This is not good.

[The_Global_Warmer]

1. Guys lets stop with the name calling. I understand how frustrating argueing with someone who goes around to nearly every thread he posts in and talks about clouds and Geomag begging for people to listen all while saying yes yes it's geomag, but maybe it's not hehe, we will see. Thats why you should just not do it. He has been doing the same thing for years. Every time you break the TOS, and I am sure name calling of any sort does that job you get turned in. If he doesn't turn you in I am sure someone does. I was banned from this forum for 2 days and my infractions were speck of sand compared to others because I had so many reported posts. Even posts that were just "conjecture" were reported as spamming. You won't win this game in this fashion, you win it by sticking to reality. And all of you are needed for contributions here. So lets keep it a bit more clean. there is no reason to let it get to you so much. I've been threw it, it's not worth it.

2. From a nuetral POV there are many posts in this thread that reek of Alarmism. I am very liberal and fully believe the power of GHGs and I am very open minded of the dangers of it and that includes Methane Clathrates. But in the same way we have seen so many posters come here and say speak of the sea ice being "fine" as if that was actual a reality or it being recovered or saying Cryosat or PiPs is legit is kinda the same as pimping a methane smoking gun. I fully believe that we will see at least a doubling of methane release between now and 2015 in the arctic. and probably a tripling by 2020, which I believe takes it from 8 mil GTons to 24 mil GTons. But we do not have near enough evidence as of now to be so alarming with it.

3. Do not forget that the sun sets every winter in the arctic.

4. Have Fun!!

[Vergent]

they used to publish daily global methane maps from the AIRS sensor. you can see methane farts coming out of the arctic on 1/18/05, 2/25/05, 2/3/07, 2/11/08, and 2/22/08. It seems they stopped publishing these maps and dumped the archive, too bad, bad timing.

BTW, thanks to the moderator.

[LithiaWx]

they used to publish daily global methane maps from the AIRS sensor. you can see methane farts coming out of the arctic on 1/18/05, 2/25/05, 2/3/07, 2/11/08, and 2/22/08. It seems they stopped publishing these maps and dumped the archive, too bad, bad timing.

BTW, thanks to the moderator.

The video is worthless, there is no scale to tell what the colors represent concentration wise for methane. Also I love your scientific use of the word farts, very professional.

[Vergent]

The video is worthless, there is no scale to tell what the colors represent concentration wise for methane. Also I love your scientific use of the word farts, very professional.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Flatulence

"The lesser component gases methane and hydrogen are flammable, and so flatus containing adequate amounts of these can be ignited."

[LithiaWx]

Honestly, when you have Friv and Skier saying that some posters in this thread are being alarmists, some of you should take a step back and consider if they are talking about you.

[PhillipS]

The video is worthless, there is no scale to tell what the colors represent concentration wise for methane. Also I love your scientific use of the word farts, very professional.

The scale is shown at the bottom beginning at 1 minute into the video. The scale ranges from just under 1600 ppb to just over 1900 ppb. So the short-terms spikes over 2400 ppb recorded at Barrow (such as the one in 2004) were off the scale. And probably too localized to see on the global map.

[LithiaWx]

The scale is shown at the bottom beginning at 1 minute into the video. The scale ranges from just under 1600 ppb to just over 1900 ppb. So the short-terms spikes over 2400 ppb recorded at Barrow (such as the one in 2004) were off the scale. And probably too localized to see on the global map.

Fair enough, I missed that tbh, it only stays on the screen for a few moments. That said I still can't get over the characterization of methane as farts right after he was talking about stations getting a whiff of methane a few days ago.

[blue sky]

Honestly, when you have Friv and Skier saying that some posters in this thread are being alarmists, some of you should take a step back and consider if they are talking about you.

Yes. Excellent posters. I am more on the Skeptical side..Friv and Skier are those on the AGW side that I respect.

I have been away for a while. Is vergent new or just a different name from Eastern?

[Alpha5]

Yes. Excellent posters. I am more on the Skeptical side..Friv and Skier are those on the AGW side that I respect.

I have been away for a while. Is vergent new or just a different name from Eastern?

