dunbal]

You seem to think you have a choice in the matter. But cheer up, everything dies.

Re:positive feedback loop

[geekoid]

Because deniers and skeptic are two different things.

The would be skeptic if the plied rational thought and learned the facts, science and data. They don't. They cherry pick, spout nonsense, and ignore data - hence deniers.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're saying is that the positive feedback loop will turn into a negative feedback loop, reducing the methane produced by marine animals.

Re:positive feedback loop

[repapetilto]

Oh. I thought you were referring to "people in the street".

Re:positive feedback loop

[geekoid]

You value city density too much.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Hartree]

I can assure you that some of the "deniers" I know understand the concept of a second derivative. Perhaps even better than many who call them that. At least one of them is a mathematician specializing in analysis.

First rule of talking about someone who you don't agree with and disapprove of: Paint them as too stupid to know the truth. Failing that paint them as also being deviously clever and hiding the truth.

Don't feel bad. Those on the denial side would do the same to you. Both sides are human after all. And neither side seems to be able to see their own biases.

I wish we could get back to arguments deserving of the level of flames. Like emacs vs VI. ;)

Re:positive feedback loop

[amRadioHed]

Right, that's why I said he should just go ahead and call them deniers. Do you disagree with something I said?

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I'm not clear on. This becomes an environmental threat to those organisms, so does that not push the adaptation accelerator?

My guess is that while bad news for many marine species, some will evolve mechanisms that will adapt them successfully to higher oceanic acidity.

Or maybe it's simpler, and non-shellfish, non-coral species will begin to dominate marine ecosystems. I mean, jellyfish already seem to be spreading at a remarkable rate.

Re:positive feedback loop

[crutchy]

does that not push the adaptation accelerator

yeah, bigger organisms adapt to eating more of dead carcases, and then they adapt to getting fatter, and then they adapt to being subjected to scary spice on jenny craig ads

Re:positive feedback loop

[Dr. Hellno]

The comments on that article show just how entrenched positions have become. A lot of conservatives got wind of it via Alex Jones, who painted the whole thing as "The cult of AGW wants to burn your house down," which is preposterous to anyone who bothered to read the article. It very clearly doesn't say that. Yet somehow there are many replies along the lines of... well I'll quote: "Come to my house with matches, pal. You'll be leaving on a stretcher under a plastic sheet." Also: "Wow Steve, you ride a bike and burn down people's houses. You really are a moron. Not just that but a dangerous psychopath to boot. Shouldn't you be in jail or institutionalized in a psychiatric facility?" And so on and so forth.

I can't stress this enough... the two sides aren't even speaking the same language. It's was already apparent that both sides have their own talking points, their own debunkers, their own pejoratives, even their own scientists. What only became clear to me here was that they can look at the same sentence and come to totally different conclusions- not just about the import of the sentence, but about the literal meaning of the sentence.

Re:positive feedback loop

[GPLHost-Thomas]

Right. As if believers wouldn't. As if Al Gore didn't exist. As if warmists didn't have extreme position on climate change. As if the climate-gate emails never existed. As if nobody pretended that Himalaya glaciers would melt within 50 years when they are in fact expanding. As if ...
Come on, make a list of what "skeptics" made as famous mistake, and try to compare with the list above, then you tell me who's selecting "bits and pieces that serve their goal".

Re:positive feedback loop

[steelfood]

Yeah, we haven't had a P-Tr event since, well, the Permian-Triassic boundary some 250 million years ago. The planet's quite due for another one of those.

Who wants to bet that humans will be in that 30% of surviving vertebrates?

In other news, scientists have concluded that the P-Tr event was caused by a highly advanced ancient life form that burned vast reservoirs of coal for energy and denied the negative effects of global warming up until the very end. Oh, and they were trying to mine asteroids too.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

And unless you're a climatologist, you're a believer, right?

Re:positive feedback loop

[ceoyoyo]

Second derivative? Maybe you mean the slope, i.e.the first derivative? You're not exactly doing yourself any favors by using terms you don understand well incorrectly.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Neil Boekend]

They ate them so bad they set the human evolution back a couple of million years and they even ate all the bones!

Re:positive feedback loop

[Eunuchswear]

It's was already apparent that both sides have their own talking points, their own debunkers, their own pejoratives, even their own scientists.

Well, one side has scientists. The other has a weatherman.

Re:positive feedback loop

[bryan1945]

Nothin' wrong with a little urban homicide.

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

So, what you're saying is literally something I acknowledged directly in my post. That doesn't clarify and help me understand what crucial skill set is missing. It always seems like when I'm discussing global warming, there's always two conversations going on. The one I see, and one that seems to exist in a parallel universe where I said something different. It's really quite odd.

Please, I'm begging you, help me understand what I'm actually missing, not fairly basic data I already am familiar with.

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

No, I was referring to "making a serious claim about the nature of things". But that's fair.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

this all relates to a strategy of fake identification of, and the subsequent labeling of people.

in order to relegate their opinion as inconsequential.

good luck with that.

Re:positive feedback loop

[NatasRevol]

You're missing that I made a joke. About the climate being much warmer in the past, when life existed just fine. Except for humans. That's the dichotomy, and I made a cheap joke off of it.

Don't take everything so seriously.

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

I'm afraid that seriously is just how I prefer to take things. It wasn't much of a joke, either.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Its pretty much too late to do anything useful. There are some way out there schemes but the most positive effect for species survival now is figuring out how to sustain our population on a warming Earth.

You mean like moving from sprawling, single family ranch-style homes, which are expensive to cool, into the city? And planting trees and other vegetation in order to reduce the urban heat island effect? And switching to energy efficient appliances and using them at night in order to reduce cooling costs?

Seems the way to sustain our population on a warming earth is to do what we should have been doing all along.

See here is where the real problems starts. Its people such as your self that are using global warming as an excuse to strengthen centralized technology and governance that are creating much of the resistance to the idea that global warming is a problem caused by and solvable by man.
You could have just as easily suggested that people offset cooling cost with solar or live in sprawling bermed houses rather than sprawling stick built houses. But you would rather people live in rat warrens reliant on a central government for their security and sustenance.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Ichijo]

But you would rather people live in rat warrens reliant on a central government for their security and sustenance.

Actually, it's the suburban residents who rely more heavily on tax breaks, which infers a central government, to finance their lifestyles, than urban residents.

But don't let facts cloud your view of the world.

Re:positive feedback loop

[NatasRevol]

Since my comment got more upmods than yours, I'd say my joke was better than your comment.

Lighten up, Francis.

Re:positive feedback loop

[i kan reed]

Now we're playing this game. Your comment got "informative" and "insightful" upmods. Which means people thought it was introducing some useful fact. It wasn't, you're taking the fact that other people are basically ignorant as a meaningful measure of whether you were making a good point. That's incredibly dense of you.

Re:positive feedback loop

[Darby]

Well, vi, obviously. But shouldn't it be named EGACS by now?

Eighty Gigs And Constantly Swapping ;-)

Re:positive feedback loop

[Hartree]

EMACS, a wonderful OS/programming environment that's still in search of a good editor.

Methane Trapped in Ice

[na1led]

I bet a good amount is trapped in all that Arctic Ice. Human's also contribute a large part with Live Stocks, and Land Fills

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[cpu6502]

Good news: We're still in the middle of an ice age. It's not as hot now as it was 2.5 million years ago (when there was no ice on the poles).

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[na1led]

Dinosaurs had tall trees for shade, not like the hot tar roads and black roof tops we have in the city.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem - 2.5 million years ago there was not a highly advanced human civilization either. All of human civilization has grown up in a rather narrow set of climate extremes. Changing that climate will pose definite challenges to that civilization that has grown up expecting a milder set of extremes.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[timeOday]

If that news is good for anybody, I guess it would be dinosaurs. 2.5 million years ago is 12 times as long as anatomically modern humans have existed.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[scot4875]

That's great. Now we just have to adjust our civilization to work the same as that other advanced civilization that existed 2.5 million years ago, and we're all set.

--Jeremy

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[Idou]

. . . 2.5 million years ago (when there was no ice on the poles)

And no humans. . .

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

Dinosaurs had tall trees for shade, not like the hot tar roads and black roof tops we have in the city.

Did they have air conditioning?

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[berbo]

That's great. Now we just have to adjust our civilization to work the same as that other advanced civilization that existed 2.5 million years ago, and we're all set.

--Jeremy

Who needs fire anyway?

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[cpu6502]

I was gonna keep quiet, but you're the second person to refer to dinosaurs. Let me give you a hint: Dinosaurs didn't exist 2.5 million years ago.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been (permanent) ice on Antarctica for at least 33 million years.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough. Now let me give you one.

Neither did modern humans.

Re:Methane Trapped in Ice

[timeOday]

Ooops, not even close. I feel dumb now.

Ocean gun?

[damburger]

People have been concerned about the possibility of a Clathrate gun for a while. Is this another potentially lethal feedback loop?

And if it fires, or has already fired, will we notice immediately?

Re:Ocean gun?

[whathappenedtomonday]

I wonder about that, too, but it looking at this, it seems that watching ocean temperatures might help clear things up, despite of the underlying mechanisms seeming way too complicated for even advanced science and models to predict / assess.

Ninety-three percent of the heat trapped by increasing greenhouse gases goes into warming the ocean, not the atmosphere. So taking the ocean's temperature is the most comprehensive way to monitor global warming.

