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Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air
- StevePerkins 9y agoWorth pointing out that this article is over 3 months old.
- cmurf 9y agoThere are more recent articles than this one. New York Times, CNBC are all reporting it in the last 24 hours. http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/08/22/permafrost-thawing-faster-feeding-climate-change-study/ http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/08/22/permafrost-thawing-faster... And they're citing an April 2017 published paper: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n5/full/nclimate3262.html http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n5/full/nclimate32...
- taberiand 9y agoI wouldn't be surprised if such feedback loops have been excluded from the models of climate change because they paint a picture so dire that no amount of mitigation (if there were any serious attempts at mitigation going on) could save our way of life. "Sooner and worse than expected" is a phrase I expect to hear with increasing frequency.
- vvanders 9y agoThe Newsroom captured this pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI
- pier25 9y agoAFAIK the IPCC ignored most of the feedbacks in their last assessment. https://thinkprogress.org/ipccs-planned-obsolescence-fifth-assessment-report-will-ignore-crucial-permafrost-carbon-feedback-5d2289e9461d/ https://thinkprogress.org/ipccs-planned-obsolescence-fifth-a...
- hood_syntax 9y agoIt's probably safer to assume that we're pretty much screwed at keeping the status quo and we need to start researching ways for humanity to survive the resulting changes. Of course, we should still keep ongoing efforts to curb and eventually eliminate the emission of greenhouse gases in effect, but we're past the point of pretending the worst case isn't possible.
- lutorm 9y agoThere isn't really a "worst" case here. We can always make it worser...
- lisper 9y agoThe destruction of civilization will probably cap our ability to do further significant damage. If not, then our extinction surely will.
- mirimir 9y agoYes, that's the fundamental negative feedback on anthropogenic carbon emissions.
- stale2002 9y agoNobody believes that global warming will cause the literal extinction of the human race. The scientific consensus is that sea levels will rise by a couple feet over the next 2 hundred years. That's the science. Doesn't sound like doomsday to me.
- ForHackernews 9y agohttp://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
- tempestn 9y ago
- candiodari 9y agoIt was never true that human industry was the main cause of co2 release into the atmosphere. Which is one of the reasons to doubt that all those climate accords will have any influence on global warming at all. > "Sooner and worse than expected" is a phrase I expect to hear with increasing frequency. If you increase the input into self-reinforcing feedback loop that is exactly what you'd expect to happen. Not that at that point it makes a large difference, but it certainly makes some difference. Feedback loops are notoriously hard to mitigate.
- cmurf 9y agoThis is idiocy. You basically have to believe tens of thousands of scientist are liars to accept the first statement. Not merely they're mistaken, not merely they have imperfect data, but intentionally deceiving with malice. That's how many scientists and how much data there is contravening your first statement, not least of which is Exxon - that liberal bastion of environmental preservation.
- topspin 9y ago"You basically have to believe tens of thousands of scientist are liars to accept the first statement" The first statement, that human industry is not "the main cause of co2 release," is undisputed fact. This is what the DOE says [1]: "Natural CO2 sources account for the majority of CO2 released into the atmosphere." and "Carbon dioxide comes from both natural and anthropogenic sources; natural sources are predominant." Your misunderstanding is apparently common enough that the last assertion is offered in the context of dispelling a myth. [1] https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-faqs/what-are-the-primary-sources-of-co2 https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon...
- cmurf 9y agoThat page says: Myth: Carbon dioxide comes only from anthropogenic sources, especially from the burning of fossil fuels. Jesus is a myth. The above statement is not something any thinking person has ever considered. You'd have to be a moron to think CO2 only comes from human source. Of course CO2 predates mankind, as well as mandkind's activities. Positioning something that no one is claiming as if it's something someone is claiming and then knocking it down, is known as a strawman, it is not a myth. But this is what you'd expect from a DOE run by an oilman and climate change denier. The concern is not the source or reason for historic CO2 levels, it's the source and reason for increases above historic CO2 levels. Treating people as if they're too stupid to see through such transparent attempts at distraction should be a violation of the code of conduct, before name calling those who try to get away with shit like this.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoI came to that realization after taking an environmental education class where they " left out the feedback loops". I disagree with your sentiment that they had to leave things like this out of the model. If it was left out it was probably not well understood. Its pretty easy to see that any form of mitigation is irrelevant until it becomes a real problem because getting large groups to agree on things isn't a scientific thing but a problem for society. Usually that only occurs when its pretty apparent that they have to do something to mitigate it.
