Fwd: Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen

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John Nissen

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Mar 23, 2011, 7:55:06 AM3/23/11

to Geoengineering, John Davies, John Gorman, Lloyd Helferty, Albert Kallio, biochar-policy, climatecha...@yahoogroups.com, Emily, Brian Orr, g.mo...@zetnet.co.uk, Mark Lynas, fred....@guardian.co.uk

Hi all,

Lloyd Helferty, a biochar expert, sent this email in September, which gives a terrifying warning of the danger of the methane if even just 1% comes out of permafrost.ï¿½ I have just calculated that the current global warming rate would be multiplied by about 40 times if 10% of carbon were emitted as methane over 20 years [1].ï¿½ That would be curtains for Homo Sapiens.

Mark Serreze thinks that the sea ice disappearance is inevitable, but only talks of 4-6 degrees warming in the Arctic, therefore totally neglecting the effect of the methane, which will produce many degrees of global warming if only a small fraction is released - and this would be inevitable if the Arctic were allowed to continue warming for many more years.

So we have to halt the sea ice retreat, otherwise we could all be toast within two or three decades.

Therefore we have to quickly start cooling the Arctic - and the only possible way is by geoengineering.

Nobody in the scientific community or the scientific press is facing up to the emergency from the methane "time bomb" and the urgency for geoengineering as our last hope to diffuse it.ï¿½ This fills me with a mixture of anger and desperation.ï¿½ï¿½ Our window of opportunity for successful geoengineering is closing rapidly as the volume of sea ice remaining at the end of summer decreases each year.

Ignoring both the danger from the methane and the possibility of geoengineering to avert this danger is like happily jumping from an aeroplane with a prototype parachute that has never been tested.ï¿½ You are in free fall.ï¿½ You close your eyes so you can't see the ground rushing up towards you - while arguing to yourself that this is safer than using an untested parachute - and anyway the parachute could always be used in an emergency.

John

[1] Reproduced from the end of my recent posting:
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/7a57aee4de1a74b2/f5315a610ab8ade3?show_docid=f5315a610ab8ade3&pli=1

Current anthropogenic global warming arises from forcing equivalent to the excess of 100 ppm [over the level in 1900 of about] 290 ppm atmospheric CO2.ï¿½ (Other forcings balance out approximately, e.g. considering the negative forcing of tropospheric sulphate aerosol [6]).ï¿½ Global warming potential of methane is 72 over 20 years [4].ï¿½ Carbon stored in permafrost is estimated as about twice that in atmosphere [5], so 10% would add 58 ppm of greenhouse gas, giving a multiplication factor on current global warming of 72*58 /100, which is over 40.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

[5] http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf
See page 21:

The total amount of carbon stored in permafrost has been estimated to be around 1672 Gt (1 Gt = 109 tons), of which ~277 Gt are contained in peatlands (Schuur et al. 2008; Tarnocai et al. 2009).ï¿½ This represents about twice the amount of carbon contained in the atmosphere.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing

---

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[biochar-policy] Fwd: [LeahyArticles] Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen [1 Attachment]
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:50:55 -0400
From:	Lloyd Helferty <lhel...@sympatico.ca>
Reply-To:	<biochar...@yahoogroups.com>
Organisation:	Biochar Consulting
To:	Biochar-Policy <biochar...@yahoogroups.com>, Torontopeakoil <toronto...@yahoogroups.com>, Biochar-Ontario <biochar...@googlegroups.com>

[Attachment(s) from Lloyd Helferty included below]

The end of the World... as we know it.
http://stephenleahy.net/2010/09/23/arctic-ice-in-death-spiral-risks-climate-catastrophe/

ï¿½I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. Itï¿½s not going to recoverï¿½, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
ï¿½I hate to say it but I think we are committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic,ï¿½
http://nsidc.org/research/bios/serreze.html

"There can be no recovery because tremendous amounts of extra heat are added every summer to the region as more than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun. A warmer Arctic Ocean not only takes much longer to re-freeze, it emits huge volumes of additional heat energy into the atmosphere, disrupting the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere."

