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So far we have been tracking the worst case scenario models. If feedback loops like the release of the methane stored in the arctic permafrost begin to run away

by bjz_ 12y ago

So far we have been tracking the worst case scenario models. If feedback loops like the release of the methane stored in the arctic permafrost begin to run away from us, it could get pretty bad. We haven't seen most of the warming yet - most of it has been going into the oceans, but now they are reaching their capacity. The earth's climate is a complex system that is incredibly tricky to predict. But the more we know about it, the worse things seem to be. :( http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/06/new-video-reports-on-unstoppable-antarctic-glacial-melting/ http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/06/new-video-repo... http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2013/02/video-on-frozen-dirt-and-methane-we-cannot-go-there/ http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2013/02/video-on-froze...

spingsprong 12y ago
One factor that makes Methane not quite as bad as it could be, is it has an atmospheric half-life around 10% of CO2's So if a lot of Methane does get released into the atmosphere, in a couple of decades most of it will have broken down and disappeared.
- regularfry 12y ago
  That doesn't mean that the climate will return to where it was before the release. It could find a new stable point at a higher temperature than it is now due to changes in the Earth's albedo, among other things. Also, "disappeared": what it ends up breaking down into is carbon dioxide and water vapour, both greenhouse gases in their own right.
  - pja 12y ago
    But at least they're much less powerful greenhouse gases than methane itself (IIRC).
pdonis 12y ago
> most of it has been going into the oceans, but now they are reaching their capacity Huh? The oceans can absorb a lot more heat. If you run the numbers, the heat that's been added to the oceans in the last half century (according to the IPCC, whose numbers I'm not sure I believe because up until the Argo buoys started being deployed in the last ten years or so, the data was very sparse, but that's a separate question) has raised their temperature by about a tenth of a degree Celsius.

by bjz_ 12y ago

spingsprong 12y ago

One factor that makes Methane not quite as bad as it could be, is it has an atmospheric half-life around 10% of CO2's So if a lot of Methane does get released into the atmosphere, in a couple of decades most of it will have broken down and disappeared.

regularfry 12y ago
That doesn't mean that the climate will return to where it was before the release. It could find a new stable point at a higher temperature than it is now due to changes in the Earth's albedo, among other things. Also, "disappeared": what it ends up breaking down into is carbon dioxide and water vapour, both greenhouse gases in their own right.
- pja 12y ago
  But at least they're much less powerful greenhouse gases than methane itself (IIRC).

pdonis 12y ago

> most of it has been going into the oceans, but now they are reaching their capacity Huh? The oceans can absorb a lot more heat. If you run the numbers, the heat that's been added to the oceans in the last half century (according to the IPCC, whose numbers I'm not sure I believe because up until the Argo buoys started being deployed in the last ten years or so, the data was very sparse, but that's a separate question) has raised their temperature by about a tenth of a degree Celsius.