- glitcher 9y ago> getting large groups to agree on things isn't a scientific thing but a problem for society Sadly true on so many levels.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoOne of the major flaws of this species is that we don't do anything inconvenient, that requires global agreement, until it becomes literally an existential threat. And even then we may dither, and there will be special interests that will keep spreading out misinformation about it, etc. Seriously, the "sapiens" part in the name of our species is a bit of an exaggeration.
- microcolonel 9y ago> Seriously, the "sapiens" part in the name of our species is a bit of an exaggeration. Compared to what? I think you should be happy with what you've got, because it's the best we've ever seen. I'm happier with a species that could burn out, than one that could do no wrong. If there was a problem, yo, we'll solve it.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoCompared to the freaking brink of annihilation that we walk to every time there's an opportunity to do so.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kdoherty 9y agoThe phenomenon that is being described where melting ice causes the release of CO2 into the atmosphere seems to have been known to climate scientists, though I don't know whether it has been included in climate change models. There is a great talk (video online here: https://www.facebook.com/WoodsHoleOcean/videos/10154590312681372 https://www.facebook.com/WoodsHoleOcean/videos/1015459031268...) by Richard Alley where exactly this phenomenon is mentioned (see Q&A at ~50:55 in the video, though I highly recommend watching the whole thing).
- logfromblammo 9y agoThe trouser-soiling moment is when the methane clathrate ices start melting. They call that one the "Clathrate Gun" hypothesis, because you can't un-fire a gun. Once that trigger is pulled, no amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions reductions will have any effect whatsoever. From then, it will take a positive, intentional, globally coordinated effort to reduce temperatures by other means, or we will be well and truly boned.
- crush-n-spread 9y agoWe need that global effort to happen yesterday. It's going to be much easier to get the carbon out of the atmosphere by leveraging the already-existing carbon cycle through accelerated silicate weathering than it will be to artificially reduce atmospheric temperatures once huge amounts of methane have been released from sea ice.
- 2OEH8eoCRo 9y agoDoesn't methane break down in the atmosphere fairly rapidly? From what I'm reading, methane lasts about 12 years while CO2 can stay in the atmosphere for potentially thousands. Unless we choke to death on methane isn't this less of an issue than CO2 buildup?
- stcredzero 9y agoMethane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and the release would be absolutely huge. The momentary spike would well cause a lot of CO2 to be released.
- jerf 9y ago"I wouldn't be surprised if such feedback loops have been excluded from the models of climate change because they paint a picture so dire that no amount of mitigation (if there were any serious attempts at mitigation going on) could save our way of life." If such feedback loops could be that dire and unavoidable, then they would already have happened direly and unavoidably. It has been this warm before, in the not-that-distant past by geological standards. If there's anything unusual about our current situation, it's the rate, not our current location. That does not mean that bad things or things we won't like can't happen, but we can't be sitting on a metaphorical bomb, or it would already have long since gone off.
- stcredzero 9y agoCould it be as bad as the Permian extinction?
- lutorm 9y agobut we can't be sitting on "a bomb", or it would already have long since gone off. That's a strange argument given that previous variations in climate indeed were very severe...
- knieveltech 9y agoEvidence suggests they already have happened several times in earth's history. You might consider doing a little research into the relationship between climate shifts and mass extinction events.
- simonh 9y agoAll things being equal yes, but they're not equal. The Holocene Climate Optimum is the nearest thing in the last few hundred thousand years and it wasn't anywhere near this warm globally. What it did do though is melt the Laurentide ice sheet, dramatically raising global sea levels. But the ice sheet protected the North American continental tundra. Nowadays there's no ice sheet there any more to absorb the heat and stop the tundra melting and releasing its CO2 and methane. Look up the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum though. That's the nearest equivalent episode to what's happening now.