Re:Ocean gun?

[cpu6502]

>>>will we notice immediately?

It will be just like that movie Day After Tomorrow, where blizzard hurricanes suck the cold air out of the stratosphere and freeze people in mere seconds.

kidding..... The methane will get eaten by bacteria and then it will no longer be an issue.

I don't know what to believe any more. First I hear the ice poles are shrinking, and now I hear the icecaps are actually expanding in range. Global Warming should be renamed Global WTF.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

now I hear the icecaps are actually expanding in range

Citation needed.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

People have been concerned

Not the ones who are okay with Earth's average temperature steadily rising ...

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

now I hear the icecaps are actually expanding in range

Citation needed.

He doesn't need one, you're responding to Glenn Beck. He's been awful lonely with no one to troll now that he's no longer on TV ... you say those hateful words one more time and so help him god he will burst out blubbering and sobbing about our future and your lack of patriotism. You communist!

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to monitor the state of scientific knowledge is to stick to reputable scientific publications and ignore what you read in the popular/mainstream media. Nature and Scientific American are good. If you are really into it, read the actual peer-reviews science.

If you do that, you will probably find less than a handful of published scientists in the field of study question the reality of man-made climate change (>3%). (And those few also happen to receive money from oil interests. Some of those few also claimed cigarette smoke isn't so bad... after receiving money from the tobacco industry.)

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: People have been concerned about the possibility of a Clathrate gun for a while. Is this another potentially lethal feedback loop?
And if it fires, or has already fired, will we notice immediately?

Yes potentially. It has far more volume of discharge than bacteria or ice melt. But the discharge from any source has a feedback effect on the ice, and after that is depleted, the Clathrate gun (underwater guyser) and bacteria continue unmoderated as well. This is a real thing.

If the methane can be collected and liquified, the value of it as an energy source at $12 per mBTU would more than cover the cost of collection.

JJ

Re:Ocean gun?

[s.petry]

Instead of taking Fox News or some other biased opinion as fact, simply search for and find results for yourself. Honestly, it's not that difficult since there are countless sources of data related to Global Warming.

It is worth pointing out that there are very sick people in the world that churn out papers claiming that Science is false. Read the science, not papers declaring Science to be wrong.

Last point: Even that same sick set of people, that want money more than anything else (yes, even a home for their grandchildren) now agree that Global warming is a fact. The argument has turned to whether or not people are responsible for it.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Dishevel]

I do not know.
Neither I think does anyone else.
Maybe we should find out.

Re:Ocean gun?

[b4dc0d3r]

"Global Warming" has already been renamed "Climate Change". It initially looked like a warming trend, but the more we study the more we come to the conclusion that everything is relative. The only thing we know for sure is the climate is changing.

Re:Ocean gun?

[mcgrew]

I don't know where you've read that the icecaps are expanding, but wherever it is, stop reading it. It's only contributing to your ignorance.

Perhaps what you're referring to is the high altitude glaciers growing? And you're confusing it with the ice caps?

Re:Ocean gun?

[MindSlap]

"According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 â" and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

(Mod me down..I just replied to a liberal...)

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Multi-year ice is decreasing, replaced with thin, single-season ice. That doesn't mean the ice caps are "expanding" at all; that means their surface area is roughly the same during winter, but nowhere near the same mass.

Re:Ocean gun?

[timeOday]

No, "Global Warming" is still a perfectly valid and accurate term. The global average temperature is warming at unprecedented rates.

Re:Ocean gun?

[ColdWetDog]

Don't get too terribly excited. It's always fun to quote things out of context. Even Glen Beck can do it.

FWIW, that particular phrase has been bounced back and forth via the conservative blogosphere as a mantra of All That Is Wrong with Global Warming. Too bad it's just one little tiny data point that has a variety of alternate hypothesis:

It is not clear why the maximum ice extent would happen later, given that in general, ice extent is decreasing. One possibility is that the lower winter ice extents might make it easier for ice to continue growing later in the season. With lower winter extents, a late cold snap or northerly wind could spread ice southward over ocean that would normally be ice-covered at that point. Researchers do not expect the late maximum ice extent to strongly influence summer melt. The ice that grew late this winter is quite thin, and will melt rapidly as the sun rises higher in the sky and the air and water get warmer.

The resultant climate pattern changes are unlikely to be one simple direction either forwards or backwards (warming or cooling). There will be winners and losers and the big issue is whether or not major, extinction level changes will be forced on the planet by current conditions. My reading of the field is that there is some concern about that, but it's far from certain. What is certain is that the relatively benign and stable climate patterns we've had over the past 500 years will continue. That, coupled with the ecologic pressure of up to 9 billion humans, half of which are who are trying desperately to join the 'use lots of resources' club and half of which are barely surviving, pretty much ensures that the Chinese curse of 'may you live in interesting times' comes true.

Whether or not we can change anything, however, is really open to speculation. I suspect not, but would be happy to entertain more optimistic views.

Re:Ocean gun?

[ColdWetDog]

No, look at my post above. The icecaps are expanding in the summer, when they usually don't - but the ice is thin and is likely to melt faster. Further, the expansion may be due to local weather changes and it's certainly not evidence that we're running towards a snowball earth anytime soon.

It's just a quote of a very complex system taken out of context by very simple people.

Re:Ocean gun?

[NatasRevol]

That was one, single cold winter.

The melting continues.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/thick-melt.html

Re:Ocean gun?

[dylan_-]

"According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 â" and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

I'm afraid the Daily Mail was mistaken (it's a terrible paper; seriously, it's a celeb gossip rag -- don't quote from it). What the columnist was referring to was this

See in 2007 when there was a record low? The article you link to was written in 2010, so all they had was 2008 and 2009 data. See how those are both higher than 2007?

Now, those are the data that columnist is referring to. Look at it yourself. Do you think that it was honestly interpreted by the Daily Mail? Would *you* have presented those data as a trend of increasing ice?

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Err.

What is certain that the relatively benign and stable climate patter we've had over the past 500 years WILL NOT continue.

Just missing one little word.... Sigh.... Editing comments would be such a blessing.

Re:Ocean gun?

[GLMDesigns]

Let's see temperature rises and falls. If you have a sine wave and measure two arbitrary points on rise how much does that tell you? Not much. Measuring peak to peak is a better indicator. Unfortunately we don't have a sine wave - what we have is extremely volatile. What you will see when you look at CO2 levels over the last 80+ million years (significant because that corresponds with the rise of mammalian life) is that CO2 levels have gone up and down and at some points were several times higher than it is today.

Again this is important because mammalian life thrived under those conditions. Therefore it would not be an extinction level event if CO2 levels were to again rise to those levels.

Re:Ocean gun?

[geekoid]

Its' because if your news sources, and you unexplainable thinking that a single study will undo mountains of other evidence.

Re:Ocean gun?

[geekoid]

Out of context, and if memory serves, it's talking about areas, not mass. Meaning thin ice.

But yo go ahead and post your out of context single cherry picked data point.

Only an idiot would think science is liberal or conservative.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming?? Dude, you are sooo behind the times. It's called "Climate Change" now. Although, back in my day, we used to call it the Four Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). Now get off my lawn!

Re:Ocean gun?

[phantomfive]

The chances of the Clathrate gun going off are so remote that, the IPCC report didn't even address it as a possibility. Same goes with the runaway Venus effect. Realclimate.org generally backs up this position, as well.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Guppy]

I don't know what to believe any more. First I hear the ice poles are shrinking, and now I hear the icecaps are actually expanding in range.

Entirely possible. Imagine an Antarctic locality where temperature is -30C, precipitation is 6" per year -- and then changes to -25C, with precipitation 6.5" per year. Net effect, accumulation of mass; what becomes important is when and where this effect occurs.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read "mother of storms" by john barnes. realistic portrayal of a superstorm that ends up killing about a billion people, triggered by a massive release of methane from arctic clathrates.

Re:Ocean gun?

[zz5555]

"Global Warming" has already been renamed "Climate Change". It initially looked like a warming trend, but the more we study the more we come to the conclusion that everything is relative. The only thing we know for sure is the climate is changing.

Umm, no. Both global warming and climate change came into use at about the same time in the '70s (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html ). Global warming has always referred to the overall increase in global surface temperature and since that hasn't stopped, and shows no sign of stopping, there would be no reason to change that. Climate change has always referred to all the changes occurring in the climate due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, including the overall increase in global surface temperature. So global warming is just a subset of climate change. But this is all well known and it would require someone to want to remain ignorant about any of the science to still think that global warming has been renamed to climate change.

Re:Ocean gun?

[zz5555]

Unfortunately, you can't really compare the climate from millions of years ago (along with its CO2 levels) directly to the climate of today. In the past, the sun put out less energy, there was a great deal of volcanic action, etc. If it was believed that CO2 was the only driver of climate, you could compare CO2 levels and make your claim. But it's clear from climate science that that isn't the case. It's also clear that CO2 is driving the climate change today and that change is happening very rapidly.

Re:Ocean gun?

[zz5555]

Yes, wind has spread the ice cap and that makes it seem like the ice is spreading. It's important, when thinking of reports of ice extent, to remember that the systems that measure this divide the region being examined into grids. If 15% of the grid is ice covered, then the grid is marked as 100% ice covered. So when the wind blows the ice around, it can make it seem like there is more ice if all you look at is the extent - that's why people use ice extent when they want to lie about arctic ice.

