WASHINGTON — Massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped below thawing permafrost will likely seep into the air over the next several decades, accelerating and amplifying global warming, scientists warn.
Those heat-trapping gases under the frozen Arctic ground may be a bigger factor in global warming than the cutting down of forests, and a scenario that climate scientists hadn’t quite accounted for, according to a group of permafrost experts. The gases won’t contribute as much as pollution from power plants, cars, trucks and planes, though.
The permafrost scientists predict that over the next three decades a total of about 45 billion metric tons of carbon from methane and carbon dioxide will seep into the atmosphere when permafrost thaws during summers. That’s about the same amount of heat-trapping gas the world spews during five years of burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels
And the picture is even more alarming for the end of the century. The scientists calculate that about than 300 billion metric tons of carbon will belch from the thawing Earth from now until 2100.
Adding in that gas means that warming would happen “20 to 30 percent faster than from fossil fuel emissions alone,” said Edward Schuur of the University of Florida. “You are significantly speeding things up by releasing this carbon.”
Usually the first few to several inches of permafrost thaw in the summer, but scientists are now looking at up to 10 feet of soft unfrozen ground because of warmer temperatures, he said. The gases come from decaying plants that have been stuck below frozen ground for millennia.
Schuur and 40 other scientists in the Permafrost Carbon Research Network met this summer and jointly wrote up their findings, which were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
“The survey provides an important warning that global climate warming is likely to be worse than expected,” said Jay Zwally, a NASA polar scientist who wasn’t part of the study. “Arctic permafrost has been like a wild card.”
When the Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists issued its last full report in 2007, it didn’t even factor in trapped methane and carbon dioxide from beneath the permafrost. Diplomats are meeting this week in South Africa to find ways of curbing human-made climate change.
Schuur and others said increasing amounts of greenhouse gas are seeping out of permafrost each year. Some is methane, which is 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide in trapping heat.
In a recent video, University of Alaska Fairbanks professor Katey Walter Anthony, a study co-author, is shown setting leaking methane gas on fire with flames shooting far above her head.
“Places like that are all around,” Anthony said in a phone interview. “We’re tapping into old carbon that has been locked up in the ground for 30,000 to 40,000 years.”
That triggers what Anthony and other scientists call a feedback cycle. The world warms, mostly because of human-made greenhouse gases. That thaws permafrost, releasing more natural greenhouse gas, augmenting the warming.
There are lots of unknowns and a large margin of error because this is a relatively new issue with limited data available, the scientists acknowledge.
“It’s very much a seat-of-the-pants expert assessment,” said Stanford University’s Chris Field, who wasn’t involved in the new report.
The World Meteorological Organization this week said the worst of the warming in 2011 was in the northern areas — where there is permafrost — and especially Russia. Since 1970, the Arctic has warmed at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the globe.
The thawing permafrost also causes trees to lean — scientists call them “drunken trees” — and roads to buckle. Study co-author F. Stuart Chapin III said when he first moved to Fairbanks the road from his house to the University of Alaska had to be resurfaced once a decade.
“Now it gets resurfaced every year due to thawing permafrost,” Chapin said.
Comments (29)
Add commentLook up!
The sky is falling, and it's YOUR FAULT!!
heh
lol if you think global warming is real
I agree with the above two
I agree with the above two posters! It's much easier to act like an idiot and pretend to know more than actual climate scientists who've spent decades researching this.
In fact, I propose that the less you know, the more qualified you are to hold an opinion on a subject.
"There are lots of unknowns
"There are lots of unknowns and a large margin of error because this is a relatively new issue with limited data available, the scientists acknowledge."
But, but, it's going to be really, really bad. Just trust me...and give me lots of money so I can prove how bad it'll be. I'm a scientist!
Well, Calypso, considering
Well, Calypso, considering the positive feedback loops involved, yes, it is going to be bad. As the planet warms, more methane trapped in permafrost melts and is released into the atmosphere, which warms it even more, which releases more methane, and so on. This doesn't even take into consideration water vapor, which will also become more prevalent in the atmosphere (and water vapor is the most common greenhouse gas).
Also, you took the quote out of context, didn't you, Calypso? You sure seem to do that a lot. The uncertainty is quantitative, not qualitative. We know warming is happening, we know the consequences of it will affect the biosphere, and we know it will promote various positive feedback loops. The uncertainty lies in just how bad it will be.
p, I'm really liking how you
p, I'm really liking how you make a statement, then add the little question at the end. It's so authoritative on your part and in your mind makes you look superior. Doesn't it, p?!!
I didn't take any quote out of context. It's right there in its own paragraph even.
You made it sound as if the
You made it sound as if the science is not well founded and that it's about making money. Which is incorrect, but you already know that.
That is out of context. If you're not prepared to argue a point honestly, don't argue it at all.
