Dear Peter,
I agree entirely with your analysis of how we have got into this critical situation with the methane. And I agree that the challenge of stopping the methane and halting the sea ice retreat is daunting. But this challenge does not even seem to be recognised by the scientific establishment! If the challenge were recognised for what it is, then surely all governments would demand scientists and engineers came up with a plan of action to meet the challenge, and they'd treat this as an all-out war effort, as if our lives and the lives of future generations depend on it - which they do!
I am not so pessimistic about finding a solution, because many good ideas are coming forward. Anyhow I cannot face the prospect of failure, because it would be so horrendous to witness the start of an unstoppable process - the abrupt climate change - the "quantum jump that is about to happen", as you put it. I cannot bear to think of my children suffering the consequences - being caught up in the "climate-driven collapse of our entire global civilisation" as you put it. Failure is not an option!
Of course, it would have been much easier if we'd started with our geoengineering years ago, and prevented the sea ice retreat, permafrost melt and resulting methane problem. Better still to have curbed CO2 emissions decades ago, and eliminated the cause of these problems and more. But history shows us that civilised societies tend to postpone action as long as possible - waiting for a catastrophic event to spur action. Unfortunately, by the time there is such an event, it will be too late. We have to act within months, not years, to give ourselves a reasonable chance of success. Please contribute to the brainstorming, and help in producing a plan of action.
Best wishes, John --- On 08/05/2011 13:46, P. Wadhams wrote:
Dear John, I agree with your diagnosis of the serious role that methane is going to play in the next phase of global warming, but fear that Semiletov is right in his statement that we can do nothing (so long as stupidity and greed prevail in the world of course, but unfortunately that seems to be a given). The unfortunate fact is that two big factors are driving Arctic methane release: (1) The general increase in global temperatures (enhanced by a factor of 2-3 in the Arctic) as a product of our CO2 emissions, which is causing permafrost to melt on land, (2) the summer retreat of sea ice from continental shelves, which allows the shallow shelf seas to warm by up to 5C right down to the seabed in summer, causing offshore permafrost to melt and release trapped methane. The sea ice retreat is itself a result of global warming via mechanisms involving both air temperature and ocean heat transport. Therefore what is causing methane emission, both on land and at sea, is our heating of the atmosphere due to CO2 emissions. The dangerous difference about today is that the heating has just become enough to trigger massive releases (eg the seabed warming) while in the past it was not. A quantum jump is about to happen. There seems to be no prospect of reducing our CO2 emissions, or even of reducing the rate of rise in our CO2 emissions. The greens may think they have won some battles in building wind farms and making us sort our rubbish, but this is pitiful deckchair-rearrangement compared with the fact that China is building four coal-fired power stations per week and is set to continue to do this ad infinitum since they have plenty of coal and have taken over the world's manufacturing industry. Greed and blindness continue to govern our stewardship of the planet, and I fear there is no solution except the climate-driven collapse of our entire global civilisation. If geoengineering can do something to slow this, then great. My own fears for any technique involve (a) unknown side effects, (b) the fact that it is like putting a sticking plaster on a gigantic wound, in that it is slowing the temperature rise while doing nothing about the driving force, the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Processes that depend only on CO2 rather than temperature will continue apace, e.g. acidification of the ocean, leading to loss of the marine ecosystem. CO2 sequestration would seem to be the only geoengineering that would be really safe and productive in the long term. However the energy required to get rid of CO2 itself has to be generated, and this has to be by non-emissive methods like nuclear or renewable. But if you are going to do this you have solved the problem anyway since you are no longer emitting the CO2 that is causing the problem! Sorry to seem pessimistic but I do fear the worst. I suspect that in 20 years time we will be seeing a range of serious impacts making the world a quite different (and nastier) place than it is now. One of them will be the loss of summer sea ice (I think this will happen in less than 10 years). At my age I will, sadly, be seeing just the beginning of the collapse of our planetary civilisation, but I fear that our grandchildren will live (or not love) through the whole thing, Best wishes Peter Wadhams. On May 8 2011, John Nissen wrote:Hi David,Apparently this concern about the "methane time bomb" goes back a few years[1]. But Similetov is defeatist: *Similetov added:**We are aware that our results showing that the permafrost is no longer animpermeable barrier to methane release have not been duplicated by other researchers at this time. But it is high time to warn people.* *He stopped for an instant and smiled, before adding, "We can do nothing about it, of course."* However one of the comments does mention geoengineering: *Soon CH4 emissions will overwhelm any cutsFrankly, I wonder how long it will take for people to understand that soon methane (CH4) emissions from melting permafrost (both under the sea and onland) will overwhelm any greenhouse gas emission cuts mankind makes.Instead, the Greens are chasing their tails demanding politically unrealistic gigantic emission cuts. Not only would those emissions cuts, if implimented, waste resources better spent on a feasible solution, but the Greens are wasting whatever political capital they have on a lost cause.Don't you understand that the permafrost will already emit gigantic amountsof CH4 regardless, because of the thermal inertia of the climate system,because of the emissions from machines already built and agriculture, and because of feedback loops like natural methane emissions and albedo flips?Obviously, it is a simple choice between a massive cull of mankind and implimentation of a geoengineering scheme (I suggest using an engineered aerosol to dim the sun a little). Really, the only question is will we impliment a sun dimming scheme before or after the ecosystems rapidly collapse from record heatwaves. www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod *[2]* * It turns out that the commentator is Brad Arnold [3], and I am trying to contact him. I have also written to Jim Hansen, mentioned in the same EGU report [1]. More recent research seems to confirm Similetov's fears about the instability of the permafrost layer holding back the methane.It seems that everybody in the scientific establishment has downplayed the methane problem (with very few exceptions, including Peter Wadhams). Butthat is also true for the retreat of the Arctic sea ice, where the frightening volume trend (with trend line curving towards zero ice endsummer 2015 or 2016 [4]) is ignored. The scientists who advise governmentsgive the impression that CO2 emissions cuts can alone solve the global warming problem. This is patently not the case.We can do something about the methane. We HAVE to do something about themethane! And quickly!! Cheers, John [1] http://www.grist.org/article/Methane-time-bomb-ticking-louder [2] Unfortunately this page no longer exists. [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/dobermanmacleod[4] http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/---On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 12:09 AM, David Appell <[email protected]>wrote:???-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Arctic methane Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:54:32 -0700 From: David Appell <[email protected]><[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: [email protected]John, Hi. On the Google geoengineering group you wrote (Apr 28):> "Significant quantities of methane are already appearing in the Arcticatmosphere." I was wondering what scientific data you were basing this statement on. Thanks, David -- David Appell, independent science journalist e: [email protected] w: http://www.davidappell.com b: http://davidappell.blogspot.com p: (001) 503-975-5614 m: St. Helens, OR USA
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