Saving the Tibetan Glaciers
John Nissen
Hi all,
Saving the Tibetan glaciers must be high on the list of priorities for action - but perhaps behind Amazon and the Arctic sea ice because these have a higher short-term risk. As with the Arctic sea ice, black carbon and organic carbon (BC and OC) reduction should be part of the solution. (Explorers have pointed out how grubby the Greenland glaciers look.) In the quest to reduce global warming and ocean acidification by carbon dioxide removal, a major advantage of the biochar process could be the avoidance of BC and OC.
I've just received this from Jim Hansen:
---
Survival of Tibetan Glaciers: New PNAS paper on black soot & Himalayan glaciers is available at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/07/0910444106.full.pdf+html
A discussion of it is on the GISS web site at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_14/
---
The discussion is as follows:
Survival of Tibetan Glaciers
By James Hansen — December 2009
Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, sometimes called Earth's "third pole", hold the largest ice mass outside the polar regions. These glaciers act as a water storage tower for South and East Asia, releasing melt water in warm months to the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra and other river systems, providing fresh water to more than a billion people. In the dry season glacial melt provides half or more of the water in many rivers.
Figure 1.
Five ice cores were extracted from the indicated locationson the
Tibetan plateau.
The white dashed line is the northerly boundary of the Indian monsoon.
(View
larger image)
Tibetan glaciers have been melting at an accelerating rate over the past decade. Glacier changes depend on local weather, especially snowfall, so glacier retreat or advance fluctuates with time and place. Thus it is inevitable that some Tibetan glaciers advance over short periods, as has been reported. But overall, Tibetan glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate.
Global warming must be the primary cause of glacier retreat, which is occurring on a global scale, but observed rapid melt rates suggest that other factors may be involved. To investigate the possible role of black soot in causing glacial melt, a team of scientists from Chinese research institutes extracted ice cores from five locations on the Tibetan Plateau (Figure 1).
Black soot, which includes black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC), absorbs sunlight and can speed glacial melting if BC reaches values of order 10 ng/g (nanograms per gram) or larger. The ice core data revealed that BC reached values of 20-50 ng/g in the 1950s and 1960s for the four stations that are downwind of European pollution sources. BC and OC amounts decreased strongly in the early 1970s, probably because of clean air regulations in Europe.
However, the ice cores also reveal that in the past decade BC and OC began to increase again, even on the Zuoqiupu glacier (Figure 2), which is mainly subject to Asian sources. The data suggest that increased black soot arises from Asian sources, especially the Indian subcontinent.
The measured concentrations of BC and OC refer to fresh snow. But as the snow melts in the spring and summer the black soot concentrations on the glacier surface increase, because the soot particles do not escape in the melt water as efficiently as the water itself. As a consequence, the soot noticeably darkens the glacier surface during the melt season, increases absorption of sunlight, and speeds glacier disintegration.
Figure 2.Black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC)
concentrations in the Zuoqiupu ice core for the monsoon (June-Sept) and
non-monsoon (Oct-May) seasons, and the annual mean.
(View
larger image)
In a new paper by Xu et al., we concluded that black soot is contributing to the rapid melt of glaciers in the Himalayas. And continued, "business-as-usual" emissions of greenhouse gases and black soot will result in the loss of most Himalayan glaciers this century, with devastating effects on fresh water supplies in dry seasons.
But business-as-usual emissions are not inevitable. An alternative scenario, which stabilizes the glaciers and has other benefits for global climate and human health, requires a reduction of major human-made climate forcing agents that have a warming effect — that means greenhouses gases, especially carbon dioxide, as well as black soot.
Quantitative policy implications have been defined: coal emissions must be phased out over the next 20 years, and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil shale, must remain undeveloped. Combined with improved agricultural and forestry practices and reduction of methane and black soot emissions, these actions would avoid demise of the Tibetan glaciers.
Not coincidentally, these policy actions are the same as those required to stabilize Earth's energy balance and keep the climate near the Holocene climate range in which civilization developed. The question is whether the global community can exercise the free will to limit fossil fuel emissions and move to clean energies of the future — or is it inevitable that all fossil fuels will be burned?
The conclusion is that prospects for survival of Tibetan glaciers can be much improved by reducing black soot emissions. The black soot arises especially from diesel engines, coal use without effective scrubbers, and biomass burning, including cook stoves. Reduction of black soot via cleaner energies would have other benefits for human health and agricultural productivity. However, survival of the glaciers also requires halting global warming, which depends upon stabilizing and reducing greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide.
