Strong Methane Emissions On the Siberian Shelf 582
rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."
Hollow Men (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Informative)
> On the bright side, we might get to test this theory.
Wait. We might have the world's biggest fart on our hands, and your "bright side" is that we get to "test" (smell?) it? 0_o
Methane is odorless. Farts only contain up to about 10% methane. And before you ask: the methane produced by ruminant livestock usually is exhaled or "burped", not farted. Any more Urban Warming Myths?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Who let the dogs out!!??
Re:Hollow Men (Score:4, Funny)
This dinosaur's last gas(p).
Mass extinction at end of Permian (Score:5, Informative)
The mass extinction at the end of the Permian has been attributed to numerous causes. One of the prime theories also has to do with rapid release of methyl hydrates from ocean-floor clathrates.
The theory goes along the lines that oceanic overturning (exchange of bottom waters with surface waters) was limited in the Permian (even after the end of the Permo-Carboniferous glacial period), allowing accumulation of clathrates in oceanic sediments. However, overturning increased in the late Permian due to changes in oceanic circulation. This is conjectured to have caused massive releases of methane from methyl hydrates, with consequent large rapid swings in climate on land and in sea.
The evidence is not conclusive, but is strong. Most of it is derived from studies of marine fossils and isotope ratios. Discussion of the evidence and assessment of this and other theories for the extinction may be found, for example, in:
D.H. Erwin, The Great Paleozoic Crisis: Life and Death in the Permian, Columbia University Press, New York NY, 1993. ISBN:0715301306.
Of course, oceanic overturning is much stronger in the modern world, with deepwater formation especially strong in the North Atlantic and at the margins of Antarctica. This suggests the potential for clathrate release is probably rather less than it was in the late Permian, but not necessarily negligible. Another conjectured effect of global warming is slowing of oceanic overturning
The degree to which evidence supports these conjectures regarding ancient disruptions to climate is open to interpretation.
Re:Mass extinction at end of Permian (Score:4, Interesting)
There is recent evidence that methane clathrate destabilization alone couldn't have caused the PETM, because that scenario doesn't agree with paleo-reconstructions of the ocean lysocline [wikipedia.org]. See Panchuk et al., Geology 36, 315 (2008) [geoscienceworld.org].
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh. While it isn't good, remember this is one of the cooler portions of Earth's history, and we are technically still in an iceage. So it can get quite a bit hotter and life will still be sound.
Sure our civilization might not like it but life will go on.
We've got a long way to go before the run-away venusian greenhouse effects are seen. Still that doesn't mean we should do nothing.
Re:Hollow Men (Score:4, Interesting)
So it can get quite a bit hotter and life will still be sound.
An important aspect of the problem is the speed at which warming is occurring, not just the overall temperature change. The faster the increase, the more difficult it is for life to adapt. And the rate at which change is happening is unprecedented.
Unprecedented? (Score:5, Interesting)
And the rate at which change is happening is unprecedented.
I'm not really arguing with you, but 'unprecedented' is relative what slice of time you look at and who's graph you pay attention to.
If you look at temperature records provided by proxy sources (ice cores, tree rings etc...) over hundreds of thousands of years - on many of the graphs you'll find - it's pretty clear that the last millennium has been nothing unusual.
If you look short term though, (past few hundred years) it looks pretty damning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the only events you see that are comparable in rate to the modern warming are the Dansgaard-Oescher events, associated with a restart of a collapsed thermohaline circulation. The THC is not now restarting, so it does appear something unusual is now going on.
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we are in an "ice age", technically speaking. That's geologically defined to be when there are still large continental ice sheets in both hemispheres, such as Greenland and Antarctica. What we are in right now is an "interglacial" part of an ice age, a period when the ice sheets are not as large as they are in a full glacial period. See Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Re:Hollow Men (Score:4, Insightful)
So it can get quite a bit hotter and life will still be sound.
Sure our civilization might not like it but life will go on.
Sure, I don't see many people denying it. But what will it do to our economy?
Never mind the economy, what will it do for the survival prospects of 6.7 billion people?
As a species, we are appropriating the majority of earth's productive capacity for our own survival. There are already numerous regions that are ecologically stressed (i.e. they have been pushed basically to the limit of their ecological carrying capacity). A reduction in global carrying capacity, even of just 10 or 20%, is not good news for our species. Look at the lives of people living in ecologically marginal lands - they are not worried about the economy, they are worried about the fact they have to walk 5km one way to get drinking water. They are worried about the fact that food insecurity is driving a societal breakdown. That's the future that's in store for billions more if (when) a climate change crisis really starts to kick in.
