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Permafrost in Siberia

Hi!
My question is the danger that lies in the permafrost in Siberia. It's for the most part methane I have heard right? So my question is it a danger that all/most of the methane comes out at a relative short period of time, or will it be a more gradual emission because of the raising temperatures on earth?
thanks for answer :)
Innsendt av: Danny

The carbon in the permafrost is mainly stored as organic matter. This can decay on melting to release CO2 or CH4 (methane) depending on a number of factors.

Methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas: about 20 times more powerful than CO2. What is unknown is how fast the release of methane can occur. However, any release will be difficult to cope with, so the best solution is not to allow this to happen, by removing the forces that are causing the warming: fossil fuel emissions of CO2.
 

ppm

Many scientists believe we have passed the irriversable border.. even in the IPCC, what is your oppinion on this ?
What is the PPM of co2 as we speak ?
Innsendt av: Lano

The current atmosphereic concentration of CO2 is 389 ppm I think.

A for 'irreversibility', I don't think we are passed this threshold. The best models show that we can go back to a stable, safe climate regime, if we act swiftly and decisively. But it is urgent!
 

Hemp

Could a more widespread use of hemp-based products help break down more of the carbon, as the hemp-plant converts carbon into oxygen opposed to f.ex. methane-farts from sheeps?
Innsendt av: Martinus Larsen

The reality is that we need a conbination of many efforts using many different approaches. Energy efficiency, substitution of materials, different power sources and so on are all part of the mix.

All plants take in CO2 and respire oxygen, as a result of photosynthesis. I'm not aware that hemp is any significantly better than any other plant at doing this.
 

Scary

How much longer do you think we have before we can no longer survive on this planet? 5 years? 10?Can`t be much more, considering all the bad news I keep ready every day, about how global warming is destroying the planet. Doesn`t seem like there`s anything we can do about it anymore..?
Innsendt av: Worried

I think we will be here for much, much longer. The important thing is to act now, while we can, as a result of what we know.

There is no doubt that the situation is urgent. However the solutions are not that difficult: if I can reduce my carbon footprint by 50% and suffer no loss of quality of life (and probably save money as well!), why can't others?
 

Mr

Hi, I see that permafrost/Tundra harbours large quantities of Carbon dioxide, but, if and when it melts, will all of it be released in to the air, or will the ground still be able to retain some of it?
Innsendt av: Are Haug

No one really knows exactly how much will be released, or when. The potential is clear, and the implications are very unpleasant.

It is likely that at least some of the carbon will be retained, but we are in a situation that has never occurred before, so we have little concrete evidence of what is likely to happen.
 

while these areas are frozen, they doesnt contribute much to the amount of CO2 in air, but still if the ice melted it would be a steady state between released and absorbed CO2 in these areas. ?

Innsendt av: Erik Adalberon

while temperature might modify the respiration of ecosystems, it doesn't stop it. Even the Arctic Ocean 'breathes'. The sheer area of tundra and boreal forest outweighs the cold.

The balance between emission and capture of carbon is extremely complicated for a variety of reasons, not leats the 'patchiness' of the ecosystems. However, we seem to be seeing a tilt towards emission rather than sequestration of carbon. This is consistent with models, and seems to indicate that we are likely to see a much larger contribution of the Arctic to the global carbon cycle in the not too distant future.
 

sun? last 2 years now the sun have been less active than the last 10 years or so. this is why its getting abit colder / not much warmer. of course CO2-levels arent really good for the atmosphere if its get to much UV (is it UV in english too?) will prob kill us before it getting to hot here (cancer and such). but when you speak about clima about it getting warmer and such. you really need to look at the sun too, are the sun active? getting warmer? hows the CO2 and hows active are the sun? you need to ask yourself those question before you can go and conclude that CO2 are the only "bad guy". might be just the different news and such, but for me it looks like you guys just talking about CO2, its alot more you need to think of. how many trees do we have hows the water animal etc etc etc etc. it wont work to just cut the CO2 with so much % you need to get more trees animals and other stuff like that to make O2.

when it comes to ice melting and higher water. that will happend sooner or later with or without human help. and it will come more ice later and go away again. its just the question of time. it happened before and it gonna happen again.

Kjetil
Innsendt av: Kjetil

The sun argument was put to bed some time ago as a result of skeptics criticising IPCC 10 years ago. It was perhaps a valid question then, but no longer. read Fred Pearce:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650-climate-myths-global-warming-is-down-to-the-sun-not-humans.html
 

How much do we know?

As I understand, the issue of permafrost methane and carbon dioxide wasn't part of the previous IPCC report, this being because not enough/not any peer reviewed material was available on the subject.