- lutorm 9y agoIIRC they were not included in the IPCC reports, but for a different reason: even though pretty much everyone agrees that they exist, they were too difficult to quantify.
- QAPereo 9y agoI've been saying this in and offline for years... then I realized that it just doesn't matter... we're cooked. Things will be out of control before people eve understand what really happened, as in Egypt, Tunisia, etc.
- mirimir 9y agoNotwithstanding claims of deniers, climate scientists are generally conservative in their modeling.
- devrandomguy 9y agoThere is one potential negative feedback loop that I am now curious about, since we recently learned that Antarctica is/was highly volcanic. If the continent deforms as the mass of ice melts off of it, causing the volcanoes go off in a mega-eruption, could the atmospheric particulates shade the Earth enough to trigger an ice-age in the near future, say, 50-100 years? And if so, could we conceivably modulate the level of the particulates in order to manage the ice age?
- simonh 9y agoI expect 100 years is way too short term. There's no way all that ice is going to melt that fast, the amounts of heat required would be staggering. The consequences of climate change are going to take many hundreds or thousands of years to play out.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vwcx 9y ago"The study, based on aircraft measurements of carbon dioxide and methane and tower measurements from Barrow, Alaska, found that from 2012 through 2014, the state emitted the equivalent of 220 million tons of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere from biological sources (the figure excludes fossil fuel burning and wildfires). That’s an amount comparable to all the emissions from the U.S. commercial sector in a single year."
- dvdhnt 9y agoI don't think this is specific to Alaska - there's something similar going on in Siberia and other places where melting permafrost has the potential to do serious damage. There are even books (and soon at least one movie) on how restoring wooly mammoth populations can save us. - http://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/534768716/woolly-breathes-new-life-into-a-scientific-saga http://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/534768716/woolly-breathes-new-... - https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/27/16050308/woolly-ben-mezrich-book-interview-george-church-deextinction-genetics-synthetic-biology https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/27/16050308/woolly-ben-mezri...
- Jtsummers 9y agoCorrect, and included in the article: Alaska is only one area of the Arctic where permafrost soils could be emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Permafrost regions in Canada and Siberia are even vaster. But the new study’s lessons could also apply to those areas, researchers say.
- chrononaut 9y agoFor those looking around these sources wondering how woolly mammoth populations can save us, from The Verge article: So these Russian scientists, the Zimovs, roped up a huge section of the permafrost starting in the ‘80s and are repopulating it with these large animals: reindeer, horses, bison. They’ve been able to lower the temperature of the permafrost by as much as 15 degrees [Fahrenheit] by reintroducing large herbivores. The mammoth project is all about this. If we can introduce a mammoth herd to the tundra, we can maybe save the environment for another 100 years, because they’ll help put into place these very natural processes to keep the environment colder.
- pfarnsworth 9y agoAren't there reports of methane-induced explosions because of all of the melting of the permafrost in Siberia?
- syncopate 9y agoCouldn't one try to at least limit the feedback loop by spreading sulfur over the affected regions by plane? (Simulating a volcanic eruption that reflects sunlight)
- ancientworldnow 9y agoWe will almost certainly be spraying sulfur dioxide (and dealing with the acid rain) in the next few decades. It will be too little too late though.
- perilunar 9y agoWhy simulate a volcanic eruption? We could just bury some nukes in some volcanoes and blow the tops off. Instant cooling! Also, I hear nuclear winter is really 'cool'. We could always start a war in Korea...
- EGreg 9y agoCan someone PLEASE tell me why there haven't been more efforts underway to have commnities around the world plant more trees and engage in planned reforestation? This is as close as you can get to a globally available mechanism for pulling carbon dioxide out of the air (and methane can burn leaving carbon dioxide). I mean this very seriously. Richard Branson is looking to fund ways to pull Carbon out if the atmosphere. China has developed a way to leave carbon in rock. Meanwhile we have had a way all along - TREES! Those and algae in the oceans. The "answer" I often hear is that the carbon will eventually be released when the trees burn in forest fires. Well, first of all, what matters is the overall biomass of trees. And secondly even if it didn't, that buys us many decades. PS: How come this is being so heavily downvoted?
