Dear all,
As I understand it, carbon in the Arctic is stored in a number of
different forms:
1. Plants and plant material in tundra above permafrost
2. Plant material trapped in permafrost below tundra
3. Plant material and methane hydrate trapped in permafrost below
shallow sea
4. Biomass trapped in sea ice
5. Biomass trapped in Greenland ice sheet/dome
Although the biomass of 4 and 5 is in surprisingly large quantity, and
reduces ice albedo (greying the ice), it does not contribute to methane
(as far as I know), and so will not be further considered.
1. There is a problem of tundra when dry that it is liable to burn.
Global warming can increase frequency of long dry periods. There were
major fires of Russian tundra in 2010, releasing much CO2, black carbon
and heat. These all contribute to Arctic warming and melting of snow -
decreasing its albedo. They also increase the melting of permafrost
below, see 2.
2. There is a massive quantity of plant material trapped in permafrost
below the tundra. As the permafrost melts, and depth of unfrozen ground
increases, the plant material decomposes releasing CO2 and methane.
Some methane is converted into CO2 by bacteria, releasing heat and
increasing permafrost melt in the ground and increasing Arctic
atmospheric temperature. The methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but
this source of methane has yet to have a significant effect on the
Arctic atmospheric temperature.
3. A massive quantity of methane hydrate has been discovered trapped in
permafrost under the seabed of the shallow sea - known as the East
Siberial Arctic Shelf (ESAS). As the sea ice retreats in spring and
summer, the water warms, and then winds cause mixing. Warm water is
reaching patches of the sea bed and melting the permafrost, causing
release (or venting) of methane in "hotspots", scattered across the
ESAS. This atmospheric methane in the Arctic has grown over the past
few years to a level well above the global average level, and much
higher again over hotspots, where it now may be sufficient to start
causing some local greenhouse warming in a positive feedback loop.
We cannot expect a silver bullet for stopping the methane, but rather a
combination of methods:
a) general cooling of the Arctic, e.g. by SRM with stratospheric aerosols;
b) reducing heat flow into the Arctic, e.g. by cloud brightening over
the Gulf Stream (becoming the North Atlantic Drift);
c) local cooling of the surface, e.g. by increasing albedo;
d) reducing heat flow locally, e.g., for ESAS, by diverting rivers which
currently flow in from the south;
e) removing the trapped carbon, e.g. by mining the methane hydrate (if
that were possible);
e) converting methane to CO2 before it spreads in the atmosphere, e.g.
by biological means or by burning;
f) capturing the methane from the atmosphere.
There may be others.
An interesting proposal has been put forward by Mark Massmann for (a),
which entails releasing liquid air (Lair) or liquid nitrogen (LN2) from
an aircraft, as follows:
In terms of an SRM solution that could be employed on short order, and
be readily-accepted by various governments (i.e. be non-polluting, avoid
adverse effects on weather patterns etc), I don't see any of the
"existing" concepts being able to do this.
However, I do believe that the potential of the Lair concept could
be determined very quickly, by simply installing an existing
"ground" cryogenic storage tank in a heavy-lift aircraft and releasing
it as high as possible to see what happens (existing KC-135 refueling
aircraft could go to 50,000 ft). Even a relatively small Lair of LN2
release could provide enough evidence to show that, if results were
extrapolated to larger releases, very large ice-clouds could result. I
believe Lair will create a chain-reaction for saturated and super-cooled
water vapor to "flash" into ice crystals (from the mechanism of
deposition), similar to how contrails which start out small continue to
grow into large cirrus clouds. The Lair clouds would however be much
thicker than ordinary contrials, hopefully ensuring that they provide
a large net-cooling (science is divided on if contrails provide cooling
or warming, but they are optically very thin).
Also, Lair could be released at lower altitudes to see if it causes
condensation of water vapor into new clouds and if it can
enlarge existing clouds. A 3rd application might be to spray Lair
over marine clouds to make them brighter by increasing their droplet
density. It seems this effect was observed in China's weather
experiments, where releasing liquid nitrogen over clouds was said to
delay the onset of rain by making droplets smaller. This approach was
supposedly used to help prevent rain on the 2008 Olympics.