I think he's new, but I could be wrong

[The_Global_Warmer]

Yes. Excellent posters. I am more on the Skeptical side..Friv and Skier are those on the AGW side that I respect.

I have been away for a while. Is vergent new or just a different name from Eastern?

I appreciate it. I respect everyone who is being geniune in their own right. I think that we all get bias and and from time to time might get caught up in agendas. And we all make mistakes and should all try to be more respectful to others when they make them and assume the best and try to help out as best as possible.

Then there are some here who clearly only have one "agenda" in mind. And responding to there BS just makes it worse.

[salbers]

http://www.realclima...ane/#more-10412

RealClimate has a thread up no on the methane story, with the OP taking vanilla......

Should be worth watching

Was the RealClimate thread posted by David Archer? I've cited his papers before in this forum on the long term residence of CO2 in the atmosphere/ocean system.

So far from my reading this provides some good background information and perspective. Such as a Gigaton of sudden release is about like a volcano's temporary effect (though opposite in sign). And as WeatherRusty mentioned in the longer term it's more a function of the CO2 that Methane converts into.

The thread also confirms what I suggested earlier that we need another 1-2 orders of magnitude for the Arctic release to be really significant.

Here is a link to satellite vs. ground based comparisons:

http://www.agu.org/p...1GL047871.shtml

Back to the present - one day surface temperature anomalies are pretty warm in the Arctic:

http://www.esrl.noaa...s.fnl.anim.html

[Vergent]

http://www.realclima...ane/#more-10412

RealClimate has a thread up no on the methane story, with the OP taking vanilla......

Should be worth watching

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/an-arctic-methane-worst-case-scenario/comment-page-1/#comment-224271

More vanilla from realclimate. They are pushing hard on this. They are still using numbers from a 2007 article that gets its numbers from even earlier articles.

200 Gt worst case???????

When there are 3,200 Gt of known vulnerable stores? 1,600 in Continental shelf hydrates, and an additional 1,600 in and under terrestrial semi-permafrost.

http://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org:8080/bitstream/handle/1912/4553/2010GB003845.pdf?sequence=1

This article shows that the indirect forcing is double the direct forcing, and the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is greatly extended at higher concentrations.

[WeatherRusty]

How can warming (let alone human caused warming) be causing the release of natural stores of methane across the globe when the globe has not seen any statistically significant warming in the past ~ decade?

What irks me about your post is your breaching of the scientific method, it can be argued many ways as to what is causing the warming, so unobjective comments like this seem to clog up the forum with unscientific banter.

Forget whether or not it has warmed over the past decade. Do you think maybe the fact that the globe has gradually warmed ~0.8C and the arctic more than double that in little over a century may have something to do with it? Please try to think longer term when concidering slowly evolving climate changes and feedbacks such as melting glacial ice, melting permafrost and growing ocean heat content.

Sustained warmer conditions answers your question.

[skierinvermont]

http://www.realclima...#comment-224271

More vanilla from realclimate. They are pushing hard on this. They are still using numbers from a 2007 article that gets its numbers from even earlier articles.

200 Gt worst case???????

When there are 3,200 Gt of known vulnerable stores? 1,600 in Continental shelf hydrates, and an additional 1,600 in and under terrestrial semi-permafrost.

http://darchive.mblw....pdf?sequence=1

This article shows that the indirect forcing is double the direct forcing, and the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is greatly extended at higher concentrations.

Most of those 3200GT is buried deep in the arctic and would take 1000s of years to be released, if ever.

All you are doing is looking at that 3200GT number and then in wishful ignorance assuming that this will suddenly belch from deep under the surface into the atmosphere. You are wishcasting and making wild assumptions with absolutely zero basis in fact or physics.

The RC author assumes a 100-fold increase in methane emissions and finds that even in this bizarre and highly improbable worst case scenario which contradicts all modeling and observation to date, CH4 is still only comparable to CO2 and the effect is much more short-lived.

[salbers]

http://www.realclima...#comment-224271

More vanilla from realclimate. They are pushing hard on this. They are still using numbers from a 2007 article that gets its numbers from even earlier articles.