How much peer reviewed research is available on the subject now? Bjørn asked for a concrete timeframe, is any research made that tries to calculate that time? Would it be 5, 50 or 500 years? Has any research been made about whether the melting of the perma frost also might affect the temperature to be lower?

In short, what information is the peer reviewed research, and what information is just conclusions (though very probable) made from the fact that carbon dioxide increase globale warming and melting of thundra releases carbon dioxide?
Innsendt av: Johan Carlsson

The amount of science performed on carbon fluxes from permafrost ecosystems is still small, but growing. What we do have no is a really easy way of detectinig the emission of carbon from the tundra via the isotopic signature of this carbon in the atmosphere. For the first time in history, we can now detect it.

Re the timeframe, we simply don't know. The Arctic is a huge place, and the variability is very high, so it's not an easy calculation to make. But I do know that people are working on quastions that will help give an answer.

The best place to look for further information on the data sets used in this study is www.globalcarbonproject.org
 

CO2-consentration and effect on temerature

I read that CO2 at present level absorbes almost all radiation CO2 is able to absorbe, and furter increase in consentration will only contribute to a fraction of incresed temperature.

What is your view on this, and what increase in temerature will be the result of a doubling of the consentration?
Innsendt av: Nicolai Aall

Nicolai,
this isn't correct. We know very accurately the relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature. Have a look at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf
 

How much?

How much do we need to cut on the Co2 pollution and how is the best way to achieve that?
Innsendt av: worried

the simple answer is that we need to reduce emissions by more than 80% by 2050.

How? that's actually pretty easy. With existing technology we can do it today. It's the political will that is thge hard part!

McKinsey have published a report showing the costs of making these cuts (google the global cost abatement curve), and have shown that we are likely to make money on part of the process.
 

Frozen gas

Hello Dr. Neil Hamilton. I have seen some small movies about the carbon in Siberia, especially about methane gas that is located in bubbles inside the ice on lakes. Do you think we could take advantage of this gas, and use it to produce energy?

Another thing I was thinking of is whether we want to keep this carbon permanently frozen forever, or if we should release it slowly over many years, so that the earth can adjust itself to the changes. I will assume that this process would take an anourmous amount of years..

But will it be possible to live with all the carbon back in the cycle? Way back, it all was in the cycle, right? The only negative effect of releasing it is that the residence for many people will disappear, and people will die.

Global warming is a difficult topic, and I admire you who try to do something about it.

Sincerely regards,
Ørjan.
Innsendt av: Ørjan

This is an interesting question. it may be possible to capture this methane and use it, which would be a great solution. However, I'm not sure how it could be done.

Similarly, if we could lower the temperature of the permafrost we would buy some time which we need to do.

The answer to your last question is clear: we cannot afford to release this carbon into the atmosphere. I have enough respect for biodicersity, and humanity, to think that we should do everything we can to maintain the earth system as a self-regulating one, not one dominated by thoughtless human action.
 

is co2 really the reason for global warming

i have seen the documentary "the great global warming swindle" and learned that the sun and its cycles is the reason for global warming. what are your thoughts on this topic?
Innsendt av: robert wikstrand

The Great Global Warming Swindle is considered my most scientists I know to be a distortion of the truth, and of the interviews given by the reputable scientists who were interviewed.

This 'documentary' was criticised heavily by many scientific organisations and individual scientists (including the film's contributors. The film misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research, employed misleading arguments, and misrepresented the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Channel 4 and Wag TV (the production company) accepted some of the criticism, correcting a few errors in subsequent releases. However according to Bob Ward (Royal Society of London), this still left five out of seven of the errors and misleading arguments which had been previously attacked by him and 36 other scientists in an open letter.

The British broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), received 265 complaints about the programme, one of which was a 176-page detailed complaint co-authored by a group of scientists. Ofcom delivered its ruling on 21 July 2008. It ruled that the programme had unfairly treated Sir David King, the IPCC and Professor Carl Wunsch. Ofcom also found that part 5 of the programme (the 'political' part) had breached several parts of the Broadcasting Code regarding impartiality.

In short, I don't think the film is a good basis for deciding whether climate change is real. if you really want the facts, go to IPCC. Teh sun arguments have been fully analysed there, and no, it doesn't make a significant difference.
 

Renewable energy

Dear Dr.Hamilton

I can't help but wonder about the goverments in northeren europe's increasing investment in renewable energy sources e.g wind and tide. Will these sources of energy give us the needed amount of energy our even increasing society needs ? It's obvious that we really can't rely on. Why is it that goverments but so mutch effort and founds into developing of biofuel, now that south east Asia, India and Kina all long for the same wellfare as europe, with its ever increasing population, need more space for growing food, what will become of the wilderness and it's crusial role in cooling down the earth.
Have the worlds goverments abandoned Carlo Rubbia's thorium power plant ? besides the one in India ?