It appears to me that the airborne testing of Lair may be the only way
to know what it really does anyhow. I don't think existing computer
models are anywhere close to being able to simulate Lair's effect at the
level of detail needed, and that the current understanding of cloud
physics may be too limited to make a judgment on its feasibility. If
this is the case, it makes sense to proceed with limited air trials
(likely over the ocean) to see what Lair can do. The fact we would be
simply releasing clean air in the process should alleviate concerns
about pollution or adverse effects, making it much easier to obtain
whatever approval is needed.
It might also be possible dump the Lair or LN2 directly onto a land
surface to cause a frost covering and increase albedo locally, i.e. for
local cooling (c). If it were dumped onto a water surface - lake or sea
- it might form a reflective fog layer, which would also increase
albedo. Apparently, as the liquid is dumped, it spreads out very
rapidly and evenly over the surface.
Note that Mark considers this a stop-gap measure until more general
Arctic cooling is obtained. He further writes:
/All of these approaches could be tested very easily and quickly,
either in a lab setting or preferably where the permafrost is
melting. The fact that Lair is perfectly safe from an environmental
standpoint (i.e. byproduct is perfectly clean air) should help
tremendously in gaining approval for research and development.
Because Lair is so cold (-320 deg F/-195 deg C) and expands 900 times
into air at sea level, each 100-ton payload should cool a very large
area on the ground.
Some responses to the idea of using Lair have included "It requires
too much energy to produce", or "It would be prohibitively
expensive". However, Lair is actually produced very efficiently, so
that a modern liquefaction plant can create 1,000 tons per day at an
energy cost of 12 cents per gallon. The Lair from just 2 liquefaction
plants might be all that is needed to significantly limit the release
of methane. This would equal 2,000 tons of Lair per day, with 10
aircraft flying 2 missions per day. Therefore each 100-ton mission =
200,000 lbs, times (6.7 lbs per gallon) = 30,000 gallons, times 20
missions = 600,000 gallons (2.2 million liters) per day.
/
I look forward to discussion of this proposal, and to further ideas and
suggestions.
Best wishes,
John
--
On 08/05/2011 17:32, P. Wadhams wrote:
Dear John, I'm very ready to contribute to the brainstorming if I can.
I guess the thrust of my last message - which was not intended to be
completely despairing, though that's how it turned out - was that
Arctic methane emission cannot be viewed in isolation. It's a product
of Arctic heating. Permafrost melt on land can only be stopped if
Arctic air temperatures stop rising. The best way to do that is to cut
back on CO2 emissions, but I fear that the human race is not mature
enough to do that. That does leave some kind of Arctic aerosol
deployment, i.e. geoengineering, as a way of stopping or slowing the
warming. Permafrost melt under the sea is largely due to the open
water which now exists over shelf areas in summer, allowing the
shallow waters to warm. So it is a consequence of sea ice retreat.
Direct interventions to preserve sea ice, as various people have
proposed, may be an answer, but I have grave doubts as to whether any
of the methods would be effective, given (a) the scale of the problem,
(b) the fact that the sea ice is responding to a complex of factors,
including increased heat transport from changed ocean currents, so
there may not be a simple fix. The idea of spreading liquid air, for
instance, just will not work. You only have to look at the magnitude
of the latent heat that has to be extracted. Given that methane has a
climatic impact for 7 years after emission, while for CO2 it is 100,
perhaps we should be looking at methane sequestration techniques (if
there are any) to cope with the huge blip of methane input that will
happen when all the seabed permafrost and a lot of the terrestrial
permafrost melts within a comparatively few years. There may be some
chemistry here that makes it easier than CO2 sequestration, Best
wishes Peter
On May 8 2011, John Nissen wrote:
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 an
impermeable 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 cuts
Frankly, I wonder how long it will take for people to understand
that soon
methane (CH4) emissions from melting permafrost (both under the sea
and on
land) 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
amounts
of 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). But
that is also true for the retreat of the Arctic sea ice, where the
frightening volume trend (with trend line curving towards zero ice end
summer 2015 or 2016 [4]) is ignored. The scientists who advise
governments
give 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 the
methane! 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
Arctic
atmosphere."
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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