200 Gt worst case???????

When there are 3,200 Gt of known vulnerable stores? 1,600 in Continental shelf hydrates, and an additional 1,600 in and under terrestrial semi-permafrost.

http://darchive.mblw....pdf?sequence=1

This article shows that the indirect forcing is double the direct forcing, and the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is greatly extended at higher concentrations.

Yes, good to see your posts in the second RC thread. I had posted briefly in the first one.

[BethesdaWX]

Forget whether or not it has warmed over the past decade. Do you think maybe the fact that the globe has gradually warmed ~0.8C and the arctic more than double that in little over a century may have something to do with it? Please try to think longer term when concidering slowly evolving climate changes and feedbacks such as melting glacial ice, melting permafrost and growing ocean heat content.

Sustained warmer conditions answers your question.

You said added warming, or at least that is how I interpreted it. If I misinterpreted you I apologize. And as I believe the reconstructions that show more variance over those that show less, I believe the globe has likely warmed more than 1.5C since 1650.

There was a substantial increase in temperature from the mid 1600s to the late 1700s in most non-tree ring proxies. The three periods of rapid warming continued a net upward trend, with the last warming period from 1978-2006 supposedly caused by Man's CO2 emmisions, if the AGW theory is correct.

[Vergent]

Most of those 3200GT is buried deep in the arctic and would take 1000s of years to be released, if ever.

1600GT is on the continental shelves and under ice shelves. This topic is about that methane.

All you are doing is looking at that 3200GT number and then in wishful ignorance assuming that this will suddenly belch from deep under the surface into the atmosphere. You are wishcasting and making wild assumptions with absolutely zero basis in fact or physics.

"The total amount of carbon preserved within the ESAS as organic matter and ready to release CH4from seabed deposits is predicted to be ∼1400 Gt. Release of only a small fraction of this reservoir, which was sealed with impermeable permafrost for thousands of years, would significantly alter the annual CH4 budget and have global implications, because the shallowness of the ESAS allows the majority of CH4 to pass through the water column and escape to the atmosphere."

http://www.agu.org/p...9JC005602.shtml

N. Shakhova

International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

Pacific Oceanological Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Vladivostok, Russia

I. Semiletov

International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

Pacific Oceanological Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Vladivostok, Russia

I. Leifer

University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA

A. Salyuk

Pacific Oceanological Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Vladivostok, Russia

P. Rekant

VNIIOkeangeologia, Saint Petersburg, Russia

D. Kosmach

Pacific Oceanological Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Vladivostok, Russia

The RC author assumes a 100-fold increase in methane emissions and finds that even in this bizarre and highly improbable worst case scenario which contradicts all modeling and observation to date, CH4 is still only comparable to CO2 and the effect is much more short-lived.

We went from; no observations of significant direct venting of methane to the atmosphere prior to 2009, to methane vents "tens of meters in diameter" in 2009(at least a 100 fold increase), to hundreds of fountains of methane some over a thousand meters in diameter in 2011(indicating a 50 fold increase in diameter and a 2500-fold increase in area).

What is so bizarre or improbable about another 100-fold increase? With 1,400GT in the ESAS, it is hardly worst case.

[TerryM]

Perhaps a 100-fold increase might be improbably low as compared to recent years.

[BethesdaWX]

What happened to this place? I miss the days when frivolousz and skierinvermont ran the backbone of the AGW side, at least they bring legitimate science to the table. Now the scientific method has gone up in flames, very sad.

[salbers]

Perhaps a 100-fold increase might be improbably low as compared to recent years.

We should keep in mind that if we assume the 1400Gt is ready to release (from the 2011 AGU abstract), a 100 fold increase over the current 6Mt / year is only 0.6 Gt. This is only 1/2000 of the amount stated as ready to release.

At a minimum we should have more researchers sent to the ESAS to tell us why such an increase would be impossible.

[Vergent]

What happened to this place? I miss the days when frivolousz and skierinvermont ran the backbone of the AGW side, at least they bring legitimate science to the table. Now the scientific method has gone up in flames, very sad.

[BethesdaWX]

Lay off the Thai food, bruh.