When international laws regarding global dimming occures, since aerosol's(?) reflects sunlight thus have a cooling effekt, will this increase the temprature ?

Kind regards
Mr. Lars Normanseth
Innsendt av: Lars Normanseth

The best available analysis shows that we can make a huge difference to the impacts of the enhanced greenhouse effect by reducing emissions, and renewable energy sources play an important role in this. Energy efficiency measures also have a big impact.

The real irony of the situation is that we don't need energy for social wellbeing or economic growth: we need the services energy provides, like heat, light, motion, etc. Let's decouple ourselves from coal and oil, and focus on how to provide the necessary services a different way.
 

Question.

I suppose this is regarding the methane clathrates which also supposedly triggered the Great Dying 251 million years ago.

Do you think the doomsday scenario about the seas getting anaerobic are plausible in our situation as well? Will it be possible to somehow secure ourselves from giant methane releases?
Innsendt av: Curious Ole

No, this has nothing to do with clathrates, that is another, very different form of captured carbon.

The carbon referred to is mainly trapped in the form of organic matter, and bubbles of methane gas in the ice.

Catastrophism, while popular, is in my opinion an unlikely scenario, and one that is particularly hard to predict or prevent. What we can do is minimise the probability of such events occurring by stopping the profligate use of carbon resources. Doing it now can make a difference.
 

How can we guard against 1.5 trillion tonnes?

Hello. I'm assuming that the carbon will be released in to the atmosphere/environment when the permafrost melts? So, two questions: 1. How can we take measures to counteract this in the future should it happen. 2. Does carbon still get in to the permafrost from our atmosphere at present
Innsendt av: Michael Sandelson

The billion dollar question!
yes, much of ther permafrost carbon will end up in the atmosphere as it melts, through natural decay processes. The ecosystems (think of the tundra) both take up and release carbon at the same time, so what matters is the balance. It seems to be going towards the release of carbon, and as things warm up, will definitely tilt that way.

The safest way to prevent this is to stop emmitting carbon as quickly as we can. We know how to do this, and can actually make a profit doing most of the necessary reduction.
 

Vinkling av problemet

Hi.

It is often very difficult to get people to react to danger and take action before it's too late (history shows that people are able to restructure society and production if needed, but some time after the disaster has happened ).
Main consern about global warming, is of course how the temperature rise will affect the animals, plants and humans. Many people say they want to do something to improve the situation / development.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the piece, it turns out that they can not be bothered to do anything anyway because it can go beyond the standards of living and our comfort. Politicians have previously shown that the worst scenario they can imagine, are events where the economy is affected.

I wonder if the climate scientists who try to awaken politicians
and the general public, nor should be used to illuminate the negative economic consequences that global warming will cause. Not because the economy is more important than the diversity of species and access to clean drinking water and food, but because it might make the politicians and economists to wake up, and be willing to take the necessary action before we are standing there, thirsty, to the knees in saline water with 350 million climate refugees, and a drowned polar bear in our hands.

Regards Fnatt
Innsendt av: Fnattulf Øverland

You have a very good point. Science is science, politics is politics,and economics is economics, and only rarely do they meet.

There are many scientists who are aware of the issue and who are trying to address it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is one such group, and individuals such as Jim Hansen in the USA are another.

The message that such groups are all saying is that we still have time to avoid the worst of the impacts, but only if we act now, and act decisively.
 

Carbon

Hi!

This article just states there is a lot of "carbon" in the permafrost. Of course there is a lot of carbon in organic material. I assume it is meant that there will be some mechanism that will convert this carbon into CO2 or CH4, bacterial decomposition perhaps?

I think it is important for newspapers to take an interest in explaining the layman what climate change is, how it works. For example, I find it hard to locate an experiment on the greenhouse effect of CO2, what is the simple correlation between delta T and delta ppm CO2? Where can I find these basic reports??
Innsendt av: Simon

The is absolutely no doubt that permafrost is warming, and the active layer is deepening, everywhere we look in the Arctic. Ther is also absolutely no doubt that the decompostiono is occurring: we can see the isotopic signal of methane from the arctic tundra in the atmosphere, all over the world.

I think we are long past the time of having to explain the basics of climate change. The IPCC has done an excellent job of doing so over the past 20 years. If you want an experiment illustrating the greenhouse effect of CO2 I can recommend no oine better than Swedish Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius, who in 1896 computed that halving the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would lower the temperature by 7°F or more. A colleague of Arrhenius, Arvid Högom, discovered that burning fossil fuels could add significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere.

There isn't any doubt Have a look at www.ipcc.ch
 

The Hen or the Egg

Is it getting warmer because of the carbon in the air, or is there being released more carbon from the oceans because it is getting warmer?