A more realistic way to look at ice is through the volume. The results from PIOMAS (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.png?%3C?php%20echo%20time%28%29%20? ) show that there's about the same volume of ice now as there was last year. Deniers like to point out that there's a greater ice extent this year than last year (which is true - as seen here: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/04/Figure2.png ). What does it mean if you have the same volume of ice, but a greater extent? As you point out, it means the ice is, in general, thinner and will melt faster. It should be an, um, interesting summer.

Re:Ocean gun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they have the data for 1978-2007?

Re:Ocean gun?

[drinkypoo]

Unfortunately, you can't really compare the climate from millions of years ago (along with its CO2 levels) directly to the climate of today.

yes, yes you can.

In the past, the sun put out less energy, there was a great deal of volcanic action, etc.

Yes, and we can account for that. The core samples tell us what was happening. We've already accounted for volcanic action. P.S. Noticed any volcanic action recently?

If it was believed that CO2 was the only driver of climate, you could compare CO2 levels and make your claim.

Luckily, we're comparing a lot more than CO2 levels. The discussion is not as primitive as you make it out to be to serve your political agenda.

Re:Ocean gun?

[drinkypoo]

The chances of the Clathrate gun going off are so remote that, the IPCC report didn't even address it as a possibility.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that there's nothing we can do about it if it does, so why even bother to plan for it? If you mention it people will simply call you names, and say you're trying to scare people. Well, fuck yes, no shit. People aren't scared enough for the situation, so they're not doing anything to change it.

Re:Ocean gun?

[zz5555]

Unfortunately, you can't really compare the climate from millions of years ago (along with its CO2 levels) directly to the climate of today.

yes, yes you can.

In the past, the sun put out less energy, there was a great deal of volcanic action, etc.

Yes, and we can account for that. The core samples tell us what was happening. We've already accounted for volcanic action. P.S. Noticed any volcanic action recently?

So, first of all, you say that we can account for these changes. This means you can't directly compare the past climate with the current climate, so you agree with my first point. Second of all, you correctly point out that there hasn't been much volcanic action lately as opposed to the past. The primary effect of volcanoes is to put aerosols into the atmosphere, which cools the earth. (There's also some CO2 emitted, but it's usually pretty small.) So, as you say, the greater volcanic activity tended to cool things off.

If it was believed that CO2 was the only driver of climate, you could compare CO2 levels and make your claim.

Luckily, we're comparing a lot more than CO2 levels. The discussion is not as primitive as you make it out to be to serve your political agenda.

I think you should re-read the post that I replied to. The claim from that post was that you could compare the CO2 levels - and only the CO2 levels - from previous climates and say something intelligent about the current climate. I replied that no you can't, there are many other factors that drive the climate. So now, with your reply, you point out that you agree with everything that I posted. Since you agree with everything I posted and you claim I have a political agenda by discussing actual science and facts and stuff, that must mean that you have a political agenda. What's yours? ;)

Re:Ocean gun?

[phantomfive]

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that there's nothing we can do about it if it does, so why even bother to plan for it? If you mention it people will simply call you names, and say you're trying to scare people.

You haven't been around long, have you. Do you remember when they were saying the ice would all melt, and water would rise up and cover most of the planet? Do you remember when they were talking about the equator turning into a fire zone? This crap was in the 90s.

That unimportant. There are reasons to believe the clathrate gun is not a serious threat. The IPCC stated why they didn't include the runaway Venus effect in the latest report, "On the Earth, the IPCC states that a “runaway greenhouse effect” — analogous to Venus - appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic [human] activities."

Besides, have you read WG2? It's not like they aren't trying to find the worst effects of global warming that are remotely possible.

rot

[vlm]

How much methane can you get by rotting stuff once it warms up enough to rot? Or is that the simple words version of "stored in ... permafrost"

Re:rot

[Mindcontrolled]

The rotting has long since happened. The most likely source are methane clathrates sequestered for ages and now getting destabilized.

Re:rot

[squidflakes]

Its normal in that this has happened before in the past. The difference is that humans weren't depending on living on the Earth at the time.

Re:rot

[Mindcontrolled]

Sure. Grant money is the sole motivator of all scientific endeavor. All that cash must be the reason why all scientists are driving around in their shiny Ferraris, two bitches alternatingly sucking their cocks all the time, while snorting coke from the dashboard. Or something like that. Fascinating to see how the "poisoning the well" smear campaign by the usual conservative think tanks permeates the debate these days.

Re:rot

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually read the article before commenting? It sounds as though you've already decided you will only believe the results of this study if it supports your point of view.

Re:rot

[HornWumpus]

Did you? Did any of the chicken littles?

Count the number of idiots on this forum who are convinced this is an 'unstoppable positive feedback loop', then re-read your own post.

Re:rot

[Dunbal]

Now if only it was strontium clathrates I could go trigger happy with my sieged dread...

Re:rot

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about another human. I want my iPad!

Re:rot

[Dishevel]

I would not go so far as to say that.
But scientists have been saying that grants tend to corrupt over many things.
Google it. Some of it is even not about AGW.
Money has a tendency to corrupt. Science is good. Better than most I would hazard a guess.
But Science is not immune.

Re:rot

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry. I took your iPad.

Re:rot

[scot4875]

I like that you imply that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot, yet all you've "contributed" to the discussion is one- and two-sentence ad hom attacks.

--Jeremy

Re:rot

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Yes, I read the article. It is interesting.
2) (ignoring inflammatory language) Yes, it is human nature to more easily believe evidence that supports one's preconceptions. But a good skeptic or scientist will fight that tendency and attempt to be open to criticisms and corrections - and try to look at all the evidence even when it doesn't support ones existing views.

3) Personally, I'm not convinced that we have already entered an 'unstoppable positive feedback loop', but I'm concerned about it. There is some evidence that this kind of feedback loop has happened in the geological past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
And there is evidence that our co2 levels are higher than they have been in about 350000 years.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html

I would very much like to see evidence that we are not close to that point yet.

Re:rot

[HornWumpus]

The ones who immediately jump to a alarmist conclusion that is contradicted by the fucking summary _are_ idiots.

Re:rot

[Anonymous Coward]

As compared to the socialist's dismissive smear of "big oil"-- "corporate greed"-- "evil white men" (yawn).
I'll buy the doom and gloom when:
1) Source Data, methods, and simulation code is made public to all (and can be reproduced by anyone- see the unwillingness to respond fully to freedom of information requests).
2) Peer review is not "hand picked" (see climategate emails)
3) They can make an accurate short term prediction that fits into their long term model (failed thusfar)

Until then, I'll only give them slightly more confidence than the Psychic Friends Network, and TMZ.

Re:rot

[Coren22]

Unfortunately, all the player owned structures would also be able to reinforce more readily...it is a balanced equation.

excuse me.

[Anonymous Coward]

no comment

BRAAAAAAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me

Love,
Mother Earth

Not only Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranus also emits a lot of methane.

Sorry...

[CanHasDIY]

Too much hummus.

*BRAAAP*

Pardon.

Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the planet has not been warming for the past 15 years. IIRC Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia CRU said this during an interview a year or two ago.

Re:Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

Re:Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right

Re:Except...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he didn't say that. You can find the actual quote in the comments here:
http://skepticalscience.com/global-surface-warming-since-1995.html

He essentially said the evidence of warming since 1995 was almost but not quite up to 95% confidence (statistically). In any case, there is absolutely no way to legitimately claim from the data that there is statistically significant evidence that warming has stopped in the last 15 years.

In addition, if you account for known short term variations (la-nina events related to warming of the oceans), there _is_ a statistically significant warming trend in the last 15 years. This is in spite of the fact that the sun has put less heat into the earth's atmosphere.

Re:Except...

[Dishevel]

Oh.

Re:Except...

[fritsd]

It has been warming.
I don't remember the exact details, but I thought it was like this:
If you cherry-pick the two years 1998 and 2008 (1998 being quite warm and 2008 a bit colder than the trend), and fit a line on the 10 temperatures from that particular 10 year period, then you can't say with 95% certainty that there's an upward trend, but only with less certainty IIRC. And they put Phil Jones on the spot "can you say with 95% certainty that it became warmer in that 10 year period?". So he had to say no.

I used the emotionally laden word cherry-pick because if you take another recent period of 10 years, or another period ending at 2008, or another period starting at 1998, then the upward trend is much clearer.
Please look at the graph: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif .
Guess why the years 1998 and 2008 were taken. Get the data yourself (from NOAA or HadCRUT3), and plot it with something that can draw a linear regression line from the past 15 years that you mentioned (1996 to 2011) or just use a ruler and some common sense to draw a line through the points.
Then do the same for 1998 to 2008 (the cherry-picked data), and finally to see the famous "hockey-stick" one from 1898 to 2008.

Don't waste your time arguing why I'm wrong or stupid, just go download that data and draw it for yourself. I dare you.

Re:Except...

[ceoyoyo]

That's not the way regression works. If you can change the result that much by including or excluding a data point, your evidence is extremely weak.

The data, at least the data in that graph, simply doesn't support an unequivocal claim of warming over the last decade. Over the last century, however, yes.