- Boothroid 9y agoCouldn't agree more. Here in the UK we have a lower percentage of forested land than many other European countries and I much prefer forest to the barren green fields which we have in many places. Sadly I think lots of my countrymen think of green fields being the default state of rural UK and don't realise it's the legacy of deforestation by stone age man.. I can only imagine what the UK must have been like prior to that. It must have been truly idyllic.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sedachv 9y ago> Sadly I think lots of my countrymen think of green fields being the default state of rural UK and don't realise it's the legacy of deforestation by stone age man.. Much if not most of the deforestation in the United Kingdom took place in the Middle Ages and later, to extract resources during the Industrial Revolution. For example the Caledonian Forest in Scotland experienced massive destruction following the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries. William the Conqueror had large tracts of forested land set aside as protected parks that were later destroyed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forests
- cropsieboss 9y agoArctic ice has 1400Gt of carbon locked up as methane. [1] This is equivalent to 1400/10 = 140 years of human 2016 activity. [2]. Methane also has a stronger effect than CO2. If ice starts to melt, we are doomed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions#Contribution_to_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions#Contr... [2]: https://www.co2.earth/global-co2-emissions https://www.co2.earth/global-co2-emissions
- loader 9y agoHere's the next line from your [1] link that's pretty crazy as well. "They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve"
- seikilos 9y agoHow long would that all take to melt? According to your source only 50 of the 1400Gt could be abruptly released.
- tajen 9y agoI think they've tried to convert those 50Gt into palatable comparisons: It equals to a 2 additional degrees increase of global warming, or reaching the 2100 temperature in 2080. But we're talking about methane – the original article was about CO2.
- surge 9y agoAlso, ice reflects light back out into space, meaning we absorb more of it and the heat that gets generated from absorbing it, as the ice melts. It's safe to say we're soundly screwed, and probably were screwed before we could realistically do anything about it. Anything we do now short of killing off 80% of the population and the other 20% living like native tribes men, won't have any real affect, it might slow it. Unless we come up with some solution the counter the feedback mechanisms and extract/recapture these gases from the atmosphere.
- crush-n-spread 9y agoThe atmospheric carbon situation is not good, and we (as a species) need to come up with actionable geo-engineering solutions. Here is one. Rainwater hits mountains and dissolves silicate minerals into cations that flow into rivers and then oceans. The oceans naturally uptake carbon from the atmosphere by reacting atmospheric carbon with cations in the water that come from those dissolved silicate minerals. This uptake de-acidifies the oceans and produces food for ocean life; for us to collect all the carbon produced in the USA last year, we would need to crush about 60km^3 of silicate rock (which is in abundance) and spread it along coastlines. To successful sequester enough carbon to save the ecosystem, this might one of the best options we have. This paper [1] does a good job of explaining what I've touched on here. [1]http://www.greensand.nl/content/user/1/files/rog20004.pdf http://www.greensand.nl/content/user/1/files/rog20004.pdf
- Fej 9y agoThis is a very interesting proposal. Hopefully this will become part of the "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks because we were out of time yesterday" strategy.
- thriftwy 9y agoLaunch solar shade! @ Sea levels drop.
- devrandomguy 9y agoNew real-estate becomes available in the SF Bay, but only golf courses are approved for construction. Commuters continue to drive all the way around the old shoreline because internal roads are designed in a vascular pattern to thwart Waze drivers.
- hyperbovine 9y agoa) We can't b) What secondary / tertiary / ... / n-th order effects would that have? I'm guessing you don't know.
- thriftwy 9y agoYou can get rid of solar shade any moment you don't like it, in this respect it's an awesome solution compared to anything we do on earth and then stuck with.
- gervase 9y agoThis is a reference to a computer game, not a serious proposal: http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Council_Proposals http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Council_Proposals
- cryoshon 9y agoand we can't even get people to agree that there's a problem. and we have no leadership to guide our response. and we can't winnow our way out of this alone. what now?