To respond to the GP - Earth will do just fine if humanity disappears. Life will indeed go on.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct, there is no edge or limit. However there it seems pretty likely we will see a negative correlation of quality of life with population - if we aren't already seeing it now.
What good is a population of 20 billion on the planet if everyone is packed into endless cities? If you value open spaces, good food, clean air, nice beaches, hiking trails not packed wall-to-wall with people, wild areas with an actual range of wild animals and so forth then you probably would like to see some limits to gr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, is your post genuine or troll? Anyhow, maybe there is a good way around that difference in opinion. Since a simulated reality is all you want it seems that you would be quite happy with the Matrix like warehouse of bodies plugged into the simulator.
So, those of us who value reality can have the surface of the planet and for those happy with simulated reality there will be mile after mile of underground warehouses for you to live your simulated lives.
Since your taste and smell inputs are simulated we c
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Funny)
"Pull My Finger!"
--Earth
Re:Hollow Men (Score:5, Funny)
One could, i suppose, call it silent but deadly.
Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually humanity dies from lighting the fart. Consider what Professor Gregory Ryskin wrote [stanford.edu]:
"The consequences of a methane-driven oceanic eruption for marine and terrestrial life are likely to be catastrophic. Figuratively speaking, the erupting region "boils over," ejecting a large amount of methane and other gases (e.g., CO2, H2S) into the atmosphere, and flooding large areas of land. Whereas pure methane is lighter than air, methane loaded with water droplets is much heavier, and thus spreads over the land, mixing with air in the process (and losing water as rain). The air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%; as such mixtures form in different locations near the ground and are ignited by lightning, explosions and conflagrations destroy most of the terrestrial life, and also produce great amounts of smoke and of carbon dioxide. Firestorms carry smoke and dust into the upper atmosphere, where they may remain for several years; the resulting darkness and global cooling may provide an additional kill mechanism. Conversely, carbon dioxide and the remaining methane create the greenhouse effect, which may lead to global warming. The outcome of the competition between the cooling and the warming tendencies is difficult to predict."
You can see there's no real need to worry about global warming. If the "explosions and conflagrations" don't get you, the smoke and dust might cause global cooling. Or global warming, it could go either way. But the methane explosions are predicted to be the biggest killer.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Funny)
I feel so much better about my 401K.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that 'make-believe system' is intended and generally functions quite well if left alone (*CRA* cough) at allocating resources on a more efficient basis than every other system we've ever tried. Inefficient allocation of resources means increased poverty, and at the margin, increased death from same. For us middle-class first worlders a tick up or down isn't a big deal but getting out of grinding subsistence agriculture and moving up the ladder to a merely crappy factory job means the difference be
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right in principle. However, the financial system is make-believe because it ignores the real cost of items. The cost of a tree is not just the cost of harvesting the tree, it is also the cost of not having the tree anymore--increased CO_2 in the air ((a) not sequestered by the tree and (b) produced by fossil-fuel--burning logging equipment), loss of topsoil due to erosion, loss of intangibles that are hard to put financial value on, like beauty... Gasoline ought to cost the full clean-up cost of the air that is destroyed (not just the oxygen consumed, but the cost of getting all the toxins, carcinogens, and whatnot out of the ground and air), etc. So yes, capitalism would be great--IF it accurately accounted for the real costs of things.
But these costs have only become apparent recently. When capitalism was invented a few thousand years ago, the cost of not having a tree anymore was irrelevant because there were so many trees (well, sort of--even back then they ran into numerous problems, but the problems were quite local). Now that there are 7e9 people in the world, everything is done on such a massive scale that even small per-capita incremental costs add up to, frankly, global ecological disaster. And our financial systems haven't caught up. Whether we can make them do so in time is up in the air. Pun intended.
So yes, capitalism is wonderful in theory, but as implemented, is make-believe.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People have been bleating about market externalities for at least 150 years but when the rubber hits the road, all the alternatives are even worse at dealing with externalities. Compare pollution in the Soviet block with the West and the Sovs were clearly much dirtier.
It isn't that capitalism is perfect. It's not, which is why I'm open to alternatives. The problem is that people want to tear down capitalism and not discuss much that the alternatives they are pushing are even worse. That's just a no-go and d
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet every time we stray out of the capitalist camp (broadly defined) we later on figure out that the gains are illusory, usually a matter of robbing Peter (quietly) to pay Paul (loudly). Privatizing the global commons is possible and has been done in pieces. Why are S African elephant herds booming (they are privatized) while surrounding countries have major poaching problems?
