Ticking Arctic Carbon Bomb May Be Bigger Than Expected

sciencehabit writes "Scientists are expressing fresh concerns about the carbon locked in the Arctic's vast expanse of frozen soil. New field studies quantify the amount of soil carbon at 1.9 trillion metric tons, suggesting that previous estimates underestimated the climate risk if this carbon is liberated. Meanwhile, a new analysis of laboratory experiments that simulate carbon release by thawed soil is bolstering worries that continued carbon emissions could unleash a massive Arctic carbon wallop."

Comments

Let's just get this out of the way now...

[Maow]

Sitting at my personal computer, with another in my pocket, both connected to a world-wide network that allows formerly unimaginable near instantaneous communication, let me say that, "Scientists don't know nuthin' - they're just shills in it for the big bucks and I don't believe a word that they say!!!11!"

/end sad, perplexed, and thoroughly disgusted mode

I'm ready...

[erroneus]

There's just no chance that the people with money who pay the people with guns will be able to see beyond their lust for more power and more money. This means things will go to hell with large amounts of certainty.

If there were profit in saving the world [from those who put us there] then they would be interested in saving the world. They have no interest in that. They might entertain the notion if they were guaranteed to come out on top and in control once the crisis was averted, of course, because this is all about giving up power and control.

I am an army of one. I cannot make a difference. But if I saw an army of many marching down the street, I would be inclined to join.

And beyond this, the denial is STILL out there being preached. First they said "it's not real!" Then they said "it's not our fault! It's nature!" Yet in any of this none are willing to make changes or do anything about it. But I don't blame the businesses entirely. It reminds me of the economy of slavery.

There was a town near New Orleans which abolished slavery before Lincoln did. The surrounding areas, of course, did not. Before long, local business could not compete with outside business. This town was forced into allowing slavery once again. Lincoln was successful because it was a unilateral decision. Individuals cannot make an effective change. Small groups cannot make an effective change. It takes unilateral change in order to work.

So even if the whole US stopped CO2 and other emissions today, it wouldn't matter because China and others are simply not going to change.

So you see, the kind of change we require is simply impossible without world war. And that kind of war is simply not going to happen.

And so I say, I'm ready for things to go to hell. I can't imagine a way out that is likely.

Re:I'm ready...

[Opportunist]

See, the country I'm in is well above the sea level, so I guess I should just sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Problem is that the rats tend to crawl upwards when the ship is sinking.

After a cursory read of article (sucker)

[blind biker]

I'm recovering with a flu so I might have missed something when reading TFA, but this CO2 release seems to be in addition to the expected massive release of methane from frozen Siberian permafrost.

If so, we're fucked^2 I see no way we can avoid the positive feedback loops of AGW. Sandy will be a pleasant memory from the past, to the citizens of NYC.

Aw, geez, not this shit again.

[L. J. Beauregard]

This is nothing other than egghead research "scientists" trying to keep the gravy train going and looking for more of our (yours and mine) money to sit on their asses and debate the issue.

Roight, guv. Basic scientific research is so much more profitable than shilling for Big Oil. The National Science Foundation has so much more money and so much less to spend it on than ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and Fox Izvestia.

(You forgot to mention AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!)

Re:Aw, geez, not this shit again.

[MightyMartian]

Let's look at this like intelligent human brings and not fucking retards. Who has the most to gain by all of this? Do you actually believe scientists are going t join together in a vast cabal to deceive people about AGW for research grants?

Fuckinghell the pseudo skeptics are abandoning any notion of reasoned debate. I don't know whether to pity you or mock you.

Re:Aw, geez, not this shit again.

[shadowofwind]

I'm not a global warming skeptic. But having done grant research for many years, I can say that yes, the imperative to keep the money flowing tremendously skews science. Its not a conspiracy so much as thousands of individual choices about what to look at and what not to look at for the sake of the next grant cycle. But the end result is much the same. A science illiterate person who understands this can't tell who to trust. Similar situation with evolution. The science is really, really solid, and the counter-arguments are complete bunk. But a non-expert can't always evaluate that. And although its true that a person can't make much of a living as a scientist, its usually easier to win government research money than to find funding from a private company. Private companies just aren't spending money on research in most fields, and where they are its often not being spread around as widely.

Its true of course that skeptics' views on this sort of thing are skewed by dishonest selfishness and stupidity: its OK to trash the planet because Jesus will come fix it all for us. Global warming aside, it astounds me that a valuable resource has been accumulating for a half billion years and 'conservatives' want to pump it all out and burn it in a couple hundred. And pumping water and toxic chemicals into the ground to shatter the rock is to me twice again as stupid. That's what's going to happen though, no matter who is in charge. Oil companies have done pretty well under Obama. Best case scenario for people on the left is to use global warming as a pretext for steering investment money in a healthier direction. But its also true that some of that amounts to a power grab. Its not as if anything is actually going to be done about the global warming problem, the problem is too big. Its kind of like bailing out a flooded ship with a teaspoon. Unlike with other easier kinds of pollutant problems, a little bit of effort doesn't help much.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[Samantha Wright]

If they wanted money, they would be medical researchers. Environmental science doesn't pay well and doesn't generally involve very large grants.

Re:Global warming is politics, not science.

[rknop]

You confuse "global warming proponents" (by which I assume you mean lobbyist and such who are trying to convince the world that global warming is real) with "climate researchers".

The latter have reached an overwhelming consensus that anthrogenic global warming is real, and to deny that that is a "reasoned scienctific view" is right up there with denying evolution or the germ theory of disease, saying they're all just political movements.