Climate is complex, and influenced by more than one thing. The last decade was not like the ones that preceded it. Pretending it was is unscientific.

Re:Except...

[Eunuchswear]

Don't waste your time arguing why I'm wrong or stupid, just go download that data and draw it for yourself. I dare you.

If you're just drawing straight lines don't bother downloading the data, just head on over to wood for trees.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2012/trend

Re:Except...

[psnyder]

Ground surface temperature data (GISS, HadCRUT3, and most of NOAA's data) is extremely problematic as the landscape around them has changed considerably in the 100+ years of instrument measurement (ie: cities/towns have been built around or close to most of them). The most reliable are the ones in rural locations that haven't changed much in 100 years, but those are few and far between.

100 years is extremely short-term in the perspective of Earth's varying temperatures. However if you want reliable short-term data, make sure you're looking at satellite data (UAH, RSS) rather than ground. It has its problems too, but it's much more accurate as it takes into account wider areas and other spheres of the atmosphere. We have 30+ years of data now.

The famous hockey-stick you mention used tree rings as it's proxy. Tree rings are one of the most problematic proxies, as millions of other factors besides temperature could contribute to their sizes. It's a good place to start if you have nothing else to go on, but... there is much better data out there.

For long-term data, ice cores are the most accurate proxies we have (such as Vostok), as their layers haven't moved in centuries.

methane ice

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the methane ice under the sea has started to melt? Where ever it's coming from, this will accelerate global warming exponentially..

global farting

[harvey the nerd]

Everything, -body farts, including good ole' Mother Earth. pffffft, now another methane hydrate crystal. Sheep, swamps, anaerobic groundwaters, anaerobic seawaters....methane is a child of Nature. Get over it.

Re:global farting

[Anonymous Coward]

Who exactly are you telling to get over it, exactly? All the other comments are pretty mature, reasonable, and on topic. Projecting, maybe?

Methane is bad stuff

[sl4shd0rk]

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

So why hasn't a feedback loop destroyed the earth?

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[coinreturn]

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

So why hasn't a feedback loop destroyed the earth?

The time constant > your lifetime.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the hype about methane is bunch of BS.

1. Methane half life in the atmosphere is only a few years to maybe a decade or two.
2. During that period, it will trap more heat than CO2 alone and it will increase temperature faster.
3. But when it disappears, CO2 will remain in the carbon cycle for millenia.

The only thing that changes is instead of going from pre-industrial equilibrium A to max-CO2 concentration equilibrium B in a sort of asymptotic function, the temperature will jump much faster toward B earlier in the curve. So instead of warming 10C over 1000 years, it will warm 5C over next 50-100 years, and then slow down and crawl up much slower towards 10C increase.

The bottom line, the only thing "worrying" is that AGW deniers will live to see their ignorance. I can live with that.

Heck, it may even allow the society to *notice* the big problem that AGW represents before things get really bad because of CO2 - and CO2 is much more difficult to remove from atmosphere than methane!

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[wonkey_monkey]

Sorry, are you attempting to refute the possibility of such a feedback loop by pointing out that it hasn't happened yet?

Why not argue that bullets can't kill you because you've never been shot?

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're being a pedant. If what you're saying is true, Earth should already be like Venus is today, and should have been so millions of years ago.

It was a mostly tropical planet in dinosaur times. Why did it cool off again? Your prediction is that once it gets warm, it keeps getting warmer and warmer and warmer until it becomes a new sun, or whatever absurd conclusion you're making.

This is the most annoying thing about this "global warming" debate. It's a matter of politics now, not science. And the only politics people understand anymore is black vs white, far left vs far right.

Real sciences like climatology don't work that way. There are tons of variables, there's tons of experiments to run, there's a ton left to learn.

But instead you'd rather flip the bird at a guy who owns an SUV, blame everything on him, then look at your own smug face in the mirror while you beat off.

Because that's in line with your politics. Learning things, and trying to understand what is actually happening is not.

And it's like this now on every issue, big or small.

Idiocracy? We're living it.

Oh by the way, you're a liberal hippie fag, dont reply, because everything you say is either DEAD WRONG, or just self-masturbatory preaching to the choir.

The real truth is, you don't know. It is beyond your comprehension.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[ArcherB]

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

From your source:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources. Human-influenced sources include landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial process.

"Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period" and "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years".

Am I the only one who sees a huge logic flaw in that 100-year figure given the 9-15 year figure? How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[na1led]

If Earth had no Humans, I'm sure the environment would balance itself out, but with 7 Billion people, and all the damage we've done, I don't think the pendulum will be swing back anytime soon. Human's have already cut down more than a third of the forest, and we've polluted the oceans enough to increase the acidic level a significant amount. Look around you, you're not surrounded by jungle, it's millions of roads and black rooftops. We are destroying the planet, and if you think otherwise, then your the idiot fool!

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[the eric conspiracy]

The fine summary suggested this is marine bacteria farts rather than stored methane from clathrates being released.

I would be a lot more worried if it were clathrates.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[ArcherB]

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

From your source:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources. Human-influenced sources include landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial process.

"Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period" and "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years".

Am I the only one who sees a huge logic flaw in that 100-year figure given the 9-15 year figure? How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

Modding this "Overrated" does not make it any less true.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[NeutronCowboy]

If what you're saying is true, Earth should already be like Venus is today, and should have been so millions of years ago.

No, what he's saying is that there is a positive feedback mechanism that will keep going until a particular part of that mechanism stops running. That would be the supply of methane in permafrost and at the bottom of the ocean.

Your prediction is that once it gets warm, it keeps getting warmer and warmer and warmer until it becomes a new sun, or whatever absurd conclusion you're making.

Straw man and hyperbole. He didn't say that. Furthermore, you're the only one making absurd predictions - and putting them in the mouths of other people.

But instead you'd rather flip the bird at a guy who owns an SUV, blame everything on him, then look at your own smug face in the mirror while you beat off.

No idea how you got that from a comment that essentially says "hey, you're timescale assessment is wrong." Could you be projecting?

Oh by the way, you're a liberal hippie fag, dont reply, because everything you say is either DEAD WRONG, or just self-masturbatory preaching to the choir.

Ignoring the liberal application of random insults and assumptions, you seem to a) engage in the same black-and-white thinking you were decrying two sentences earlier, and b) equate being right with self-masturbatory preaching. Can't handle the truth, can you?

The funny part is that you will be the least prepared for the coming trouble. Have fun. Liberals have guns, too.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[MikeyC01]

Assuming the environment can "balance itself out", could "global warming" be the environment's way to increase the temperate zones on the planet in order to allow for more foliage to grow? Could the reported excess CO2 be the environment's response to feed the plant life in these new growing areas? Maybe the environment was cold and created homo sapiens to warm things up?

Maybe god created us because he wanted plastic?

*shrug*

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[dgatwood]

I can't speak for the grandparent, but no, it's more like arguing that because you didn't die from a bullet wound to the leg, you are unlikely to die from a subsequent bullet wound to the leg. Millions of years ago, the primordial atmosphere is believed to have been mostly methane and CO2. From that starting point, nature brought it to where it is today. In the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then, the suggestion that pushing it a fraction of the way back towards that state will cause a runaway greenhouse reaction when it did not occur under similar conditions in the distant past seems utterly absurd on the surface. It's an unbelievably extraordinary claim that would require extraordinary proof.

I don't refute that humans have changed the climate on Earth. I might even believe that if we continue to do what we're doing now, we may screw things up badly enough to make us uncomfortable as a species. However, given Earth's history, I'd rate the chances of a runaway greenhouse effect as somewhere between zero and... well... zero with some almost infinitesimally small margin of error. The odds are so small so as to be essentially a measurement error. It is billions of times more likely that some computer model overflowed the precision of a floating point value somewhere....

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Attila Dimedici]

Liberals have guns, too.

Not good liberals. All good liberals know that only government officials (and the bodyguards of famous, wealthy people) should be allowed to possess guns.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[dylan_-]

"Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period" and "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years".

Am I the only one who sees a huge logic flaw in that 100-year figure given the 9-15 year figure? How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

Imagine a retelling of Ach^W the Hare and the Tortoise. They decide to see who can run the furthest in 1 minute. At the off, the Hare sprints away but 10 seconds later he's completely exhausted and lies down to have a rest, having covered 100m in that time. Meanwhile, the tortoise plods along steadily and at the end of the minute....well, this is no fairy tale -- he's only managed 5 metres.

So, the Hare has covered 20 times the distance that the Tortoise has, even though he's only run for 10 seconds. No surprise, frankly.

Methane is actually about 70 times better as a greenhouse gas as CO2 in the short term, but we don't really care about the short term: long term effects are what are important. So, we can average it out over 100 years instead. Of course, methane doesn't just disappear when it breaks down; it ends up leaving CO2 in the atmosphere, so it has long term effects anyway. It's why, even though water is such a potent greenhouse gas, it doesn't matter as a temperature forcing mechanism because it drops out of the atmosphere within *days*. The amount the atmosphere can hold is dependant on the temperature.

However, what's bad about water, is that if something else causes the atmospheric temperature to rise, the overall effect won't just be from *that thing*. The warmer atmosphere will also hold more water which will cause an *additional* temperature rise.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[HornWumpus]

It's not enough to have a gun. You actually have to know how to shoot straight and have woods skills.