ï¿½The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic,ï¿½ James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
ï¿½Paradoxically, a warmer Arctic means ï¿½future cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exceptionï¿½ in these regions.
http://www.imr.no/essas/science_steering_comittee/essas_ssc/james_e._overland/en

"If the Arctic becomes six degrees warmer, then half of the worldï¿½s permafrost will likely thaw, probably to a depth of a few metres, releasing most of the carbon and methane accumulated there over thousands of years", said Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a world expert on permafrost.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/Permafrost-lab/

That would be catastrophic for human civilisation...

The permafrost region... contains at least twice as much carbon as is currently present in the atmosphere ï¿½ 1,672 gigatonnes of carbon, according a paper published in Nature in 2009**.
** Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, Dr Pep Canadell
http://www.csiro.au/resources/GlobalCarbonProjectFigures.html

26 Sep 2008: Conclusions

Anthropogenic CO₂ï¿½emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, and despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of countries which are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached the mark of 10 billion tones of carbon in 2007.

Natural CO₂ï¿½sinks are growing, but more slowly than atmospheric CO₂, which has been growing at 2 ppm per year since 2000. This is 33 per centï¿½ faster than during the previous 20 years. All of these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger climate forcing and sooner than expected.

ï¿½Thatï¿½s three times more carbon than all of the worldsï¿½ forests contain.

There are no good estimates of how much CO2 and methane is being released by the thawing permafrost or by the undersea permafrost that acts as a cap over unknown quantities of methane hydrates.

(Estimates are that) If just one percent [1%] of the Arctic undersea methane reaches the atmosphere, it could quadruple the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere.

Abrupt releases of large amounts of CO2 and methane are certainly possible on a scale of decades.
... The present relatively slow thaw of the permafrost could rapidly accelerate in a few decades, releasing huge amounts of global warming gases.

Present pledges by governments to reduce emissions will still result in a global average temperature increase of 3.5 to 3.9 C by 2100... That would result in an Arctic thatï¿½s 10 to 16 degrees C warmer, releasing most of the permafrost carbon and methane and unknown quantities of methane hydrates.

ï¿½Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist

  Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)
  www.biochar-consulting.ca
  603-48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada
  905-707-8754; 647-886-8754 (cell)
     Skype: lloyd.helferty
  Steering Committee member, Canadian Biochar Initiative
  President, Co-founder & CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario
    Advisory Committee Member, IBI
  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1404717
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42237506675
  http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario
  http://www.meetup.com/biocharontario/
  http://grassrootsintelligence.blogspot.com
   www.biochar.ca

Biochar Offsets Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[LeahyArticles] Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:44:29 -0400
From:	stephen leahy

This week's story on the melt down of Arctic sea ice is the first and perhaps only one to find out how all that melting affects the region's permafrost where extraordinary amounts of carbon and methane lie frozen.ï¿½

This is a story I prayed I'd got wrong so you might want to stop reading.
ï¿½ Sadly several scientists verified that I connected the dots properly.ï¿½

Summary: The Arctic sea ice is not going to recover. Huge amounts of extra heat are being trapped in the region melting the permafrost.
If global temperatures rise from the present 0.8C to 2C, ï¿½as seems very likely, large amounts -- many more times than current emissions -- of carbon and methane will be released. That tips the planet into catastrophic climate change.
Emissions from permafrost have not been factored into how much countries need reduce their carbon emissions.ï¿½

I hate painting this bleak and dark picture. But this is what the science is saying and you have a right to know.ï¿½

ï¿½There is much to be done to alert everyone to the urgency, to take action and figure out how to live equitably and humanely under much different conditions than the past. Iï¿½don't have answers.ï¿½The challenge defies description. All I know is this requires the best of all of us.ï¿½

Sincerely, Steve

Community Supported Mediaï¿½is vital for healthy, democratic societies.
ï¿½Please consider making aï¿½$50, $75 or $100ï¿½contribution to theï¿½Environmental Journalism Support Fundï¿½to enable coverage of importantï¿½issues that shape our world and our children's future.ï¿½

Contributions can be made viaï¿½PayPal or Credit Card.ï¿½Or mail a cheque to 50 Enzo Cres, Uxbridge, ON, Canada L9P 1M1.