[salbers]

http://cid-yama.livejournal.com/368223.html

Non-gradual methane releases from ESAS quantified

From a symposium November 30th.

Bad news: directly observed fluxes exceed estimated by up to 3 orders of magnitude

Interpretation of acoustical data recorded with deployed multibeam sonar allowed moderate quantification of bottom fluxes as high as 44 g/m2/d (Leifer et al., in preparation). Prorating these numbers to the areas of hot spots (210×103 km2) adds 3.5Gt to annual methane release from the ESAS. This is enough to trigger abrupt climate change.

link

That's in addition to the 8 tg from non-abrupt releases. This is the figure we were waiting on. This is the estimated additional releases from abrupt non-linear sources. 3.5 Gt a year.

See Shakhova Interview

[Vergent]

http://cid-yama.live...com/368223.html

Non-gradual methane releases from ESAS quantified

From a symposium November 30th.

Bad news: directly observed fluxes exceed estimated by up to 3 orders of magnitude

Interpretation of acoustical data recorded with deployed multibeam sonar allowed moderate quantification of bottom fluxes as high as 44 g/m2/d (Leifer et al., in preparation). Prorating these numbers to the areas of hot spots (210×103 km2) adds 3.5Gt to annual methane release from the ESAS. This is enough to trigger abrupt climate change.

link

That's in addition to the 8 tg from non-abrupt releases. This is the figure we were waiting on. This is the estimated additional releases from abrupt non-linear sources. 3.5 Gt a year.

See Shakhova Interview

I would be more careful of posting a bloggers interpretation of an interview. The interview was 3/5/10, so the paper was the 2010 paper that does not support the bloggers numbers.

http://www.sciencema...cast_100305.pdf

I don't see how he got those numbers from the interview.

[salbers]

Thanks for helping to clarify what was in a sense a raw blog (yet informative) post. And yes, the audio interview is earlier from March 2010. Perhaps it's the symposium from November 2011 that had some larger numbers? I would greatly doubt that 3.5Gt/yr is already occurring though it might potentially occur at some point. I'm checking to see if the symposium website has any further details - so far no luck.

I elsewhere see this 2008 EGU reference that suggests a potential short-term release of 50Gt in the future.

http://www.cosis.net...008-A-01526.pdf

[skierinvermont]

We should keep in mind that if we assume the 1400Gt is ready to release (from the 2011 AGU abstract), a 100 fold increase over the current 6Mt / year is only 0.6 Gt. This is only 1/2000 of the amount stated as ready to release.

At a minimum we should have more researchers sent to the ESAS to tell us why such an increase would be impossible.

All you are doing is taking the word ready out of context.

[WeatherRusty]

All you are doing is taking the word ready out of context.

If the recently detected activity turns out to represent an uptick in methane emission from natural sources, wouldn't that concern you? I am more concerned with the direction this is headed moreso than the impact of current (increased?) output.

To me this potential is akin to finding the oceans becoming a net emitter of CO2 rather than a sink. Both of these potentails are of valid scientific concern despite BethesdaWX's claims of failure to adhere to "the scientific method".

[TerryM]

At a lecture from 12/2010 the 3.5 GT figure was used - this was prior to the expedition that found venting orders of magnitude worse than previous observations.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PEIMdPkMpd8J:symposium2010.serdp-estcp.org/content/download/8914/107496/version/3/file/1A_Shakhova_Final.pdf+"esas"+3.5Gt&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=

page 34

[LithiaWx]

This entire thread has no business being on a scientific forum. The subject I have no problem with but some of the posts in this thread are a joke.

[Vergent]

At a lecture from 12/2010 the 3.5 GT figure was used - this was prior to the expedition that found venting orders of magnitude worse than previous observations.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PEIMdPkMpd8J:symposium2010.serdp-estcp.org/content/download/8914/107496/version/3/file/1A_Shakhova_Final.pdf+"esas"+3.5Gt&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=

page 34

Nice find. That number was attributed to Archer in a 2005 paper. He must have changed his mind or funding organization, in 2007 he wrote this;

http://hal-sde.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00297882/