Liberals have bought into their own BS. They think guns are so deadly all they have to do is hold them sideways, close their eyes and shoot.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

This is a site for technically minded people, many of whom are seriously into having the latest and greatest gadgets, preferably with open-source software enhancements. Many of us are running the Acme Mark IV Series 80 Bullshit Multimeter with custom enhancements. Before connecting to /. it is important to make sure that it is set to register on the logarithmic scale and that it is securely connected to a two meter solid copper grounding rod. In addition, I strongly recommend that you set this up in series with the Acme Bogon Flux Detector and Filter unit. I prefer the Model 42 with emergency disconnect feature that severs your internet connection if the bogon flux reaches 250 microLenats.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

But methane is unstable and reacts readily with oxygen.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[NeutronCowboy]

Funny. Two moronic replies around a throwaway line, and both come from foes.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[ArcherB]

Right, but the site says, "Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period". It doesn't say "Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period because it causes the release of other greenhouse gases."

Your may be 100% correct, but what you say is not what the EPA says. And assuming that you are correct, anything that raises the temperature for seven years or so would have the same long term effect as methane to the climate. You are also alluding to a infinite feedback loop that we would still be in today from past hot spells our planet has gone through.

Either way, I'm still a bit alarmed that the climate policy arm of the US government has such a huge error in logic on their site, and no one seems to notice. Quite to the contrary, everyone seems overly willing to give up their rights to a government that doesn't catch something so obvious that an idiot like me pointed it out after reading it once.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[geekoid]

The is no such thing as balance itself out. It has no thought, or goal, or task list.

All I care about is it stay the best conditions possible for the human species.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[geekoid]

Liberal hear.
I can out shoot most people on the planet.
My liberal friends have guns and can shoot fine.

Liberal just want people to be responsible. And liberal tend to take an honest view of the data.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[na1led]

When there is no clean water to drink, we'll see how mother nature responds.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[ArcherB]

Slashdot! Where groupthink outweighs logic.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Eunuchswear]

Turning into C02 and Water.

Both GHG's.

Bummer.

Re:Methane is bad stuff

[Neil Boekend]

The earth is actually quite bad at balancing out. It has gotten extremely unbalanced quite a few time.
For example: Once there was no free oxigen in the atmosphere, and all the bacteria were adapted to that. Then the buffer absorbing the free oxigen was full. An unknown percentage of lifeforms died (bacteria don't leave much bones to be dug up) but it was likely above 90% (my guess, based on the toxicity of oxigen. That'll react with everything, so it'll be a hell to adapt to in a couple of thousands of years).
Most of the extinciton level events were caused by a major balance shift in the chemicals in the atmosphere and the oceans. Most of the time the earth became a lifeless barren wasteland it was caused by a notable lack of balance from natural forces.

Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[gregmark]

... that I think naturally come up with stories like this. Despite my science background from college (marine bio, actually, but I never use it), I find it hard to answer questions that true science novices might have such as:

(o) Why is methane bad? It's one of the gases that get trapped in the atmosphere and prevent light from escaping, which warms the planet. Um... I think.

(o) If it floats ups into the upper atmosphere, doesn't it just float into space? Uh.... no. Gravity.... I think.

(o) So those trapped gases must have been in the air at some point, millions of years ago, and then planet did just fine. So what's there to worry about? Uh.....

Sounds great it my brain, but when I vocalize it I realize how easy it is for uninitiated to suspect bullshit and assume there isn't anything to worry about, that this is just a ploy to funnel more money into the coffers of the science research community. Very frustrating.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[TheSeventh]

(o) So those trapped gases must have been in the air at some point, millions of years ago, and then planet did just fine. So what's there to worry about? Uh.....

Yeah, the planet did fine, but it didn't support human life at the time. So, if human life is something you would like supported, then maybe there is a problem.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[Caratted]

Millions of years ago, the climate (read: atmosphere) would've killed large mammals reliant on an oxygen rich environment (which is what is happening now, slowly but surely). The problem isn't that life would not be able to "get by just fine." It's that if the geology of Earth shifts back towards a carbon-rich environment, it won't be conducive to living comfortably, as a human. This is my understanding, anyway.

The argument over whether or not it is a natural occurance is a big one (and worth having, IMO), but global warming nay-sayers choose to be ignorant of the fact that the "natural" environment of yester-millenia would literally kill them in a few short, labored gasps.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[GameboyRMH]

If you're a marine bio major you should know 1 and 3. Especially 3.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[na1led]

They didn't have millions of roads and buildings - Millions of years ago. Even if it was warmer back then, at least you had some good shade. I don't think all the tar roads, and black roof tops are going to do well with 140F temperatures.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[Chris Burke]

(o) So those trapped gases must have been in the air at some point, millions of years ago, and then planet did just fine. So what's there to worry about? Uh.....

Nothing if you're a Gaea-worshiping hippie. Mother Earth will be just fine.

Most of us have concerns a lot more specific than just "the planet" doing fine.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just speculating here... CO2 is present in the atmosphere in trace amounts, maybe 400ppm. If all the Carbon trapped in the crust was returned to the atmosphere (from whence it came, by the way) as CO2, I don't think mammalian respiration would be affected. The change in available O2 would be very small.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[Caratted]

Again, that's not really the problem. It's not about whether or not we are the causation. The problem is that if the atmosphere shifts back towards the state it was in pre-ice age, we are going to be unable to breathe as we know it. The breathing masks you see in so much SF, that you can only do without for so long? They're based in some reality.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[gregmark]

Well, that's not the point and unless you went to UNH in the early 90's, I doubt you know the content of my *undergraduate* curriculum (ie, no classes on Paleozoic marine life). I do know the answers, although for the most part I can only offer educated guesses of the extemporaneous and non-succinct variety. My point is that articles like this gloss over or avoid entirely some of the underlying principles involved and this leads many people to dismiss the headline which in this case translates to "More methane may be escaping into the environment as a consequence of global warming". Enter the fart jokes.

Sure, science folk and reasonably educated people like me don't require deep background to form opinions, but most people do. Since it's rarely provided, lay readers retreat to their default stance which, more often than not, is to ignore it and possibly support public figures who promote lassiez-faire exploitation of natural resources.

Many of the responses to my original question would have been nice additions to the OL.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[GonzoPhysicist]

The O2 concentration could be very high and you would still suffocate if could not expunge the CO2 from your system. In fact high CO2 is what causes the suffocating feeling, not lack of oxygen. oh, and it was around 300 ppm about a hundred years ago, that's what's scary to me.

Re:Weed need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[ceoyoyo]

Take a deep breath. Suffocating from too much CO2 in the air is not something we need to worry about. You have to go back a LOT of millions of years until you get to an atmosphere with too much CO2 for us to breath.

Stupid title

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes it sound like there was just a MASSIVE release of methane, when that isn't what the article is about.

Answers the question...

[JestersGrind]

What happens moments after Santa says pull my finger?

Pardon Me

[StikyPad]

I assumed that the north pole would be far enough away from polite society to let loose, but apparently I've just made an ass of myself once again.

What can I say?

[RazorRaiser]

Chilli is good cold weather food.

Ah ha

[strikeleader]

So now Al Gore can blame the fish for global warming.

Not actually massive ...

[s21825]

From the friendly article: “While the methane levels we detected weren’t particularly large, the potential source region, the Arctic Ocean, is vast, so our finding could represent a noticeable new global source of methane,”

Let's use it

[phorm]

How combustible is high-pressure methane VS something like propane?
Most "natural gas" contains a fairly significant chunk of methane and is often piped for home furnaces, stoves, heaters, etc.
So with all this methane, why not find a way to capture, compress, and use it. Seems that this algae is essentially doing what may of the biogas projects are intended for anyways.

Some perspective

[nukeade]

So I wondered just how much methane 2 mg/m^2/day is, and here's the breakdown:

2 mg/m^2/day times the area of the Arctic ocean (13,986,000 km^2) is 27,972,000 kg/day, or about 10.2 Tg/year.

10.2 Tg/year can be compared on this chart to other sources. This is not an insignificant amount, but is an order of magnitude less than just the contribution from farm animals.

I'm not a climate scientist, and can't say what this may or may not mean for AGW, but it puts the size of the emission into perspective.

Re:Some perspective

[metrometro]

Yes, but... When balanced against methane sinks (using your helpful link), the NET GAIN of methane is ~20Tg/year. Which means that adding 10Tg/year would be a 50% increase in the rate of methane accumulation. Seems like bad news.

On the plus side, doing something about those cows would potentially tip the delta back down to neutral or below.

Re:Some perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

If it didn't have a half-life in the atmosphere. ...

Bottle it...

[unixisc]

...distribute it to all energy importing countries, and address as much of their energy needs as possible that way.

NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! Methane is NATURAL!

[StefanJ]

Yes, it's a perfectly NATURAL gas! Environmentalist commie tree huggers who say otherwise are HYPOCRITES who actually HATE NATURE!

Our BODIES produce methane all the time, to GREAT COMEDIC EFFECT!

And it's PLANT FOOD! (Assuming the plants are from Zeta Gamma VII, which happens to be the home world of our new alien terraforming overlords.)