Arctic Ice in Death Spiral
By Stephen Leahy

More than
2.5 million
square
kilometres of
the Arctic
Ocean have
been opened up
to the heat of
the 24-hour
summer sun. /
Credit:Vinay
Deep/creative
commons

More than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun.ï¿½

Credit:Vinay Deep/creative commons

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 20, 2010 (IPS) - The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting.

"The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.ï¿½

The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.ï¿½

"I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover," he said.ï¿½

see:ï¿½Arctic Ice in Death Spiral, Thaws Permafrost ï¿½ Risks Climateï¿½Catastrophe

Attachment(s) from Lloyd Helferty

1 of 1 File(s)

Attached Message Part

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Veli Albert Kallio

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Mar 23, 2011, 12:15:57 PM3/23/11

to johnnis...@gmail.com, Geoengineering FIPC, John Davies, gor...@waitrose.com, lhel...@sympatico.ca, biochar...@yahoogroups.com, climatecha...@yahoogroups.com, em...@lewis-brown.net, orrb...@tiscali.co.uk, g.mo...@zetnet.co.uk, Mark Lynas, fred....@guardian.co.uk

Just notify a correction:

10⁹

gigatonne

= 10¹⁵

petagram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigatonne#Gigatonne

10^9 gigatonne Gt = 10^15 petagram Pg
tonne > kilotonne > megatonne > gigatonne = 10^12 kilograms
1,000 kg > million kg > billion kg > 1000 billion kg

NOT: (1 Gt = 109 tons)

Multiple	Name	Symbol	Multiple (SI)	Name	Symbol
10⁰	tonne	t	10⁶	megagram	Mg
10³	kilotonne	kt	10⁹	gigagram	Gg
10⁶	megatonne	Mt	10¹²	teragram	Tg
10⁹	gigatonne	Gt	10¹⁵	petagram	Pg
10¹²	teratonne	Tt	10¹⁸	exagram	Eg
10¹⁵	petatonne	Pt	10²¹	zettagram	Zg
10¹⁸	exatonne	Et	10²⁴	yottagram	Yg

Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:55:06 +0000
From: j...@cloudworld.co.uk
To: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
CC: john....@foe.co.uk; gor...@waitrose.com; lhel...@sympatico.ca; albert...@hotmail.com; biochar...@yahoogroups.com; climatecha...@yahoogroups.com; em...@lewis-brown.net; orrb...@tiscali.co.uk; g.mo...@zetnet.co.uk; mark...@zetnet.co.uk; fred....@guardian.co.uk
Subject: [geo] Fwd: Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen

Hi all,

Lloyd Helferty, a biochar expert, sent this email in September, which gives a terrifying warning of the danger of the methane if even just 1% comes out of permafrost. I have just calculated that the current global warming rate would be multiplied by about 40 times if 10% of carbon were emitted as methane over 20 years [1]. That would be curtains for Homo Sapiens.

Mark Serreze thinks that the sea ice disappearance is inevitable, but only talks of 4-6 degrees warming in the Arctic, therefore totally neglecting the effect of the methane, which will produce many degrees of global warming if only a small fraction is released - and this would be inevitable if the Arctic were allowed to continue warming for many more years.

So we have to halt the sea ice retreat, otherwise we could all be toast within two or three decades.

Therefore we have to quickly start cooling the Arctic - and the only possible way is by geoengineering.

Nobody in the scientific community or the scientific press is facing up to the emergency from the methane "time bomb" and the urgency for geoengineering as our last hope to diffuse it. This fills me with a mixture of anger and desperation. Our window of opportunity for successful geoengineering is closing rapidly as the volume of sea ice remaining at the end of summer decreases each year.

Ignoring both the danger from the methane and the possibility of geoengineering to avert this danger is like happily jumping from an aeroplane with a prototype parachute that has never been tested. You are in free fall. You close your eyes so you can't see the ground rushing up towards you - while arguing to yourself that this is safer than using an untested parachute - and anyway the parachute could always be used in an emergency.

