Some weeks it's impossible to know what we should be worrying about first. We've recently had choice of: Israel/Palestine/Gaza; Ukraine; Iraq; net neutrality; torturing "folks"; drones; SCOTUS; and on and on. Then there's that old elephant always waiting in a corner of the room. If only it were half as friendly as an elephant we wouldn't need to worry at all.
Scientists at NASA, NOAA, CDIAC, NSIDC and others are seriously concerned that human activity is likely to emit 44 billion tons of CO2 in a year's time. That amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere is tiny compared to what is going to soon release from the Arctic region of the planet in the form of CO2 and methane gas, and enter the atmospheric greenhouse gas mix - and it will be mostly methane. Methane, when it initially enters the atmosphere is 105 times more potent than is CO2 as a heat trapping gas, and even after a 100 years remains around 35 times as potent.
The Arctic region is 70% ocean. That is where methane is, locked in permafrost in the sub sea floor of the ocean. As the ocean's perennial surface ice melts away, as it has been doing, the sub sea permafrost thaws; that allows the methane gas to escape and enter the atmosphere. It isn't just "tiny bubbles", it is massive half mile diameter plumes of methane bursting from the water so the water seems to boil.
According to the International Siberian Shelf Study group, who conduct on-site research in the Arctic, there are trillions of tons of methane there. Not billions! A trillion tons of methane gas entering the atmosphere within a 1 to 5 year time period, would be equal to 105 trillion tons of additional CO2 in the greenhouse gas mix. That is a sobering thought which ought to be jolting world governments to full awareness of future danger to our planet, and perhaps a future danger that is not as far off as they had previously surmised. Methane will escape in huge quantities when the subsea permafrost thaws. The Arctic Ocean is relatively shallow, meaning that methane isn't consumed by bacteria before it enters the upper surface of the water.
See HERE
After preparing this post, the next day I spotted that a new book by Naomi Klein, due out next month, addresses our situation climate-wise; title: This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs. The Climate. (See HERE.)
Ms Klein:
The Arctic region is 70% ocean. That is where methane is, locked in permafrost in the sub sea floor of the ocean. As the ocean's perennial surface ice melts away, as it has been doing, the sub sea permafrost thaws; that allows the methane gas to escape and enter the atmosphere. It isn't just "tiny bubbles", it is massive half mile diameter plumes of methane bursting from the water so the water seems to boil.
According to the International Siberian Shelf Study group, who conduct on-site research in the Arctic, there are trillions of tons of methane there. Not billions! A trillion tons of methane gas entering the atmosphere within a 1 to 5 year time period, would be equal to 105 trillion tons of additional CO2 in the greenhouse gas mix. That is a sobering thought which ought to be jolting world governments to full awareness of future danger to our planet, and perhaps a future danger that is not as far off as they had previously surmised. Methane will escape in huge quantities when the subsea permafrost thaws. The Arctic Ocean is relatively shallow, meaning that methane isn't consumed by bacteria before it enters the upper surface of the water.
See HERE
After preparing this post, the next day I spotted that a new book by Naomi Klein, due out next month, addresses our situation climate-wise; title: This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs. The Climate. (See HERE.)
Ms Klein:
The case I want to make to you is that climate change—when its full economic and moral implications are understood—is the most powerful weapon progressives have ever had in the fight for equality and social justice.
But first, we have to stop running away from the climate crisis, stop leaving it to the environmentalist, and look at it. Let ourselves absorb the fact that the industrial revolution that led to our society’s prosperity is now destabilizing the natural systems on which all of life depends.
"Climate change," she added, is "not an 'issue' for you to add to the list of things to worry about it. It is a civilizational wake up call."