Lots of jokes but the truth less funny

[Grayhand]

No need to waste time over the cause, I think those two camps are entrenched and few will change their minds on the actual cause. The fact is the feedback loop is already starting which means it's likely self-perpetuating or soon will be. It also means the increase can be much greater than any of the projections since no one is sure how much methane can be released so most haven't factored it in to projections. It's unlikely that the climate change can be stopped but that's no reason to not limit CO2. There was always a much bigger issue that rarely gets mentioned and that's ocean acidification. Acid oceans kill fish and coral and we don't get our oxygen and food from rain forests we get most of the oxygen and a lot of our food from the oceans so killing them is a bad idea.

I thought I smelled something.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I smelled something.

Vladinator?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Vlad, Reza, and Marticock moved up there?

It is a possibility you know

Oh man

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they open a Taco Bell near Santa's Workshop?

NOT a positive feedback loop!

[nukeade]

It's actually not a positive feedback loop.

Calcium Carbonate + Carbon Dioxide Calcium Bicarbonate

So, calcium carbonate does *not* react with carbon dioxide to produce calcium bicarbonate and another carbon dioxide. That would violate conservation of mass. The reaction between calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide produces calcium bicarbonate which should precipitate out and increase the pH of the water to more neutral levels!

Re:NOT a positive feedback loop!

[nukeade]

Whoops. That was supposed to be:

Calcium Carbonate + Carbon Dioxide < - > Calcium Bicarbonate

HTML!

Re:NOT a positive feedback loop!

[squidflakes]

I could be wrong, I'm more a behavior guy than a chemistry guy, but here goes. CO2 dissolves in to ocean water and forms carbonic acid which leans to an increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions. This is typically offset by the dissolution of rock and shells leading to an increase in calcium carbonate which reacts to the acid to form an aqueous solution of calcium bicarbonate, which by the way, doesn't precipitate out of water. Depending on temperature and pressure, there is a depth where there is a balance in the dissolution and production of calcium carbonate.

Calcifying organisms like oysters, clams, crabs, corals, and many algae depend on a supersaturation of calcium carbonate in the water to form their shells. As the water pH increases, the depth at which calcium carbonate ions precipitate or are supersaturated rises, leaving less and less of the ocean friendly to calcifying organisms.

The existing shells of calcifying organisms and rocks are subject to more rapid dissolution by the increased pH, which is where I'm getting the feedback loop. More CO2 from dissolving shells leads to more acidity.

Please let me know where I'm off base here.

Re:NOT a positive feedback loop!

[nukeade]

You only have to look at the balanced chemical equation to see (which I got wrong, also not a chemist, and you're right about the bicarbonate being soluble!)

CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 = Ca(HCO3)2

This will certainly reduce the acidity of the water, increasing the pH, because carbon dioxide is being removed from the water and is in equilibrium with the carbonic acid ions.

CO2 + H2O = HCO3- + H+

There is a reason, however, that I know just from a thought experiment that this cannot be a positive feedback loop. If it were a positive feed back loop and calcium carbonate reacted with carbon dioxide in the water to increase the acidity of the water, then I could take some limestone, throw it into some water, and over time the limestone would totally dissolve and leave me with a cup of very strong acid. In other words, if this were the case, calcium carbonate in normal water would be unstable. You only have to look at some old quarries to see that this is not the case!

The oil industry could really help here

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the Clathrate gun hypothesis seem so nebulous. We know what temperatures and pressures methane hydrates destabilize. We know roughly where hydrocarbons are through oil prospecting. Hell I bet there's a temperature and pressure gauge attached to every oil well in the ocean. And if we're lucky, the prospectors might have kept core samples or records at least of the presence of methane hydrates while drilling. Seems like all we really need are enough prominent politicians and EPA regulators to get them to fork over the data.

Wait, wait, wait...

[Razgorov Prikazka]

'News' about global warming... AGAIN??

When do we stop chasing that ghost and get over it? Really...
The big freeze, acid rain, a gap in the ozon layer, and now this witch hunt. *sigh*
Can we, for the sake of Cowboy Neal, just stop doing this, get real and do some real science?

It all sounds like:
Sir Bedevere: What makes you think there is global warming?
Peasant: Well, the global warming turned me into a newt!
Sir Bedevere: A newt?
Peasant: -meekly- ... I got better.
Crowd: (shouts) Stop driving your car anyway!!!

Zjeeeez...

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no its 'news for nerds'. Weather nerds that is...

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Beavertank]

Except that, of your examples, two of the three (acid rain and the ozone hole) are provably real things and didn't become the doomsday scenarios thrown around when they were new news because the reporting on them spurred large scale action removing the major contributing factors. Nice try, though, with the false equivalencies.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[geekoid]

"acid rain,"
uh, this is happening, not as bad thanks to regulations. IT's a real thing.

" a gap in the ozon layer"
again a real measurable thing.

"ow this witch hunt. "
witch hunt? methane is being released.

There are mountain of evidence that support man made climate change.

OTOH- since you have to actual arguments other then an ad homs,I suspect you know that.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[PopeRatzo]

'News' about global warming... AGAIN??

I agree. Global warming is no longer news, and hasn't been since carbon dioxide was shown to be a greenhouse gas in the first half of the 19th century. We know it's coming, ready or not. The science of anthropogenic global warming is not news, it's physics.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

Whoa, hold on to your horses with your science oversimplification strawman. Sure we know all that about CO2, but we don't know what'll happen to it -- will it just sit there in the atmosphere? Will the changing climate affect how CO2 is released or absorbed by the oceans and the biosphere? Questions, questions, questions abound. Yes, surely a conservative approach is prudent, just in case everything was to go according to the direst predictions. Yet we can't claim it's anything more than willing to play it safe by default. We simply don't know any better.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[crutchy]

When do we stop chasing that ghost and get over it? Really...

when someone builds a coal fired power station next door to you, and you start getting rain that eats into paintwork, and when you experience heatwaves that can give you sunburn even with 30+ lotion on, and maybe when you stop taking for gospel what idiot journos like James Delingpole tell you with absolutely no counter-evidence

really... do you have any scientific evidence that the earth isn't undergoing global warming?
and no, saying that "CO2 isn't a pollutant" is neither evidence or scientific
of course its a pollutant because its a product of combustion, retards... just because it also happens to come from cow shit and volcanos doesn't mean its not a pollutant, and just because man isn't its only cause doesn't mean we should ignore industrial environmental impact

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[GPLHost-Thomas]

Shit, got to loose what I moderated for that one...

really... do you have any scientific evidence that the earth isn't undergoing global warming?

How about ... the last 10 years of temperature records? Isn't this scientific evidence? I'm not saying that CO2 has no impact (nobody is fool enough to say that), but at least it hasn't been enough to warm the earth over the past decade.

and no, saying that "CO2 isn't a pollutant" is neither evidence or scientific

It's a mater of views, I guess. You could say that CO2 is a pollutant, but plants and trees wont agree with you. To many organisms, O2 would be a pollutant too. With half a brain, this leads us to say that CO2 isn't more a pollutant than water.

of course its a pollutant because its a product of combustion, retards...

That's reverse thinking. If you burn Dy-hidrogen, then the product of this combustion is water and oxygen. Would you still say that because water and oxygen are products of combustion, therefore they are pollutants? Of course, this doesn't make sense, neither it does to say that CO2 is a pollutant. What makes sense is to say that an excess of CO2 might be bad for the earth (but we aren't even sure of that, it's subject to a huge controversy, and there's less and less consensus about it).

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[crutchy]

the last 10 years of temperature records

so what about them? do you think they indicate global warming isn't occurring? where do they say that (with any scientific credibility)? you and i probably wouldn't have the expertise to interpret said data even if we had access to it all.
the problem is that you have been told by someone (likely a moron journo) that the last 10 years of temperature records indicates that global warming isn't occurring, and you believed it. in reality you have absolutely no clue what temperature records indicate, because the amount of data that implies is enormous, and 10 years isn't likely even enough time to indicate anything about the global temperature trend any more than summer temperatures are generally warmer than winter ones. if you referred to the last 100 years of temperature records it would at least seem more convincing (even if i knew you were still a gullible slave to corporate mass media)

CO2 isn't more a pollutant than water

from Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution], "Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere."
...of course i didn't realize you were ignorant enough to need the definition of pollution pointed out to you.
co2 is a pollutant because it is released into the atmosphere as a product of combustion. water is also a product, but it isn't a pollutant.
if c02 were released deep underground (carbon capture), it would not be a pollutant because it isn't being released into the atmosphere.

What makes sense is to say that an excess of CO2 might be bad for the earth

so might an excess of ignorance

there's less and less consensus about it

amongst who exactly? a runaway greenhouse effect isn't exactly rocket science. morons argue that a volcano spits out more co2 than all of humanity like it makes everything ok. what they seem to be completely oblivious to is that if enough volcanos spew enough co2 into the atmosphere, it will be just as bad.
the whole point of the global warming debate was that humanity shouldn't be the cause of its own destruction; there has never been any argument that a runaway greenhouse effect couldn't occur naturally, in which case of course we could do little about it.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[GPLHost-Thomas]

so what about them? do you think they indicate global warming isn't occurring? where do they say that (with any scientific credibility)? you and i probably wouldn't have the expertise to interpret said data even if we had access to it all.

So, I don't have the expertise to read a curve, and say if it goes up or down? COME ON !!!

the problem is that you have been told by someone (likely a moron journo) ...

Right. So everyone that do not agree with you is a moron. This goes in the right direction!