John

[1] Reproduced from the end of my recent posting:
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/7a57aee4de1a74b2/f5315a610ab8ade3?show_docid=f5315a610ab8ade3&pli=1

Current anthropogenic global warming arises from forcing equivalent to the excess of 100 ppm [over the level in 1900 of about] 290 ppm atmospheric CO2. (Other forcings balance out approximately, e.g. considering the negative forcing of tropospheric sulphate aerosol [6]). Global warming potential of methane is 72 over 20 years [4]. Carbon stored in permafrost is estimated as about twice that in atmosphere [5], so 10% would add 58 ppm of greenhouse gas, giving a multiplication factor on current global warming of 72*58 /100, which is over 40.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

[5] http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf
See page 21:

The total amount of carbon stored in permafrost has been estimated to be around 1672 Gt (1 Gt = 109 tons), of which ~277 Gt are contained in peatlands (Schuur et al. 2008; Tarnocai et al. 2009). This represents about twice the amount of carbon contained in the atmosphere.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing

---

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[biochar-policy] Fwd: [LeahyArticles] Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen [1 Attachment]
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:50:55 -0400
From:	Lloyd Helferty <lhel...@sympatico.ca>
Reply-To:	<biochar...@yahoogroups.com>
Organisation:	Biochar Consulting
To:	Biochar-Policy <biochar...@yahoogroups.com>, Torontopeakoil <toronto...@yahoogroups.com>, Biochar-Ontario <biochar...@googlegroups.com>

[Attachment(s) from Lloyd Helferty included below]

The end of the World... as we know it.
http://stephenleahy.net/2010/09/23/arctic-ice-in-death-spiral-risks-climate-catastrophe/

“I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover”, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
“I hate to say it but I think we are committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic,”

http://nsidc.org/research/bios/serreze.html

"There can be no recovery because tremendous amounts of extra heat are added every summer to the region as more than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun. A warmer Arctic Ocean not only takes much longer to re-freeze, it emits huge volumes of additional heat energy into the atmosphere, disrupting the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere."

“The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic,” James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
Paradoxically, a warmer Arctic means “future cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception” in these regions.
http://www.imr.no/essas/science_steering_comittee/essas_ssc/james_e._overland/en

"If the Arctic becomes six degrees warmer, then half of the world’s permafrost will likely thaw, probably to a depth of a few metres, releasing most of the carbon and methane accumulated there over thousands of years", said Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a world expert on permafrost.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/Permafrost-lab/

That would be catastrophic for human civilisation...

The permafrost region... contains at least twice as much carbon as is currently present in the atmosphere – 1,672 gigatonnes of carbon, according a paper published in Nature in 2009**.

** Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, Dr Pep Canadell
http://www.csiro.au/resources/GlobalCarbonProjectFigures.html

26 Sep 2008: Conclusions

Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, and despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of countries which are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached the mark of 10 billion tones of carbon in 2007.

Natural CO₂ sinks are growing, but more slowly than atmospheric CO₂, which has been growing at 2 ppm per year since 2000. This is 33 per cent faster than during the previous 20 years. All of these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger climate forcing and sooner than expected.

That’s three times more carbon than all of the worlds’ forests contain.

There are no good estimates of how much CO2 and methane is being released by the thawing permafrost or by the undersea permafrost that acts as a cap over unknown quantities of methane hydrates.

(Estimates are that) If just one percent [1%] of the Arctic undersea methane reaches the atmosphere, it could quadruple the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere.

Abrupt releases of large amounts of CO2 and methane are certainly possible on a scale of decades.
... The present relatively slow thaw of the permafrost could rapidly accelerate in a few decades, releasing huge amounts of global warming gases.

Present pledges by governments to reduce emissions will still result in a global average temperature increase of 3.5 to 3.9 C by 2100... That would result in an Arctic that’s 10 to 16 degrees C warmer, releasing most of the permafrost carbon and methane and unknown quantities of methane hydrates.

Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist

  Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)
  www.biochar-consulting.ca
  603-48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada
  905-707-8754; 647-886-8754 (cell)
     Skype: lloyd.helferty
  Steering Committee member, Canadian Biochar Initiative
  President, Co-founder & CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario
    Advisory Committee Member, IBI
  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1404717
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42237506675
  http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario
  http://www.meetup.com/biocharontario/
  http://grassrootsintelligence.blogspot.com
   www.biochar.ca

Biochar Offsets Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[LeahyArticles] Arctic melt down - the story I prayed would never happen
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:44:29 -0400
From:	stephen leahy

This is a story I prayed I'd got wrong so you might want to stop reading.

Sadly several scientists verified that I connected the dots properly.

Summary: The Arctic sea ice is not going to recover. Huge amounts of extra heat are being trapped in the region melting the permafrost.
If global temperatures rise from the present 0.8C to 2C, as seems very likely, large amounts -- many more times than current emissions -- of carbon and methane will be released. That tips the planet into catastrophic climate change.

Emissions from permafrost have not been factored into how much countries need reduce their carbon emissions.

I hate painting this bleak and dark picture. But this is what the science is saying and you have a right to know.

There is much to be done to alert everyone to the urgency, to take action and figure out how to live equitably and humanely under much different conditions than the past. I don't have answers. The challenge defies description. All I know is this requires the best of all of us.

Sincerely, Steve

Community Supported Media is vital for healthy, democratic societies.
Please consider making a $50, $75 or $100 contribution to the Environmental Journalism Support Fund to enable coverage of important issues that shape our world and our children's future.

Contributions can be made via PayPal or Credit Card. Or mail a cheque to 50 Enzo Cres, Uxbridge, ON, Canada L9P 1M1.

Arctic Ice in Death Spiral
By Stephen Leahy

More than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun.

Credit:Vinay Deep/creative commons

The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.

"I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover," he said.

see: Arctic Ice in Death Spiral, Thaws Permafrost — Risks Climate Catastrophe

Attachment(s) from Lloyd Helferty

1 of 1 File(s)

Attached Message Part

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John Nissen

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Mar 24, 2011, 6:53:13 PM3/24/11

to Brian Orr, Geoengineering, John Davies, John Gorman, Lloyd Helferty, Albert Kallio, biochar-policy, climatecha...@yahoogroups.com, Emily, g.mo...@zetnet.co.uk, Mark Lynas, fred....@guardian.co.uk

Hi Brian,

When the hazard is as great as it appears to be - threatening the lives of the entire human race - you have to take the worst case scenario of weather conditions, and do your best to tackle that.ï¿½ This gives you a tight timescale.ï¿½ Two summers like 2007, when there was a sudden major retreat of the Arctic sea ice to a new record, and the sea ice might never recover.ï¿½ Thus I would argue that we should attempt to be ready for full-scale deployment of several mutually supportive techniques in two years, ready for spring 2013.ï¿½ï¿½

The methane level is already high in the Arctic, and there appears to be enough methane clathrate in a critical state under the Siberian sea to trigger a positive feedback loop [1].ï¿½ So any delay increases the chances of an uncontrollable release of methane.ï¿½

If we do nothing, then there is nothing to stop the Arctic warming up several degrees more and methane discharge is almost inevitable.ï¿½ The stark conclusion is that the future of the human race hangs on successful geoengineering.ï¿½ So I argue that the sooner we deploy geoengineering the better - and two years is the earliest conceivable time to be ready.

Cheers,

John

[1] http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2010/2009JC005602.shtml

P.S.ï¿½ One of the proposed geoengineering technologies uses cloud brightening, which you can see happening naturally from ships in this remarkable satellite photo.ï¿½ Some of the extra heat flux into the Arctic originates from the Gulf Stream.ï¿½ So we could use this geoengineering technology to cool the Gulf Stream.ï¿½

From http://www2.ucar.edu/magazine/features/getting-serious-about-geoengineering

Ship
tracks in clouds off U.S. East Coast

Clouds off the U.S. East Coast on 11 May 2005 are thickened in streaks along the tracks of exhaust-emitting ships, as captured in this photo from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASAï¿½s Terra satellite.