Why are other planets in this solar system warming up as well? Not that many SUV's on Mars, eh?
Innsendt av: Akle

See my first answer, and have a look at websites like RealClimate.org
 

Abrupt Climate Change

Hello

I'm a big fan of science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson who is known for his extreme approach to researching his novels. He wrote a trilogy about climate change and Washington DC politics where one of the major plot devices is Abrupt Climate Change after a stall in the Gulf Stream. It happens after the Arctic ice cap melts and changes the salinity and temperature of the North Sea.

I was wondering how likely such a scenario is, and how bad it would be if it happens. The books make it out to be pretty bad though not completely devastating (for the US).

Also, if the carbon in the permafrost was released, is that something that could trigger an event on that kind of scale? From what I know it seems that if we cross a certain point it'll be a self-accelerating cycle making it worse and worse...

Anyway keep up the good work and thanks for answering our questions!
Innsendt av: Katja

The catastrophy scenario of the switching off of the 'North Atlantic Termohaline Circulation' is, according to the best available science, very unlikely. It has happened several times in the past few hundred thousand years but for very different, natural, reasons,probably related to ice damming in Canada.

No one knows what would happen to the climate if we turned off this important ocean 'conveyor belt' as a result of human-induced climate change. It has never happened before.

Similarly, no one knows if there is any relationship between permafrost and ocean circulation, other than the warming one.

In summary, there is a very remote possibility that one of a number of catastrophy scenarios could occur. However, they seem extremely unlikely, and are in my opinion definitely much less of concern than the simple impacts of climate change that we do understand already.
 

Trær

Vil ikke planting av trær eller vegetasjon generelt være en effektiv form for CO2 kontroll? Dessuten vil det vel kunne ha en annen positiv effekt hvis det gjøres i områder som enten er ørken eller på vei til å bli det?
Innsendt av: Martin

Tree planting does play an important role in capturing CO2. However, we are still cutting down *many* more trees than we are planting, so the first step is to stop deforestation, particularly in tropical areas and the boreal forests.

However, tree planting can never replace simply not emmitting CO2 in the first place. The challenge we face is to reduce emissions by a relaly large amount, so it simply isn't practical to just 'offest' our lifestyles by planting trees. We would soon run out of planet!
 

What's worse Mr. Hamilton

Wouldn't you prefer a global warming over a global cooling from the pre-industrial times?

How long is it estimated to take to melt the permafrost entirely or to a point where we will significantly register climae tchanges i.e draughts, storms, changing weather patterns?

How many millions of people do you think will inhabit the earth in 250 years?
Innsendt av: Bjørn A.Fløtre

The global warming we now know is unequivocally a result of human activity isn't something we should 'prefer' or otherwise. It's a reality we now have to face and deal with. The concensus of many tens of thousands of scientists is that the impacts of the chagnes to the Earth Systems are going to hurt. But they are avoidable, if we act swiftly and decisively.

Permafrost is melting now, and is starting to release carbon into the atmosphere at levels that are detectable globally. This is of concern because the amount of carbon stored in the top couple of metres of arctic tundra is enormous: at least double, and probably more, the amount in the atmosphere already. No one knows exactly how long this organic material will take to decay and release its carbon, but an educated guess, given that at least part of that carbon will be released as methane (20 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas), is that it will produce impacts pretty quickly. And perhaps the most important factor is that this release is a 'positive feedback': as the permafrost melts, it releases more carbon, which causes more warming, which melts more permafrost, which releases more carbon, which casues more warming................
 

No connection

Why are the global temperatures decreasing while the CO2-levels are rising? Isnt this fact enough evidence to realize that the carbon-level does not affect the temperature the way you believe it does?
Innsendt av: p johansson

Good Question!
there are 2 issues here: time scale, and natural variability.
The time scale one is really important: When looking at short periods (eg - less than a decade), climate shows strong variability. Consequently it's possible to select short periods throughout the long term warming trend where the warming slows or stops. For example, the periods 1977 to 1985 and 1981 to 1989 both show little to no warming while CO2 continues to increase. One might have come to the conclusion in 1985 or 1989 that global warming had stopped based on the previous few years data. And you would have been wrong.

This demonstrates the error of drawing conclusions from one small piece of the puzzle without viewing the broader picture, a common practice from interested public and climate skeptics alike. If one focuses on just the last few years, one might erroneously conclude global warming has stopped. However, by looking at a longer data series, we see a climate that shows much short term variability.

Over long time periods, the single is really clear: temperature varied *almost exactly* with CO2, going back well over 500,000 years. There is sometimes a lag due to the inertia of the climate system, but the correlation is clear. What you see over the last couple of years has nothing to do with this longer term trend.

I suggest if you want further information, have a look at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/