...that the last 10 years of temperature records indicates that global warming isn't occurring

I just read the curve of the last 10 years. I don't care if you don't believe it, but the fact is that it's not going up!

in reality you have absolutely no clue what temperature records indicate, because the amount of data that implies is enormous, and 10 years isn't likely even enough time to indicate anything about the global temperature trend any more than summer temperatures are generally warmer than winter ones.

Well, that's the problem. Everyone is using the scale that they like to prove a point. If we take the last 10 years, then it's not enough. If we take 1000 years, then we are told that it's too much. Of course, if you take exactly 30 years, you'll have a trend that shows an increase. All this is silly...

even if i knew you were still a gullible slave to corporate mass media

What do you know of me? Nothing. What do you know about who I read / watch? Nothing as well. So please don't make such assumptions.

of course i didn't realize you were ignorant enough

Shit, I didn't realize you were a cunt ... The discussion can stop here at this point, if you use such language.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

Fantastic.

You've got +3 informative for a post that includes no information.

Slashdot moderation - the herd mind in action.

but we don't know what'll happen to it -- will it just sit there in the atmosphere? Will the changing climate affect how CO2 is released or absorbed by the oceans and the biosphere? Questions, questions, questions abound.

Maybe you want to go read about the carbon cycle.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

so what about them? do you think they indicate global warming isn't occurring? where do they say that (with any scientific credibility)? you and i probably wouldn't have the expertise to interpret said data even if we had access to it all.

So, I don't have the expertise to read a curve, and say if it goes up or down? COME ON !!!

Well, no. You don't.

You're not reading a curve. You're reading a collection of superimposed curves. If you want to know what the warming effect due to CO2 increase is you've got to remove other effects.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[crutchy]

So, I don't have the expertise to read a curve, and say if it goes up or down? COME ON !!!

i couldn't have made my point any clearer than you have done if i tried. thanks for a nice demonstration of a first-class dumbass.

So everyone that do not agree with you is a moron

actually the jornos that take an internal scientific correspondence not intended for public consumption (ie intended audience is expected to have a scientific background to be able to correctly interpret its context), take said email way out of context, blather it all over front page news as a 'scoop' to increase sales, and then continue a very public and damaging campaign of mistrust in proper scientific process, downplaying the accuracy of data collected, as if his own process and opinions are more trustworthy. how much more a moron could a person be?

I just read the curve of the last 10 years. I don't care if you don't believe it, but the fact is that it's not going up!

wow i guess you can't get more scientifically definitive that that! however, i would just like to note that i just read "the curve" of the last few minutes, and the positive trend in temperature would seem to indicate global warming. i don't care if you don't believe it, but the fact is that it's not going down!

All this is silly...

not quite as silly as believing moron journos whose hype has no scientific merit. it's just a pity that more people (including politicians and business leaders) read their rubbish than do the scientific journals, so its natural that scientific reason would be drowned out by corporate media hype intended to achieve no more than increased sales.

So please don't make such assumptions

they weren't really assumptions... you made your ignorance blatantly obvious

Shit, I didn't realize you were a cunt ... The discussion can stop here at this point, if you use such language

yeah cos calling someone a cunt is nowhere near as bad as calling someone ignorant. you've definitely scored the moral high ground with that one

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

Carbon cycle is not the only thing that can change the amount of atmospheric CO2, you know :)

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[jakemann]

and when you experience heatwaves that can give you sunburn even with 30+ lotion on

Temperature has no impact on rate of sunburn, angle of the sun does. You are more likely to burn during a heat wave because of the angle, but you can still get a bad sunburn during the winter because of the reflected light from the snow. A heat wave will however bring on increased rates of heat related illness, but sunscreen will not have any impact on the severity of the illness.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

Carbon cycle is not the only thing that can change the amount of atmospheric CO2, you know :)

Well, no.

There's also burning a shitload of fossil fuels.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[berbo]

Right. Maybe everything we know about chemistry is all wrong! who can say?

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[gonzonista]

oh, if only I had some mod points...

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[GPLHost-Thomas]

actually the jornos that take an internal scientific correspondence not intended for public consumption (ie intended audience is expected to have a scientific background to be able to correctly interpret its context), take said email way out of context

I didn't need to read the emails. I had a look to the pascal code for drawing the East Anglia curve, and saw the way they did their "fudge factor". For that, I have an expertise, and I can tell that this is crap. This pascal code was not science, but hacking to get the expected result.

damaging campaign of mistrust in proper scientific process

On a normal scientific process, we wouldn't have need a weasel blower to get the above pascal code. It would have been published, together with the data. This is simply not what happened, they have been hiding behind copyright to refuse to publish it.

and the positive trend in temperature would seem to indicate global warming

Citation needed...

not quite as silly as believing moron journos whose hype has no scientific merit.

Well, I've been reading M. Vicent Courtillot. He's not a moron, he's a real scientific. Well, of course, not a "climatologist" (but a geologist), because those are all paid for alarming you about the warming, so they are in direct conflict of interest.

it's just a pity that more people (including politicians and business leaders) read their rubbish

Luckily, the people are reading the scientific studies as well, which influences our politics, and there are enough people with scientific knowledge to understand what is being said. Lucky, many don't believe the lie that it's too complicated and that it cannot be understood. Luckily, there are people smart enough to explain in a simple way things that others are trying to make complicated on purpose. Luckily, there are still some politicians that are against the CO2 taxes against the poor, and in favor of Al Gore and friends who got some shares in the CO2 market. Luckily, there's still some people that believe a curve is a curve, and that even a 10 years old can understand an up or a down trend. Luckily, there's still some scientific doing real analysis, doing some conferences freely available on the Internet, and which (almost) everyone can understand (of course, you need to make the effort to read them...), and luckily, it's not all about scoop and big titles.

yeah cos calling someone a cunt is nowhere near as bad as calling someone ignorant.

It's not any better, I'm just making the point that my opponent had no point calling me ignorant. But maybe that's too subtle for you.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[crutchy]

regardless of what journos, geologists, climatologists, etc think, i don't personally agree that CO2 is the problem, but NOx and SOx definitely are.
i'm also not convinced that taxes are necessarily the answer to tempering environmental impact, but there needs to be a financial aspect attributed because otherwise companies won't care or do anything. generating pollution either has to cost money, or not generating pollution has to make money, because money talks, and everything else walks.

i think there is enough evidence of global warming, and trying to deny it is just ignoring underlying problems. the reasons why a single chart was fudged weren't in any way corrupt (outliers, noise, interference, acquisition errors, scope of study, or merely to convey a particular aspect of the study that the otherwise non-fudged data might have confused) and shouldn't have caused a global mistrust of all global warming data. in science and engineering (i'm of the latter profession), data is adjusted/tampered/analyzed/averaged/interpolated/extrapolated all the time when producing graphs, depending on the intended audience. what shouldn't be fudged is outcomes/conclusions. saying that the merit of scientists outcomes is questionable because you saw how a pascal program works to fudge a chart is just stupid.

and the positive trend in temperature would seem to indicate global warming
Citation needed...

it was merely to highlight how ridiculous your 10 year statement was... apparently it whooshed you

But maybe that's too subtle for you.

calling me a cunt was about as subtle as one can get

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[GPLHost-Thomas]

calling me a cunt was about as subtle as one can get

If you don't want to get it, don't start with: "i didn't realize you were ignorant enough". That's not very subtle either... Gosh, I'd better stop, it seems nobody understand sarcasms in here... Sheldon Cooper, I know it's you!

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[RockDoctor]

since carbon dioxide was shown to be a greenhouse gas in the first half of the 19th century.

Second half, actually, and quite late.

You've got to be careful with the straw-clutchers of the climate change sceptics - they'll clutch at any trivial flaw to discount your entire argument.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[PopeRatzo]

Second half, actually, and quite late.

It was the second half, you're right. But not so late. I've got Tyndall in 1859 discovering the Greenhouse Effect.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[RockDoctor]

I was thinking more of Svante Arrhenius, who in 1896 showed that CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas ; Tyndall's work earlier showed (correctly) that H2O is a greenhouse gas, but changes in it's contribution are considerably constrained by the thermal inertia of the oceans, whereas anthropogenic production of CO2 (and therefore increase in it's greenhouse effect) is essentially independent of temperature.

Until we boil the oceans.

At which point, "game" is very much "over".

It was developing science at the time.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

How convenient of you to pretend that the oceans are not there. Oh, and the soil, although that probably plays a lesser role.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

How convenient of you to pretend that the oceans are not there. Oh, and the soil, although that probably plays a lesser role.

What makes you think that the oceans and the soil are not part of the carbon cycle?

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

OK, I stand corrected, but then I don't see your outrage. Those nice numbers in graphical depictions of carbon cycle are somewhat a ballparkguestimates when it comes to ocean's influence as far as storage goes. It's not entirely trivial to measure them, and various papers I've dug out that source those numbers (they are buried quite deep) are a prudent guess, but nothing more IMHO.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

Outrage?

You said:

Carbon cycle is not the only thing that can change the amount of atmospheric CO2, you know :)

I agreed with you. There is another thing - burning all the available fossil fuel.

You seem to be imagining that there is some mechanism other than the existing carbon cycle for getting CO2 out of the atmosphere.