Not worried:
My opinion, I don't really care if the earth is warming. Matter of fact I'm getting tired of pushing all this global warming around my drive way. If you think the sky is falling, fine go ahead believe what you will. I really don’t care, what makes me laugh is the fact that some believe man can destroy this earth, man is nothing but a miniscule of dust compared to the age of this planet. Man will destroy himself first. So PP give up all on you’re part that you believe causes this so called problem. Do so and others will follow.
Most of the 1% have kept our
Most of the 1% have kept our country from developing sustainable energy policies. Why? greed, profit, corruption.
We have allowed complete idiots to destroy maybe the only habitable planet in this world.
clapso & milpecker are complete idiots
@Milspec.: please stop making
@Milspec.: please stop making uneducated comments. No one--NO ONE--suggests we can destroy the earth (except possibly via nuclear weapons). The issue with global warming is about our own survival. If you don't want us to survive, fine, but just cop to it instead of denying well-founded science you yourself know nothing about.
Also, congratulations on completely screwing up the concept of climate change. Some places will receive more precipitation as a result of shifting climate patterns (precipitation, if you aren't aware, is water that falls from the sky either in liquid or solid form--rain or snow), and some will receive less. As a whole, the earth's temperature is rising--this is established fact. Denying it makes you look very foolish. But this doesn't mean EVERY PLACE is warming (in fact, some are cooling). I recommend you read up on the concept of "averages."
Essentially, you don't have an argument. Until you can come up with data disproving the data we already have, you will never be one of the big boys. You're a child, interjecting himself into his parents' conversation about their money problems, explaining that Santa Claus uses magic to make all those toys, so why can't they?
No answer
You can argue all you want about the various forms of energy but its human activity that's causing all this. Overpopulation is what's killing us and little is being done to curb it, especially in the third world. The earth can only sustain a certain population level and I think we've exceeded it already. Its just easier to blame evil rich people and the use of fossil fuels.
@Banditrider: the carrying
@Banditrider: the carrying capacity of the earth is based on resource consumption, chief among them fossil fuels (because it really does come down to energy). If it weren't for fossil fuels, we wouldn't be able to support the populations we have now (our large-scale agricultural production is made possible through petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides). So it is accurate to say that fossil fuel use is responsible for our current dilemma, and not just in the climate change sense. We're going to run out of fossil fuels in the near future, at which point the free ride we're all on will end.
Luckily for Milspec. and his responsible friends, they won't be around for it, as they have decided to let my generation deal with their mistakes.
Don't care:
As I said PP I don't care. BTW you have no sense of humer do you? Have fun after me and my friends are gone. Good luck.
This is a "real cost" of
This is a "real cost" of using fossil fuels for our chief source of energy.
This is the part of equation that is hidden from YOU. Fossil fuels are to expensive for us to use.
Pres. Obama is right
Our country needs to move to an intelligent grid system, to spread and distribute Renewable Energy to people across the country where users can pick and choose the source of energy per activity.
We would have this today, if it were not for the hold the oil and gas industry has on our government.
Hey, I heard that GM is
Hey, I heard that GM is willing to buy back those lousy electric Volt cars that are catching fire and blowing up!!! Now that was a work of art before its time, huh? What a waste of the taxpayers' money, again...
Milspec, you're right. The left has zero sense of humor. They're the most sour people you'll come across. They're always full of some kind of angst.
p says, "We're going to run out of fossil fuels in the near future". Even with just today's known sources there's more than a century's worth of fossil fuels. Is that the near future to you, p?
No one knows what the optimum population of the Earth is. In my opinion, there's always room for one more. It's just the difference between the left viewing human beings as masses of tissue that cost money to sustain and the conservatives believing that each life is special and unique.
Care to back up any of your
Care to back up any of your claims, Calypso? Or just more "facts" pulled out of a certain orifice?
(also, the carrying capacity of the earth has been studied extensively by population ecologists--for the nth time, maybe you should educate yourself before making foolish statements)
Calypso can't object
to scientists asking for funding. If they are being honest, then there's no more issue. If they are lying and being deliberately deceitful in order to get money, then they are simply participating in capitalism, the American way! In that sense, their research proposals are their advertising budget, and no different than Microsoft telling people that Windows is good software. And as everyone knows, making money is God; any laws that restrict that in any way are just evil socialism.
Wrong, dust. You're not even
Wrong, dust. You're not even making sense with your too cute by half silliness.
Maybe Microsoft gets government subsidies, I don't know or care, but Windows is a product that the private company makes and sells. If it's as crappy as you say, then no one will buy it and they won't produce it anymore. That's capitalism.
Unfortunately, most "scientists" suck from the taxpayers (like all those listed above), on some level, so they have no product to sell. In the end, they probably only provide a service.
Isn't that what you do?