References
Xu, B, J. Cao, J. Hansen, T. Yao, D.J. Joswia, N. Wang, G. Wu, M. Wang, H. Zhao, W. Yang, X. Liu, and J. He, 2009: Black soot and the survival of Tibetan glaciers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., doi: 10.1073/pnas.0910444106, in press.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Pagani, M. Raymo, D.L. Royer, and J.C. Zachos, 2008: Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J., 2, 217-231, doi:10.2174/1874282300802010217.
jim thomas
I have trouble understanding why you think biochar would reduce the
release of black carbon. Biochar IS black carbon and indeed the real
world application of biochar appears to release a large quantity of
black carbon particles into the air.
A preliminary report from a recent study here in Quebec, Canada
reported that about 30% of the biochar (applied in granulated form)
blew away during application.. (see Preliminary Evaluation of Biochar
in a Commercial Farming Operation in Canada, BlueLeaf Inc, 2009, www.dynamotive.com/wp-content/themes/dynamotive/pdf/BlueLeaf_Biochar_Field_Trial_2008.pdf
) - some amazing images there of airborne biochar!
Soil erosion in the months and years after application is a further
way in which biochar is likely to become airborne.
As you know airborne black carbon has a highly positive radiative
forcing because it absorbs solar radiation and reduces albedo. How
strong this effect will be depends on the size of biochar particles
which are blown away – the lower end of the particle size of charcoal
extends into the same range as that of soot, the submicron range. A
report by CSIRO states: The size of biochar particles is relatively
rapidly decreased, concentrating in size fractions <5μm
diameter.” (Biochar, climate change and soil: A review to guide
future research, CSIRO, Saran Sohi et al, February 2009, www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf
)
Scaled up to a large enough application to be considered geo-
engineering there is an argument to be made based on teh Dynamotive
trias that applying biochar could actually worsen warming through
release of airborne black carbon rather than reduce it..
best
Jim Thomas
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David Schnare
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Center for Environmental Stewardship
Manu Sharma
According to the Indian glacier experts, the glaciers are experiences a net gain at the moment, and have been stable (not shrinking) for the past several years.
David Schnare
John Nissen
Thank you, David, for pointing out the danger of India-Pakistani conflict, if there's not enough water. Some say that this is the most likely beginning of the end. It depends on whether mutually assured destruction remains a deterrent to conflict. But it would be better to avoid finding out - by keeping the waters flowing! Emissions reductions by themselves will only stop the level of CO2 growing so fast - the excess CO2 that is in the atmosphere now (over 100 ppm since pre-industrial revolution) will continue to cause global warming. So to save the glaciers, we will have to use CDR geoengineering like biochar to lower the CO2 level, and/or use SRM geoengineering to cool the planet. And it has to be done quickly enough - a really tough challenge to minimise risk of failure, when a nuclear holocaust could be the result of failure.
Cheers,
John
CDR = carbon dioxide removal
SRM = solar radiation management
---
David Miller wrote:
gordon eliott wrote:
>
>
> it might indeed be true that black carbon is of great significance but
> perhaps you would like to look at some other evidence concerning glaciers:
>
> http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting
I'd suggest reading more objective web sites if you're interested in
something that's scientific in nature. I looked at the article you cite
and found it extremely difficult to tell whether the "conclusion" in the
"in conclusion, then,....." part of the page.
No doubt that's a reading comprehension problem on my part.
However, it took me about a minute to find some limitations on the page
(the authors conclusions are taken out of context) and limitations on
the report. http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-152509.html , for example.
As for theresilientearth taking things out of context, they do several
things. First, they zoom in on the report of a dozen glaciers that are
either growing or holding steady and ignore the 9500 that are shrinking.
The next thing I noticed was to redirect the argument of "rivers will
run dry" with reference to a river (ganges) that isn't primarily fed by
glaciers. That's what I find to by typical of the "skeptical" types of
arguments - they take an exception to a rule and try to offer it as
proof that the rule doesn't exist.
The Indus river is fed by himalayan glaciers, originates in India (so
they regard the water as theirs), flows through Pakistan, and returns to
India. I don't believe it reaches the ocean any more, it's all used
(primarily) for irrigation.
If we have a dozen glaciers that aren't receding and 9500 that are, and
the melt waters are used to feed both Pakistanis and Indians - two
nuclear armed countries - what do you suppose will happen when the melt
waters decrease, agriculture fails, and people start starving?