There doesn't seem to be. We know this because we know that the existing carbon cycle is taking about half of the CO2 that we're emitting. None of this is hard, it's just double entry bookeeping.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

I'm not claiming another mechanism, just that said double-entry bookkeeping is somewhat problematic because it's not exactly like in a bank. We don't know what the time constants are on process parameters. We can't really tell if the oceans of today will be doing the same thing as the oceans a 100 years ahead of us. As the temperatures go up, they may end up releasing a lot CO2 back into the atmosphere, or they may do the reverse, we don't have very solid answers on that, I don't think. Yes, it is double entry accounting, but you don't know if the loans you've taken have any balloon payments coming up, or maybe there is a forgiveness program ahead...

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[Eunuchswear]

I'm not claiming another mechanism

Oh, no? You didn't say:

Carbon cycle is not the only thing that can change the amount of atmospheric CO2, you know :)

Pah. you are a troll.

Re:Wait, wait, wait...

[tibit]

OK, I freely admit I didn't recall, for whatever reasons, that oceanic storage of CO2 is considered to be a part of the carbon cycle. Doesn't make me a troll, sorry.

earths magnetic properties

[Anonymous Coward]

earths magnetic properties are also lost when the temperature rises, that can't be good either...

Re:earths magnetic properties

[tibit]

Sorry, no, that's not true at all.

Before the panic

[Anonymous Coward]

" Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years)"

It's only an issue if the additional methane is leaking for a very (50+) long time

Re:We need SIMPLE answers to questions...

[thomst]

gregmark mused:

(o) So those trapped gases must have been in the air at some point, millions of years ago, and then planet did just fine. So what's there to worry about? Uh.....

The carbon component of "those trapped gases" (i.e. - methane) may well have been "in the air" at some point in the past - but likely not as part of a methane molecule. Methane is a gas mainly produced by the decomposition of organic material. When the last ice age descended (most likely because of a meteorite or cometary impact event), it swiftly buried boreal forests in ice, and Arctic temperatures have kept the ground that they're now buried under frozen solid (which is why it's called "permafrost"). As the temperature warms, and that permafrost thaws, the decay process that the ice suspended will restart, and cause the dead and buried plant life to rot, producing very large quantities of methane gas from the carbon that used to be part of that plant life.

As for how methane clathrates (the other very large source of methane gas releases) are formed, I have yet to see a convincing explanation of the mechanism. That notwithstanding, the fact that they DO exist is indisputable - and, when deepwater temperatures rise far enough, they definitely will melt, releasing their cargo of methane into the atmosphere (the so-called "methane clathrate gun" effect) more-or-less all at once.

The current consensus is that it was the global release of large volumes of methane in the transition from the Permian to the Triassic Periods that caused the extremely large (20+ degrees Fahrenheit) increase in global temperatures that resulted in what is known as the Permian Extinction - an event that resulted in the extinction of more than 90% of all then-extant species on Earth. What is particularly scary about that event - the worst mass extinction since the Oxygen Catastrophe - is that the release of all that methane seems to have been initiated by a sharp increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. In the Permian, that surge of CO2 was caused by a huge, long-lasting basalt flow event (a kind of large-scale volcanic eruption) called the Siberian Traps.

Today, however, the increase in atmospheric CO2 is largely manmade. Regardless of its source, the marginal warming effect of all that CO2 our electric power generation, heating, combustion engine-based transportation, and large-scale deforestation is producing will, without question, eventually result in a massive methane release, just as happened in the Permian. Our atmospheric CO2 levels are already very close to those that triggered the methane releases that resulted in the Permain Extinction, and there's no technolgy currently in existence that will allow us to "scrub" that CO2 out of our atmosphere. That, in turn, means that we're pretty much stuck with a future in which the planet warms suffiiciently to melt the polar and Greenland icecaps - and all the world's glaciers, as well - and release the methane clathrate deposits, too. How long this will take is the main unanswered question, now. The international consensus is that it will be on the order of a millenium before the planetary warming process reaches its peak, but there's some reason to believe that the icecaps are what used to be known as "chaotic systems" (i.e. - systems whose existing state is highly unstable, and subject to very rapid change if the conditions under which they are maintained change in relatively modest ways), and, if so, the collapse of the world's ice sheets could happen in as little as a century or so.

This is the problem with the plea for "simple answers". The systems we're talking about aren't simple - they're vast, complex, and (by the timescale of a single human life) slow-moving. The time to get out ahead of global warming was the 1970's. It's far too late now to prevent the planet from warming enough to melt the icecaps and change the climate sufficiently to result in another mass extinction event. At this point, we can only try to slow the process down, not stop

calling all near-earth asteroids

[Anonymous Coward]

2.5 million years ago, earth was much warmer? perhaps that is earth's natural state. perhaps it was a series of asteroid impacts that caused a cooling effect that was perpetuated by feedback loops.

it's a natural cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

we need to simply accept that the earth goes through cycles and we can either adapt or die.

instead of trying to STOP the natural cycle of the earth's cooling and heating we should be spending our energy making sure we can survive the impacts of those natural cycles.

Re:it's a natural cycle

[T Murphy]

Instead of even trying to stop that freight train from hitting us (or even slowing it down), we should only work on coming up with a way to survive a direct impact.

We should stop trying to eradicate polio (its natural!) and just learn to live with the effects.

We should stop trying to live longer (death is natural!) and learn to die young.

cow penis sheeep dung

[Anonymous Coward]

cunt lint fold free smegma spoon toes rectum sphincter crab mangina buttflap thong

Rain Forest

[retroworks]

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the buzz was about diminishing rain forests. Before that, it was extinction. It seems like people get tired of a world consumption message, give up on caring, and look for a new "problem" to warn ourselves about. Warming is the new rain forest, which was the new extinction. As a fifty year old environmentalist, I wonder how wise it was to take peoples focus off of habitat and onto thermometers. We need big forests to suck up the carbon. Now, that arrow is gone.

Re:Rain Forest

[blindseer]

I wish I had mod points right now. You make a good point but I'm not sure if you took it far enough. People were always concerned about the environment and that is a good thing. At some level we all need to have some concern that our air, food, and water is clean. We should make sure that we don't deplete the natural resources available to us. It's just good stewardship of our planet to make sure the human species survives.

While you make a good point I think you need to take it a step further and realize why the public is not as concerned about species extinction and air pollution like it was. I believe its because we now have regulations prohibiting the hunting of threatened and endangered species. We now have air pollution regulations. We didn't have those fifty years ago. With those issues largely addressed there really isn't much to get upset about any more. Sure, we need to make sure this regulations aren't doing enough, or have gone too far, but that is a matter of minor tweaks to existing law. We have those mechanisms in the law so we make the tweaks as needed.

Looking at the concerns over the environment there is not really much left to get upset about any more. All that is left right now for these people to rally behind is global warming. Those people that still worry about polar bears going extinct, or the air getting too polluted to breathe, wrap it up in a global warming message so they can get noticed. They hop on the bandwagon so they too can get their pet bill passed into law.

I recall that the air is the cleanest it's been in a very long time. We have more forest now than we've had in a very long time. Species that were once threatened, or even thought extinct, are now thriving. We can certainly strive to do better but we've gone so far in the last fifteen years that there is just not much to get upset about any more. Global warming and carbon output is all that is really left and, personally, I believe this concern is way out of proportion of the problem.

Re:Rain Forest

[LienRag]

Maybe the problem was buying the idea that a PR campaign would be able to change the existing economic and politic structure?

Maybe I missed something, but...

[Dripdry]

Hasn't this phenomenon been going on for some time? I understand that if the climate warms we get more turbulence in the Arctic Ocean and (theoretically?) more methane.
This just seems like sort of a trumped up article. They've known about this phenomenon for decades. It's probably been happening for much, much longer.

Re:Maybe I missed something, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's been happening for a while, but you must concede that human factors *are* exacerbating the natural cycles. Factors including:

- burning of fossil fuels (which so far as I know dinosaurs never took part in and were safely sequestered unburned throughout the eons)
- deforestation (yes new trees will grow in the artic as it warms, but rest assured we will cut them motherfuckers down too)
- human produced green house gasses not previously found in nature throughout earths history
- acidification of the oceans through pollution and warming

Somebody else chime in with more examples but the gist is, we could very well tip this planet from a survivable, warmer one to total annihilation. And this isn't like saying, 'well we might be rapture'd to heaven some day.' Really, really smart people tend to agree, not just Theologians.

Not a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions

[Baldrson]

Keeping in mind that methane is 25 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and that the US's total CO2 emission from electrical power generation (largely coal) is 2.4Gton_metric/year, the total CO2e from the source cited in TFA is (using calchemy's Unicalc):

25*2mg/m^2/day;5400025mi^2?Gton_metric/year

([{25 * (2 * [milli*gramm])} / {meter^2}] / day) * (5.400025E6 * [mile^2]) ? (giga*ton_metric) / year

= 0.25524451 Gton_metric/year

That's about 10% of the greenhouse impact of the US's electrical power generation.

In Soviet Russia

[Roachie]

YOU are released in the arctic!

Good!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's warm this planet up! It's too cold in the winter!!!

Did the yeti just fart again

[youn]

uh oh, we're in trouble :p

Bullwinkle

[Igarden2]

Bullwinkle, was that you?

Looks like someone...

[otis wildflower]

... pulled God's finger!

Just blame it on the dog. The big, huge dog.