[subbed image as couldn't reproduce] Melting Arctic Sea ice should be the warning we need about expanding coal exports. Michael Sonnabend
Despite peak global temperatures in 2005 and 2010 (unprecedented in the instrumental record), a recent sharp plunge in volume of the Arctic Sea ice and a spate of extreme weather events, coal mining, coal exports and carbon emissions continue to grow, overwhelming any mitigation attempted by schemes such as the Australian carbon price.
And although both – local emissions and emissions from exported Australian coal – are vented into the same atmosphere, in political terms it appears as if they occur on different planets.
Following the peak El-Niño event of 1998, when mean global temperatures reached +0.45 degrees Celsius above pre-1975 levels, a decline of temperatures during 1999-2000 was heralded as “global cooling” ..
.., reversing the rise in mean temperature of about +0.8C since early in the 20th century (see figure 1).
Unfortunately from 2001 temperatures continued to rise. There were peak temperatures of +0.46C (2005) and +0.47C (2010) in the instrumental record (see figure 1). The 2011 La-Niña year saw the peak temperature of 0.4C higher than all previously recorded La-Niña years.
The rise in mean global temperature would be about double the above figures, had it not been for the transient masking effects of short-lived sulphur aerosols .. https://theconversation.edu.au/beyond-two-degrees-celsius-sulphur-wont-save-us-for-long-1885 .. emitted from fossil fuel combustion .. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha06510a.html . However, with the onset of clean air policies in the 1980s, SO2 emissions began to decline (see figure 2), which in part explains the sharp rise in temperatures from about 1975-1976 (see figure 1).
STUFF IT! .. try as i may none of the images will copy for me so temperature has risen exponentially while posting .. SHOULD have checked the first one .. MORE ..
Methane below the ocean and in the arctic is escaping increasing greenhouse gas
Climate Change - October 24, 2012 - By: Robert Bowen
[ invisible - The red on the chart shows how the warm Gulf Stream has moved into the Atlantic off the East Coast destabilizing trapped methane. Credits: NOAA photo
As if that weren’t bad enough, methane is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic .. http://tiny.cc/8qxpmw .. faster than had been expected. Researchers reported in the journal Science that methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and a warming climate is now resulting in its release.
Concerns about global warming .. http://www.examiner.com/topic/global-warming .. have centered on rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but scientists note that methane can be 30 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide so any large-scale release could have significant climate impacts researchers said.
Temperature changes in the Gulf Stream are "rapidly destabilizing methane hydrate along a broad swathe of the North American margin," the experts said in a study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature .. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v490/n7421/full/nature11528.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20121025 . Using seismic records and ocean models, the team estimated that 2.5 gigatonnes of frozen methane hydrate are being destabilized and could separate into methane gas .. http://www.examiner.com/topic/methane-gas .. and water.
What is ironic is that man-made carbon dioxide has warmed the oceans to such a degree that we have unleashed natural methane. That will speed up global warming exponentially beyond what man-made carbon pollution can. So man is responsible for this new problem.
"We may approach a turning point" from a warming driven by man-made carbon dioxide to a warming driven by methane, Jurgen Mienert, the geology department chair at Norway's University of Tromso, told NBC News .. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14670511-climate-changing-methane-rapidly-destabilizing-off-east-coast-study-finds?lite . "The interactions between the warming Arctic Ocean and the potentially huge methane-ice reservoirs beneath the Arctic Ocean floor point towards increasing instability," he added
In addition to the methane off the East Coast that is being destabilized, methane is already seeping out in the Arctic as permafrost melts.
Historically, methane concentrations in the world's atmosphere have ranged between 0.3 and 0.4 parts per million in cool periods to 0.6 to 0.7 in warm periods. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the scientists said, the highest in 400,000 years.
The study said about 8 million tons of methane a year, equivalent to the annual total previously estimated from all of the world's oceans, were seeping from vast stores long trapped under permafrost below the seabed.
"Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement. She co-led the study. The release of just a "small fraction of the methane held in (the) East Siberian Arctic Shelf sediments could trigger abrupt climate warming," they wrote.
About 60 percent of methane now comes from human activities such as landfills, cattle rearing or rice paddies. If we add this previously trapped methane, the effect on climate change will speed up. Already, the ice cover has almost disappeared in large parts of the Arctic.
Meanwhile, we are still producing carbon dioxide at alarming levels. The combination of man-made carbon dioxide and natural methane could be catastrophic. It is conceivable that in the not-so-distant future Mitt Romney may not be poking fun at the President for trying to slow the rising oceans.
The only defense we have is to aggressively reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels so we can slow the warming of oceans that are releasing this methane. We need to double down on green energy. Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress and presidential candidate Mitt Romney are committed to oil and coal companies and want to double down on fossil fuels. It is doubtful that this news will sway their positions. Profit and greed trump just about everything.
This latest news is serious, and we must start taking it seriously.
Enhanced Melting of Northern Greenland in a Warm Climate
ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2012) — In a new study from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, scientists show how the northern part of the Greenland ice sheet might be very vulnerable to a warming climate.
Simulated ice thickness for the Greenland ice sheet for the last interglacial period (~126 thousand years before present). This was the most recent period with relatively warm temperatures at high northern latitudes, not unlike what is expected for the 21st century from projections of global warming. Circles show locations with ice core data. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Bergen)
The study is based on simulations with a state of the art global climate model and a dynamic ice sheet model of the last interglacial warm period. This period (~126 thousand years before present) is the most recent in Earth's history with temperatures warmer than present in the Arctic region, and has frequently been used as an analogue for a future greenhouse climate. During this period we know that the Greenland ice sheet was significantly reduced in size compared to today.
The model simulations show an extreme retreat of the northern part of the Greenland ice cap in response to the warm interglacial climate, a climate not unlike what we expect on Greenland in the very near future. This result is surprising, as temperatures on the north part of Greenland are colder than in the south. However, increased precipitation compensates for much of the increased melting of the southern part of the ice sheet in a warmer climate.
Today, most scientists expect that the southern part of the Greenland ice sheet is most vulnerable to a changing climate. In particular, there are several studies monitoring ice streams and fjord temperatures along the coast of southern Greenland. However, the new results indicate that the northern part of Greenland, at the fringe of the Arctic Ocean, should be particularly closely. In this area part of the ice sheet is grounded below sea level, and can respond rapidly once it starts receding.
If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, it would result in an increase in mean global sea level by about 7 meters. However, the sea level impact of the observed recent accelerated melt of the ice sheet, as well as future projections of melt from the ice sheet, are not implemented by the current generation of climate models included in the IPCC effort.
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