- crush-n-spread 9y agoLook at it this way. A large swath of people believe it is a problem and most of them are willing to put time and money in counteracting it. We have leaders like Elon Musk already creating a great response. We can't winnow out of it alone but we already have leaders & a large group of people interested in fixing it. The answer to "what now" is start a company that is in the business of carbon sequestration or climate affect mitigation and become a leader. It's obvious!
- mAdamTus 9y agoCivilization collapses and we begin the glacially slow, many thousand year process of extinction.
- nyxtom 9y agoConsider how lucky we are to even have spent any time at all to reach a point in the cosmos to make this realization. Even if humanity manages to survive past this problem, there are many more including the overconsumption of the world's finite resources. Perhaps it is inevitable given a biological imperative to be selfish. Our means of survival in future generations may be determined by our ability to adapt to withering resources, reuse of existing and exploring space for more. Consider the issue of water reuse; some amount of research suggests that graphene filters when they come to fruition may help with far more reuse and recycle of water. Other work such as the electric transport systems, high speed hyperloops, and 3D print manufacturing combined with a closed loop system may help bring down massive resource waste. There is a lot of tech to be hopeful of but it won't be all positive. Many of it seems to be adaptations to a world which is constantly at risk for extinction
- artur_makly 9y agoAnd if you think that's bad ... you check out what's happening in Siberia : https://www.wired.com/2016/12/global-warming-beneath-permafrost/ https://www.wired.com/2016/12/global-warming-beneath-permafr...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- trapperkeeper74 9y agoThat's probably so however Siberia is contributing much more. The whole of subarctic tundra is at risk for rapid melting and co2 and methane release as trapped ancient organic material decays. There are also other major, imminent issues: the uncertain liability of the ESAS clathrates, zero summer sea ice (arctic ocean heating) and jetstream abnormalities (hence more variable weather day-to-day). Anyone whom wants actual facts ought to watch Paul Beckwith out of University of Ottawa on YT for detailed updates and analysis on climate change. https://youtube.com/user/PaulHBeckwith https://youtube.com/user/PaulHBeckwith
- basurihn 9y agoOr perhaps another more honest source, who is upfront about the statistical uncertainties underlying all but the most basic climate science. Hell if you want a good scaremongering, there are some old Van Impe videos around somewhere.
- needcheapbw 9y agoHas the waterline changed: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/AK/3_rid/waterfront_att/globalrelevanceex_sort/62.034411,-146.189575,57.818429,-154.231567_rect/6_zm/0_mmm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/AK/3_rid/waterfront_at...
- japhyr 9y agoAlaska has a lot of steep shorelines. You could have many "waterfront" homes that are in no danger from rising seas.
- needcheapbw 9y agoIf you take a look at some of the locations, many are not steep, many are at or near the waterline.
- mark-r 9y agoSea levels are a lagging indicator of global warming.
- needcheapbw 9y agoCitation? How long is the lag? Years? How long does it take to fill a bathtub? If so much ice is really, actually melting in the world and has been for years; no shoreline changes have occurred anywhere in the world, then that must be some amazing lag.
- mark-r 9y agoThe ice that's melting today is floating ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, because it's subject to warm ocean currents. Floating ice doesn't change sea levels when it melts. The ice that matters is the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers weren't formed in a day, and they won't melt in a day either.
- needcheapbw 9y ago
- pfarnsworth 9y agoWhat sort of effect does this increased CO2 have on the plant life in the area? Do they benefit from the increased CO2 leading to more plants/trees, etc?
- ams6110 9y agoYes, undoubtedly.
- memracom 9y agoProbably the asteroid Apophis, due to hit the Earth in 2029, will cause enough cooling to prevent most clathrate from melting. If that works we have a nearby supply of small asteroids that we can fire at the Earth to deepen the winter effect. It works best if you hit a shallow coastal shelf area with lots of limestone rock. Maybe we will sacrifice the Caribbean?
- rconti 9y agoA cursory glance at Wikipedia disagrees. It was probably a comment made in jest but if most of the readership doesn't get the joke, it's probably not working as intended.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- perilunar 9y agoIf we are going to be re-directing asteroids, then put a couple of metallic ones in a stable orbit and turn them into foil sunshades.
- memracom 9y agoTinfoil hats for the whole planet? I love it!!!