--- David
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John Nissen
Dear Jim,
You seem to think that the biochar process implies throwing vast
quantities of the charcoal residue into the air. That would be plain
stupid. The essential thing about the biochar process is that the
products of combustion are all captured - so to then pollute the air
with the carbon would be absurd.
I am now convinced that biochar has tremendous potential benefits:
1. capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to bring the
level below 350 ppm;
2. using the charcoal as a soil improver to increase crop production;
3. providing biofuel without sacrificing food production;
4. doing the above without putting black carbon or organic carbon into
the atmosphere.
Anyway, I passed your message onto the biochar group, since you might
not have been able to post there. This was the first response, and was
from MAx Turunen:
---
If charcoal powder is mixed with wet plant slurry, like that which comes
out from local-materials technology biodigestors, as a Terra Preta -type
mixture... it should not be getting airborne... and mixture that has
been seeped into sand surface layers should not be crawling out to
become airborne either... but... instead tilling the land, and pouring
on dry charcoal powder... and doing this on very arid conditions..
This is not something to leave to the management of peoples focused on
making a quick buck... "ahh... we get better quarterly profits this
year, increasing our portofolio value and appeal at stockmarkets, if we
leave out the compost... and we can count what we pour on fields as
carbon offset cash according to local officials... besides, now we have
time to invest on fertilizer industry shares, as there will be more of
that needed as less charcoal stays in fields... and why should we worry
about charcoal dust being blown to glaciers, law mandates that we stick
to worrying only about our investors profits... besides, this way we can
sell them farmers even more charcoal and count it as even more offset
cash..."
matters a lot *how* things are done. Just any Charcoal to somewhere in
bulk... or Terra Preta -type mixtures, with first thinking and planning
with locals about conditions and places ?
MaxT
---
Cheers from Chiswick,
John
---
Manu Sharma
You seem to think that the biochar process implies throwing vast quantities of the charcoal residue into the air. That would be plain stupid. [..] I am now convinced that biochar has tremendous potential benefits:
While it may be possible to reduce this loss through the method you mention, that doesn't mean it will always be done this way. This is clearly a serious concern that needs to be researched before recommending large scale field applications.A significant concern during the spreading of this material was loss due to biochar’s fine particle size, according to the report. Although some biochar was lost at various stages of handling, losses while it was being spread on the fields were the highest. Although wind velocity was low at the time of spreading, loss rates were visually estimated to be significant, totaling approximately 30 percent.
jim thomas
I agree it would be plain stupid to throw vast quantities of charcoal
residue into the air but if you look at the Dynamotive field trials
that is exactly what happened. I now realise that Dynamotive have
conveniently removed that study from their website but the
subcontractor, Blue Leaf, has it still at theirs:
http://www.blue-leaf.ca/main-en/files/BlueLeaf_Biochar_Field_Trial_2008_fv.pdf
if you look at the photo's on pages 23-25 you will see huge clouds of
biochar going happily aloft.
This is indeed a very fine particulate form of biochar (over 60% of
particles were under half a millimetre according to the report) but it
is also the exact form that Dynamotive, one of the leading biochar
companies, actually sell commercially as “CQuest™ Fast Pyrolysis
BioChar” so this is a 'real world' trial of biochar. if you look at
the stated objectives of the study (on page 3) they were not, as
Nando claims, done "on a very windy day with a particular type of
spreader specifically as a test trying different spreading techniques
to see how much would blow away under worst conditions", in fact none
of the seven objectives sound anything like that. In contrast the
report explicitly says that "Although wind velocity was low at the
are slightly more open than much of the province) are not that windy.
Repeat the test in the plains of Saskatchewan or Kansas and you may
get really serious loss.
I agree that the obvious remedy to this is to apply the biochar as
sludge or in wet form but have the studes been done to check that
assumption? I'd be interested to know what the losses of black carbon
to the air from soils post-application are, especially in regions of
high winds and what is the resultant forcing, especially in
agricultural regions where monoculture industrial agriculture has
continually destroyed soil structure - see for example http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15631883
. If you are talking about integrating biochar with biofuels
production then you are referring to exactly this sort of production
model on lands with poor residual soil structure.
Jim
Stephen Salter
Why not spread the stuff when it is raining and then plough it in?
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering and Electronics
University of Edinburgh
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
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John Nissen
Thank you, Nando, for explaining the misunderstanding that Jim Thomas
seemed to have. I think the matter should rest there!
Cheers,
John
---
Nando wrote:
>
>
> Jim,
>
>
> Simply put, biochar particles are too heavy and large to become
> airborne in the way black carbon emitted in smoke does. This
> misunderstanding may be due to a confusion between the way climate
> scientists and soil scientists use the term "black carbon". Same term,
> but the material they each refer to has very different properties.