It is true that there are some in the political area who have cried wolf or who have oversold things. But to deny the utter and overwhelming reality of the results of vast quantities of climate scientists (including some who came in skeptical when they started, but realized that, hey, the data say what the data say) is simply wrong.

What about carbonated beverages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly. I am _ALWAYS_ buried into oblivion when this topic comes up without receiving a single honest response. I worked at a small soda bottler for a while and we had multiple semi tankers FULL of carbon dioxide delivered every week. If carbon dioxide is so damaging what about all of it that we're pumping into sodas? "Save the Planet but don't touch my cola"?

Re:What about carbonated beverages?

[jfengel]

Those tankers contain, what, a half-dozen tons of CO2? Probably less than that; the truck can only carry a few dozen tons and the containers themselves far outweigh the mass of the CO2.

The worldwide CO2 output is on the order of 30 BILLION tons of CO2. All the soda bottlers in the entire world don't add up to a rounding error.

There, you have an answer. Which you could probably have figured out all by yourself, but I'm sure you enjoy the fact that anonymity means you can ask this all over in the next CO2 thread and pretending nobody ever gives you an answer.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[nomadic]

Amen. But these kinds of people assume everyone else must be as equally self-serving as themselves, so they can't accept that someone might be motivated by something other than money.

Re:it's a media game

[Anonymous Coward]

Methane has a short lifetime because it turns INTO carbon dioxide. Burning it makes that happen a lot faster.

It's preferable to leave the methane in the clathrate or underground, but if it is coming out and you can't stop it, then it's better to oxidize it right away.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[A bsd fool]

I recognize that global climate is going to warm up no matter *what* we do, and suggest that we should prepare for it (while debunking the claim that it's bad for "life" or farmland), and that makes me a fool? Sorry, but no. The fools are the ones that think anything we do can *stop* the coastlines from being put underwater. It's going to happen, and it does not matter if mankind causes it or not. We should be spending our limited time and resources preparing for something that is inevitable rather than trying to prevent something that is inevitable.

worse: methane in the permafrost, methane caltrate

[SuperBanana]

Even worse still, there's a lot of methane trapped in permafrost, which is starting to thaw and release it. Methane's something like 20 times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming effects.

Katey Walter has been doing demonstrations for 5+ years to try and get it to sink in with people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa3M4ou3kvw

Then there are the gigatons of frozen methane caltrate which are destabilizing: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14670511-climate-changing-methane-rapidly-destabilizing-off-east-coast-study-finds?lite

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we've long since fucked ourselves over - and the explosion of industrialization in China and India is just sealing the deal. Even if you ignore China and India, we appear to have built up so much momentum that even if we drastically curtailed our carbon and methane outputs (like from the cattle industry) instantly, we're still screwed.

Time to start planning for the worst.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[ColdWetDog]

If you are just concerned about 'life' flourishing, then it doesn't really matter what the climate is or will be. Life will find a way. If, however, you are concerned about keeping the majority of human beings, and especially 'first world' human beings safe and snug in their high tech cocoons, then you should be very concerned about any abrupt change in any one of a number of critical environmental variables - climate, water, air, fossil fuels, food.

If you haven't noticed, our current civilization doesn't like abrupt change. One little hurricane causes significant damage. A multi year drought causes food prices to rise which causes food riots. A modest rise in fuel costs slows the economy down to much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.

And those are tiny little disruptions in the grand scheme of things. Now, dramatically change how and where crops are grown, change how and where water falls and rivers rise and fall. Change major weather patterns. Displace a billion people, And add that to the stresses the system is under.

No, it's not the end of the world, however it may be the end of the world as we know it. The US can't even effectively deal with two large cities (New York, New Orleans) getting inundated in the space of a decade. Now, imagine doubling or tripling the problem. Doesn't look pretty. So yes, the planet has survived larger climate shifts. You, on the other hand, might not be so lucky.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[ColdWetDog]

Totally wrong. How about "all that arable farm land in the middle of the US will be parched desert and the thin, acidic boreal soils of Canada will be warmer, thin, acidic non boreal soils. And the Canadians might have a less than encouraging view of Iowa trying to annex Alberta.

Even more important - Northern Europe / Northern Asia might feel somewhat put out if several billion Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakastanis and various other refugees tried to come north. And so on.

It is no where as simple nor as anywhere as benign as abandoning coastal human settlements and moving them uptown. You see how much trouble is involved in siting a few million people in the Middle East (the Israeli - Palestinian dispute)? Try that worldwide. Try that worldwide and having the ground rules (so to speak) change over the course of a couple of decades.

THE MAJOR PROBLEM ISN'T THE FACT THAT THE PLANET IS CHANGING. It is that the carrying capacity for Homo Stupidicus is limited and we appear to be bumping up to those limits. We aren't there yet, but we are definitely moving along at a brisk pace. As you do that, your OPTIONS BECOME LIMITED. Moving into your neighbor's house may not go over well with your neighbor. We aren't doing such a stellar job at managing civilization at present, even without a whole lot of hard constraints.

There is a reason that the old prayer 'May no new thing arise' is just that - a prayer.

Re:HEADLINE: Scientists fear for their jobs, want

[L. J. Beauregard]

We know that human life and advanced civilization can thrive in the climate the way it is.

We don't know that human life and advanced civilization can thrive in a Cretaceous-like climate.

Therefore we would like to see the climate stay as much the way it is as we can manage.

What the right wingers aren't getting is that this is the conservative position, at least as "conservative" used to be defined. We like the climate the way it is. A "progressive" position might be "CO2 supports plant life, higher temperatures are good, let's raise the temperature." No sane person believes that. The position of those who call themselves conservatives is "I want my Hummer, consequences be damned!" That's not conservative and it certainly isn't progressive. It's reckless.