Duuuuuuh....
Does anyone seriously doubt that all the "scientists" that are postulating this global warming BS are dong so because of job security? Think about it.
If a so-called "scientist" comes out against global warming, he or she isn't going to get a cushy research grant for the next 5 or 10 years. However, if they follow the herd and sign up with the Chicken Little crowd and agree that the earth is getting warmer (which it hs done countless times in the past), they get a nice research grant from the U.S. taxpayer, courtesy of the Feds.
If you were in their shoes, what would you do? Argue that the mild warming we have experienced is a part of the earth's normal cycle of cooling and warming (and cooling and warming) or come out as saying that it is a catastrophic problem?
These folks have mortgages to pay, just like the rest of us. Follow the money....that is were the truth lies.
Only a service?
Apparently, you are as clueless about Windows software as you are about science. Read the EULA - you are only leasing the proprietary code, you do not own it. You cannot change it, give it away, share it, or do any of the other things one might consider doing with a product. Windows is a service. Sort of. A bad one.
I take it that any service, then, shouldn't be considered a valid reason for monetary recompense, so doctors, attorneys, gardeners, house cleaners and so on aren't doing anything worth being paid?
That would also include the military, who are funded by taxpayers, and provide, in the end, only a service.
The primary reason that most scientific research (most, but certainly not all, and I especially remove medical and pharmaceutical work from that) is funded by government agencies is that science generally addresses long-term issues and is supposed to independent of market forces, profit margins, and anything else that might detract from the research itself. On the subject of climate, most businesses would never support research into it, because it might limit their ability to make money today, regardless of the consequences in the future.
Follow the money
Sounds good - I could make far more working as a climate change denier for Exxon or Shell or BP than I could as a legitimate researcher.
If I were to write a scientific paper showing that all observed climate shifts up to the present were the function of non-human vectors, it would be published in a heart beat and I would be extremely famous. Journals love controversy, and so does science.
Even if it were to be conclusively shown tomorrow that human beings do not affect climate, the planet is so vast and the problems so varied that the only people who would be out of work would be the denier spokespeople for fossil fuel companies and some carbon credit companies. And maybe Al Gore. No good researcher would lack for projects.
Arrhenius published a paper in 1896 positing that changes in CO2 could affect climate. No cushy research grants back then.
@ dusty
Go smoke another one. You make no sense. You try, but it doesn't work.
Maybe tomorrow.
Logical
If you can't follow my post, you need to change your screen name.
Just repeating and reporting
Just repeating and reporting this garbage day after day does not make it real!
dust, ditto logical. Quit
dust, ditto logical.
Quit nitpicking - Windows operating systems cost money that the consumer has to pay to Microsoft. That's capitalism. Period.
Your cushy research grants are not capitalism. Too bad they aren't because then we might get some data that is actually free from political agendas. If there's one positive thing that might come out of this current administration's heLL that we're living through, it could be that our universities and the public sector will get a good cleaning out.
And the military sure IS a government service. And thank God for that service.
Who talks millennia by going back 40 years of record?
Compare today against the 70's when the earth was setting record cold temps. We are warming rapidly the past 40 years. 1910 to 1945 the earth warmed .6 deg. 1980 to 2005 the earth warmed .6 deg. What man made green house gasses reproduced the same results? Go back farther and see the earth has warmed and cooled many times.
What is the right temp for the world? Are we still coming out of an ice age and yet to reach earth optimum temp?
Yes the temp is changing. It has before, and it will again. A few weeks ago it was almost 40 deg. cooler than this week.
Millennia, decade, year to year, one thing is certain, that is change.
Bwahahahaaa!!!
So Calypso - tell me all about what it's like to do research. And then tell me why and how all the real science is being hogged by those terrible liberals who somehow manage to prevent any real work from being done. Please tell me how businesses and corporations can't beneficently fund their own research that would clearly and obviously be free of political agenda, and please tell me how you would ever know the difference, as you've never read a scientific paper in your life and have admitted you have no interest in ever picking a science textbook. All the work, all the data, all the analyses are staring you in the face. You are free to read it, examine the data and methods, and find any and all errors yourself. Nobody is preventing you or anyone else from examining published work on climate and writing your own rebuttals or conducting your own work.
Literature review
There was no panic over the coming ice age. There was a story published in Newsweek that discussed the idea of global cooling due to particulate matter pollution, which put the idea into the popular consciousness.
Between 1969 and 1975, there were 51 paper published discussing some aspect of climate change. Seven predicted some degree of cooling, 20 were simply examining functions and vectors, and 44 predicted potential warming due to human processes, including the 1965 - 1966 President's Advisory Committee report. I would cite them all here, but the Empire's mod. software would most likely delete the post. Just the fact that I wrote numbers or used a dash in the date above will most likely trip the mod. alert.