> Biochar cannot remain airborne, it doesn't waft up into the air,
> either off or out of the soil.
>
> The experiment you refer to was intentionally done with very dry
> powdery biochar on a very windy day with a particular type of spreader
> that biochar costs a farmer way too much for them to allow this to
> happen under production conditions. There are good reasons to quench
> or wet biochar prior to application in any case, but the simple
> solution, if using this type of spreader, is to wet the biochar.
>
> Once char is incorporated in soil, or mixed with compost and/or
> minerals, biochar tends to aggregate in clumps with other soil
> compounds. It immediately takes on the consistency of good black soil.
>
> Nando
> > - some amazing images there of airborne biochar!
> >
> > Soil erosion in the months and years after application is a further
> > way in which biochar is likely to become airborne.
> >
> > As you know airborne black carbon has a highly positive radiative
> > forcing because it absorbs solar radiation and reduces albedo. How
> > strong this effect will be depends on the size of biochar particles
> > which are blown away – the lower end of the particle size of
> charcoal
> > extends into the same range as that of soot, the submicron
> range. A
> > report by CSIRO states: The size of biochar particles is relatively
> > rapidly decreased, concentrating in size fractions <5μm diameter.”
> > (Biochar, climate change and soil: A review to guide future
> research,
> > CSIRO, Saran Sohi et al, February 2009,
> > www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf
> <mailto:geoengineering%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.
> <http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en>.
> > Jim Thomas
> > ETC Group (Montreal)
> > +1 514 2739994
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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Nando
aerosols, black carbon in particular, and find references that seem to
indicate a mean particle size of under one micron for BC particles
(0.2 microns) that are lofted into the atmosphere and thus can be
transported long distances. I want to make sure I understand the
context of this issue.
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/11/6319.full#xref-ref-13-1
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2000/2000JD900240.shtml
In our biochar preparation procedure, we aim for a particle size of
about 2 millimeters. There are some smaller particles mixed in, but we
certainly don't micronize the char. Some feedstock materials will
produce smaller particles, but they certainly won't have a mean size
of less than one micron. Once the char enters the soil, it has been
demonstrated that it tends to break down into smaller particles, but
as I indicated earlier, these tend to form aggregates in a similar
manner that organic carbon forms aggregates in soil. I've seen this
happen, and worked the clumpy textured material, very much like good
black soil, in my hands.
Soil dust also has a radiative forcing, and it originates particularly
in arid areas of the world like the Sahara desert. Biochar will be
added to agricultural soils, not to deserts. Although wind erosion
lifts some agricultural soil aloft, it seems likely that this is not
the main source of dust in the atmosphere. It also seems logical that
because the amount of biochar added to soil is of such a low
percentage, the (aggregated) char mixed into any soil dust that ends
up in the atmosphere will not increase the radiative forcing of soil
dust. Simply put, if our agricultural soils were dry enough and
exposed enough to be major contributors to atmospheric soil dust, we
couldn't grow any food on them.
On a practical basis, we find moist char much easier to work with.
Quenching keeps the hot char from igniting as it comes out of the
kiln, which is much easier than keeping it from being exposed to
oxygen. The dust that can occur from working with the char is a health
hazard. I can personally attest to the fact that even a single day's
exposure to char dust is a significant challenge for the lungs to deal
with.
What am I missing that would indicate that biochar production and
incorporation may be likely to cause an increase in atmospheric black
carbon content? I don't see it.
In fact, the opposite seems more plausible to me:
Agricultural productivity increases from biochar could cause a
decrease in slash and burn shifting agriculture.
The use of biochar producing cookstoves, such as that from
WorldStove, could cause a decrease in open fire biomass burning.
The energy derived from large scale pyrolysis systems could
displace fossil fuel use.
Reduced fertilizer usage could reduce the fossil fuels used to
produce and transport them.
The burning of agricultural waste because it is deemed the most
economical way to deal with it is replaced by the production of
biochar and energy from pyrolysis because it provides an income
stream,
all of which would likely cause a decrease in atmospheric BC levels,
perhaps a very significant decrease if adopted at a large scale.
Again, I could be missing an important detail. Please let me know if
you see something I've glossed over.
Kind regards,
Nando
Nando M. Breiter
The CarbonZero Project
CP 234
6934 Bioggio
Switzerland
+41 91 600 0335
na...@carbonzero.ch
David Schnare
John Nissen
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