On 23/03/2011 17:52, Brian Orr wrote:

John,

I do indeed agree with you that the situation does seem extremely desperate, particularly bearing in mind theï¿½

long lead time required to get the powers-that-be to address things with all due seriousness and the furtherï¿½

time-lag in mounting the assault on the problem, beginning with a crash research programme (which couldï¿½

start very early if said powers-that-be could see the logic of 'betting hay'pence' "NOW" to see if a much larger wager

was justifiable. Two or three reputable universities could spend 'a million' between them to significantly sharpen

up the case for saving the Arctic ice sheet and stopping methane emissions in their tracks - while also addressing how

we go about it.)

From this stance of almost complete agreement with yourself, I'm moved to suggest we try and sharpen up theï¿½

time-scales we're talking about here. Although we would only be making educated guesstimates, we should beï¿½

able to do better than "....if.... allowed to continue warming for many more years", or ".....to quickly start cooling the Arctic....",

or "...opportunity for....geoengineering is closing rapidly....."

I realise this is quite a tough call but if we use the 'language' of guesstimating, then we can differentiate betweenï¿½

"within two to five years", "within 10 years", and "within one or two decades".

I reckon this will help to focus the minds of those new to the issue and who will be struggling to get their mindsï¿½

around the question of just how urgent is our predicament.

Cheers,

Brian

n 23 Mar 2011, at 11:55, John Nissen wrote:

Hi all,

Lloyd Helferty, a biochar expert, sent this email in September, which gives a terrifying warning of the danger of the methane if even just 1% comes out of permafrost.ï¿½ I have just calculated that the current global warming rate would be multiplied by about 40 times if 10% of carbon were emitted as methane over 20 years [1].ï¿½ That would be curtains for Homo Sapiens.

Mark Serreze thinks that the sea ice disappearance is inevitable, but only talks of 4-6 degrees warming in the Arctic, therefore totally neglecting the effect of the methane, which will produce many degrees of global warming if only a small fraction is released - and this would be inevitable if the Arctic were allowed to continue warming for many more years.

So we have to halt the sea ice retreat, otherwise we could all be toast within two or three decades.

Therefore we have to quickly start cooling the Arctic - and the only possible way is by geoengineering.

Nobody in the scientific community or the scientific press is facing up to the emergency from the methane "time bomb" and the urgency for geoengineering as our last hope to diffuse it.ï¿½ This fills me with a mixture of anger and desperation.ï¿½ï¿½ Our window of opportunity for successful geoengineering is closing rapidly as the volume of sea ice remaining at the end of summer decreases each year.

Ignoring both the danger from the methane and the possibility of geoengineering to avert this danger is like happily jumping from an aeroplane with a prototype parachute that has never been tested.ï¿½ You are in free fall.ï¿½ You close your eyes so you can't see the ground rushing up towards you - while arguing to yourself that this is safer than using an untested parachute - and anyway the parachute could always be used in an emergency.

John

[1] Reproduced from the end of my recent posting:
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/7a57aee4de1a74b2/f5315a610ab8ade3?show_docid=f5315a610ab8ade3&pli=1

Current anthropogenic global warming arises from forcing equivalent to the excess of 100 ppm [over the level in 1900 of about] 290 ppm atmospheric CO2.ï¿½ (Other forcings balance out approximately, e.g. considering the negative forcing of tropospheric sulphate aerosol [6]).ï¿½ Global warming potential of methane is 72 over 20 years [4].ï¿½ Carbon stored in permafrost is estimated as about twice that in atmosphere [5], so 10% would add 58 ppm of greenhouse gas, giving a multiplication factor on current global warming of 72*58 /100, which is over 40.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

[5] http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf
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The total amount of carbon stored in permafrost has been estimated to be around 1672 Gt (1 Gt = 109 tons), of which ~277 Gt are contained in peatlands (Schuur et al. 2008; Tarnocai et al. 2009).ï¿½ This represents about twice the amount of carbon contained in the atmosphere.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing