This is not good.

[TerryM]

SkepticalScience has started a new series of posts on arctic methane. The first post is:

Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf part 1 - the background

I think it provides good background context for the discussion.

Thanks!!

It sounds as though part two may have some new information from Semiletov, who has been even less forthcoming than Shakhova since the return of the expedition.

"We have to warn the world"

I. Semiletov

[Vergent]

SkepticalScience has started a new series of posts on arctic methane. The first post is:

Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf part 1 - the background

I think it provides good background context for the discussion.

Thanks for the link. I think I got in the first comment

Vergent at

07:13 AM on 15 January, 2012

What could possibly go wrong? I can't wait for part 2

[salbers]

Here's the SWIPA website that I'm starting to look through (as in post #86). This will have the upcoming book chapter by Shakhova and Semiletov...

http://amap.no/swipa/

Here is their 80MB pre-print draft of Background Science. Chapter 5 covers permafrost and contains 62 pages. Section 5.3.4.3 talks about future subsea permafrost releases. The end of the draft section suggests 800Gt of CH4 could be ready for sudden release...

http://amap.no/swipa/CombinedDraft.pdf

[salbers]

By the way, the section 5.3.4.3 is titled "Trace gas emissions from subsea permafrost", so it might indeed be a draft of the book chapter we've been waiting for from Shakhova and Semiletov.

[TerryM]

Am interesting presentation by Yurganov regarding Arctic CH4 measurements.

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/Yurganov_LondonCH4.pdf

[Vergent]

Am interesting presentation by Yurganov regarding Arctic CH4 measurements.

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/p...v_LondonCH4.pdf

I see I'm not the only one haunting Yurganov's archive, waiting for the December update.

Huff past is taking this seriously.

http://www.huffingto...tml#postComment

[LithiaWx]

I see I'm not the only one haunting Yurganov's archive, waiting for the December update.

Huff past is taking this seriously.

http://www.huffingto...tml#postComment

The Huffington Post? really? The place that thinks anything and everything Kim Kardashian is newsworthy?

LOL

[The_Global_Warmer]

I see I'm not the only one haunting Yurganov's archive, waiting for the December update.

Huff past is taking this seriously.

http://www.huffingto...tml#postComment

it was a good article. But most folks will see alarmism because they want to believe it's not possible. The link to the other recent paper about the soot and methane was good as well.

[TerryM]

it was a good article. But most folks will see alarmism because they want to believe it's not possible. The link to the other recent paper about the soot and methane was good as well.

Agreed that it is a good article, but it is the facts that are alarming, not the messaging. If S&S are to be believed (and they were the ones entrusted to make the observations) it sounds as though we are in for a rude awakening. I'm waiting for the Skeptical Science interview that should be published next week, and of course S&S's paper that will debut in April.

If you don't see these reports as alarming, you are just not looking.

[TerryM]

Skeptical Science interview is available.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-methane-outgassing-e-siberian-shelf-part2.html

[skierinvermont]

Agreed that it is a good article, but it is the facts that are alarming, not the messaging. If S&S are to be believed (and they were the ones entrusted to make the observations) it sounds as though we are in for a rude awakening. I'm waiting for the Skeptical Science interview that should be published next week, and of course S&S's paper that will debut in April.

If you don't see these reports as alarming, you are just not looking.

The only thing alarming here is the willful ignoring of science. The science provides these reasons NOT to be alarmed:

1. The new large plumes found are in previously unexplored areas and so there is little basis to conclude that these plumes are a new phenomenon.

2. The new large plumes were found in deeper water farther offshore than that previously explored. This deep water would take longer to respond to recent agw and it should be the shallow water which responds first. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that these deep water plumes are responding to an old long term warming. This conclusion is strengthened by #3.

3. All modeling studies i am aware of conclude that it will take hundreds of years for arctic methane release to occur and that a large increase in methane concentration this century is improbable.

4. Arctic methane release this decade has been insufficient to raise regional methane concentration seriously, nevermind globally.

5. The long term warming of the last 10k years is both a sufficient explanation for these plumes and by far the most probable explanation according to modeling.

[skierinvermont]

These ideas are insane. We don't know the ramifications of doing either of these things. Big, big mistake.

Most people don't understand the complexity and fragility of nature. There are countless examples of unintended consequences.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Skeptical Science interview is available.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-methane-outgassing-e-siberian-shelf-part2.html

That was weird. It was clear the interviewee was holding back a bit to not politicize this threw alarmism. but also admitted the 8gt is undeRdone. and that the methane is 6-8k years old.

[Vergent]

Skeptical Science interview is available.

http://www.skeptical...helf-part2.html

Thanks!

A couple things stand out. The methane is coming from >50m depth, that means that a greater portion of the methane goes into solution in the water. It also means that the mud cap over the hydrate is thinner. At much greater depth it can be on the surface. This is an a dangerous combination. The methane chimneys must be churning up the sea bottom, the sediment could then be carried away by the current, further destabilizing the hydrate by reducing the pressure on it.

Just in December updates:

The December 70-90 anomaly is over 10ppb higher than any previous December, and is the highest on record.

[Vergent]

We know that the December anomaly is 14ppb higher than 2010. This means the methane must be up at 1854ppb, off the chart.

[WeatherRusty]

The only thing alarming here is the willful ignoring of science. The science provides these reasons NOT to be alarmed:

1. The new large plumes found are in previously unexplored areas and so there is little basis to conclude that these plumes are a new phenomenon.

2. The new large plumes were found in deeper water farther offshore than that previously explored. This deep water would take longer to respond to recent agw and it should be the shallow water which responds first. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that these deep water plumes are responding to an old long term warming. This conclusion is strengthened by #3.

3. All modeling studies i am aware of conclude that it will take hundreds of years for arctic methane release to occur and that a large increase in methane concentration this century is improbable.

4. Arctic methane release this decade has been insufficient to raise regional methane concentration seriously, nevermind globally.

5. The long term warming of the last 10k years is both a sufficient explanation for these plumes and by far the most probable explanation according to modeling.

Just so people don't carry away the wrong impression, there has been no long term warming trend over the past 10k years. The natural peak temp of the Holocene period occured about 8,000 years ago and slowly declined over the following 6,000 years. The temperature began to rise about 2,000 years ago with the big jump occuring over the past 150 years which has returned temp to near what it was during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago.

Yes it should take hundreds of years to destablise the deeply buried hydrates, but what about exasperating those already outgasing and those potentially already close to doing so?

[The_Global_Warmer]

We know that the December anomaly is 14ppb higher than 2010. This means the methane must be up at 1854ppb, off the chart.

The jump started in July and now soars to a new record high that is quite a bit higher than before. Clearly a "new" source or the ESAS just was a stronger source to feed the Northern Hemisphere.

It is also no wonder the arctic has suffered amplified warming with these gases being strongest and most concentrated up there. This is also the hardest place to keep track of SATs which I hope soon they deploy a new satelitte soley for arctic temperature. That can reach the pole or closer at a more accurate depiction than the current satelittes.

Anyways. Is methane only coming out of the Laptev and ESB or also the Chuchki, Kara, and Barents?

[Vergent]

Just so people don't carry away the wrong impression, there has been no long term warming trend over the past 10k years. The natural peak temp of the Holocene period occured about 8,000 years ago and slowly declined over the following 6,000 years. The temperature began to rise about 2,000 years ago with the big jump occuring over the past 150 years which has returned temp to near what it was during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago.

Yes it should take hundreds of years to destablise the deeply buried hydrates, but what about exasperating those already outgasing and those potentially already close to doing so?

when in the last 800,000 years have we been in a similar situation?

[Vergent]

The jump started in July and now soars to a new record high that is quite a bit higher than before. Clearly a "new" source or the ESAS just was a stronger source to feed the Northern Hemisphere.

It is also no wonder the arctic has suffered amplified warming with these gases being strongest and most concentrated up there. This is also the hardest place to keep track of SATs which I hope soon they deploy a new satelitte soley for arctic temperature. That can reach the pole or closer at a more accurate depiction than the current satelittes.

Anyways. Is methane only coming out of the Laptev and ESB or also the Chuchki, Kara, and Barents?

The open waters are also making a significant contribution. 2500% supersaturation over the arctic is not trivial.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Just so people don't carry away the wrong impression, there has been no long term warming trend over the past 10k years. The natural peak temp of the Holocene period occured about 8,000 years ago and slowly declined over the following 6,000 years. The temperature began to rise about 2,000 years ago with the big jump occuring over the past 150 years which has returned temp to near what it was during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago.

Yes it should take hundreds of years to destablise the deeply buried hydrates, but what about exasperating those already outgasing and those potentially already close to doing so?

2011 like 2007 was a bit off the charts...but the length of time that the Laptev was exposed to max sun was absurd. This still though is with ice using up most of the incoming solar energy until early to mid July.

Just a couple decades ago. These areas only had a short window at the end of the summer of open water, And even then the water was still filled with ice floes and cold. Before the early to mid 80s it was nearly ice covered to some extent all year or only open for less than a month.

There is 500,000-1,000,000 mil km2 of water area that used to see a very small amount of direct w/m2 maybe 30-50 watts per year. Now these areas are getting 150-200 w/m2. This is very new. This is concerning to me.

This is pretty simple science IMO.

That seems to me that melting would be accelerated by more than a factor of 2 because the amount of solar energy reaching these areas has gone up by hundreds of percent in some cases on a year to year basis.

[WeatherRusty]

when in the last 800,000 years have we been in a similar situation?

In terms of radiative forcing we have not been in a similar situation for a lot longer than just 800,000 years. More like 15,000,000 years, the last time CO2 consentrations were as high as today. It also happened to be much warmer back then with likely no permanent northern ice cap. The Antarctic ice cap had formed 34,000,000 years ago when CO2 consentration dropped below 600ppm.

In terms of global temperature, current temp is about as it was 8,000 years ago when CO2 levels were no higher than 280ppm. The increasing radiative forcing of today stands to elavate mean global temp to well above that of the Holocene Thermal Maximum of 8,000 years ago. What this will do to arctic sea ice is evident from past periods of higher radiative forcing.

What this will do to destabilize sea bed methane clathrates is anyone's guess. The previous interglacial period 125,000 years ago which attained a global mean temp about 1C warmer than the Holocene max apparently did not unleach a runnaway methane feedback, but what would happen if temp rises another 2C or 3C?

[skierinvermont]

2011 like 2007 was a bit off the charts...but the length of time that the Laptev was exposed to max sun was absurd. This still though is with ice using up most of the incoming solar energy until early to mid July.

Just a couple decades ago. These areas only had a short window at the end of the summer of open water, And even then the water was still filled with ice floes and cold. Before the early to mid 80s it was nearly ice covered to some extent all year or only open for less than a month.

There is 500,000-1,000,000 mil km2 of water area that used to see a very small amount of direct w/m2 maybe 30-50 watts per year. Now these areas are getting 150-200 w/m2. This is very new. This is concerning to me.

This is pretty simple science IMO.

That seems to me that melting would be accelerated by more than a factor of 2 because the amount of solar energy reaching these areas has gone up by hundreds of percent in some cases on a year to year basis.

Your usage of the phrase "watts per year" tells me you do not know what the term watt means. A watt is a unit of power not energy.

[WeatherRusty]

Your usage of the phrase "watts per year" tells me you do not know what the term watt means. A watt is a unit of power not energy.

From Wikipedia:

The watt, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.

Confusion of watts, watt-hours, and watts per hour

The terms power and energy are frequently confused. Power is the rate at which energy is generated or consumed.

For example, when a light bulb with a power rating of 100W is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt-hours (W•h), 0.1 kilowatt-hour, or 360 kJ. This same amount of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours, or a 50-watt bulb for 2 hours. A power station would be rated in multiples of watts, but its annual energy sales would be in multiples of watt-hours. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy equivalent to a steady power of 1 kilowatt running for 1 hour, or 3.6 MJ.

Terms such as watts per hour are often misused.^[17] Watts per hour properly refers to the change of power per hour. Watts per hour (W/h) might be useful to characterize the ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h. Hydroelectric power plants have a very high ramp-up rate, which makes them particularly useful in peak load and emergency situations.

Major energy production or consumption is often expressed as terawatt-hours for a given period that is often a calendar year or financial year. One terawatt-hour is equal to a sustained power of approximately 114 megawatts for a period of one year.

The watt second is a unit of energy, equal to the joule. One kilowatt-hour is 3,600,000 watt-seconds. The watt-second is used, for example, to rate the energy storage of flash lamps used in photography.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Your usage of the phrase "watts per year" tells me you do not know what the term watt melp

ans. A watt is a unit of power not energy.

Your right. Thanks for letting me know.

You could also just refute the point and the affect months of open water will have VS little to no open water.

[Vergent]

That was weird. It was clear the interviewee was holding back a bit to not politicize this threw alarmism. but also admitted the 8gt is undeRdone. and that the methane is 6-8k years old.

She was holding back on the current findings because of the rules about prior publication. If she revealed the major findings in the interview, that would be considered publication. They would loose the ability to publish in a journal like Science.

[Vergent]

S&S just published a new paper on the ESAS.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/015201/pdf/1748-9326_7_1_015201.pdf

On carbon transport and fate in the East Siberian Arctic land–shelf–atmosphere system

It was submitted Aug 5, so it doesn't cover the recent findings.

[salbers]

I'm waiting for the Skeptical Science interview that should be published next week, and of course S&S's paper that will debut in April.

TerryM,

Do you know what journal S&S's paper will be in? Is this something beyond the SWIPA book chapter draft that is now available?

Also, there is an upcoming S&S seminar on Feb 9th.

http://www.iarc.uaf....d=1323818876406

Looking ahead further, I wonder if this topic will be covered at the next ESRL/GMD global monitoring conference?

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/annualconference/

Thanks,

Steve

[salbers]

S&S just published a new paper on the ESAS.

http://iopscience.io..._7_1_015201.pdf

On carbon transport and fate in the East Siberian Arctic land–shelf–atmosphere system

It was submitted Aug 5, so it doesn't cover the recent findings.

Thanks for the link. Any chance some revisions were made prior to the December acceptance date? I see though this is mainly a survey paper of previous findings.

[Vergent]

We know that the December anomaly is 14ppb higher than 2010. This means the methane must be up at 1854ppb, off the chart.

Using the 14ppb number for 70-90N I get 0.9Mt C. This was for a four month period, so the yearly number would be 2.7Mt/year. This represents a 34% increase in arctic methane sourcing, over the previously reported 8Mt/year. There is a long way to go before it is a global threat. But it has gone from next to nothing to Mt/year in about three years.

BTW

[salbers]

David archer has an online model for atmospheric methane release.

http://forecast.uchi...ts/methane.html

This is the result of releasing 16Gt over a 20 year period.(a 100 fold increase over the current 8Mt rate). This corrisponds to 1% of the known ESAS reserves being vented. With 5 watt forcing the permafrost would be vanishing very fast so lets release 1% of those reserves over the next 20 years 32Gt over 40 years.

This is not good.

Has it been mentioned yet this calculator has a thread on RealClimate?

http://www.realclima...ere/#more-10545

By the way, the methane concentration Y-axis on the previous post is a bit confusing to me, is it just 0.5 -3.0 parts per billion? That's 1000 times too small. Will be interesting to see the latest hourly data as well.