I concede that until one figures out a decent privatization scheme, some regulation is better than an unregulated commons but that's
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is very difficult to justify private ownership of something that is not produced by someone. Who should own the air? It must be owned by one entity, since there is only one atmosphere--national boundaries are irrelevant. And that means a monopoly. Whom should I pay for the privilege of breathing? What shall I do when they increase prices? What if they don't offer a product that I want? If Microsoft Air is too dirty, I can't just switch to Apple Air.
Government exists for exactly this purpose--to
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then why do I keep getting asked to completely change my lifestyle and to spend vast sums of money to buy more expensive "carbon neutral" products?
Oh yeah? Who is asking you to spend "vast sums of money", and exactly how vast are we talking here? That's quite at odds with the fairly modest carbon taxes recommended by mainstream economists or the IPCC, on the order of $30/ton C.
As for changing your lifestyle, we're talking simple energy efficiency measures, not living in a mud hut eating bark and leaves.
This report has been called into question not just by crackpots but by reputable climatologists from many countries and backgrounds.
Fine, name one main IPCC conclusion which is is significantly at odds with the majority of the scientific literature.
On the "overstating" side, the W
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:4, Interesting)
How much methane would need to be released to create mixtures of between 5 and 15%? That's a hell of a lot of methane. Would the air even still be easily breathable at those concentrations?
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Ryskin is talking about methane being loaded with water droplets, since it came from the ocean. He says that the water makes humid methane heavier than air. That makes the methane pool up on the surface of the land. Since it's pools of humid methane, it could easily get into the range 5-15% if there is enough methane coming out of the ocean.
You would be able to breathe that air pretty easily. Methane doesn't smell, and is non-toxic. You would probably be able to smell other gases coming out of the ocean, like hydrogen sulphide. It would only kill you by suffocation in an area where the methane displaced most of the oxygen, so there wasn't enough oxygen to breathe. And if there's enough oxygen for you to breathe, there's enough to explode with the methane, if there's a spark or fire.
So, how much methane is in the ocean?
Smoking (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Was there every any real question as to the first post?
Own up (Score:2, Funny)
Alright, who farted a few hundred thousand years ago?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He who made the rhyme, did the crime...
(I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin'...)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Own up (Score:4, Funny)
Methane's not a greenhouse gas, right? (Score:3, Funny)
Luckily the methane emissions won't cause further warming. Hurray!
Methane is worse than Co2 (Score:5, Informative)
yes and no (Score:4, Interesting)
Methane has an atmospheric half-life of about 7 years (turning into CO2 and water), fairly independent of any biosphere.
CO2 has an atmospheric half-life of somewhere between 50-100 years, with some nasty feedback (more CO2 = higher temperatures = longer half life).
So, per-volume, methane is worse, but what's gonna get us is the CO2 because that hangs around much longer and has the positive feedback.
Re:yes and no (Score:5, Informative)
Normally the relative greenhouse strength is corrected for a 100-year period (ie the shorter half life is already accounted for in the 27x number; I haven't checked the number, though).
It sounds like methane does have a feedback loop -- methane causes warming releases more methane. Sure, there's a limited amount down there, but it's a rather large amount. We'd really rather it stay put.
Not saying the CO2 isn't bad... but there's no shortage of other effects to go with it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
CO2 also is already providing the maximum greenhouse effect it can. It reflects/absorbs only a pair of infrared wavelengths and the current density of CO2 in the atmosphere is already catching pretty much all of the solar energy radiated through these bands. Sorry I don't have a link handy.
Re:yes and no (Score:5, Informative)
Where do you people come up with this sort of nonsense?
Here's the projected relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature increase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPCC_AR4_WGIII_GHG_concentration_stabilization_levels.png [wikipedia.org]
Notice how it keeps going up?
That's assuming we don't hit some kind of positive feedback loop.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Where do you people come up with this sort of nonsense?
Real science. Grandparent is correct, and if you spend a few minutes researching the subject you'll (easily) find his missing link.
IPCC is a political organisation. AGW is a religion in the US (mostly). I prefer science over both politics and religion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, why don't you provide that link, then? It's the done thing to cite one's sources when making claims, rather than expecting your readers to do the work on your behalf. After all, if it's such a small job of work, it's better that you do it once, than that every one of your readers should have to do it separately. Unless you enjoy wasting your readers' time?
I spent a few
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, 4 C for 2xCO2 is a figure that includes positive feedbacks. Actually, 3 C is the IPCC's best estimate, although they say it is most likely 1.5-4.5 C. Without any positive feedbacks, it's more like 1.1 C (see Schlesinger and Andronova's 2002 article "Climate sensitivity" in EGEC). Of course, there are plenty of positive feedbacks which exist, and those lead to the IPCC's estimate. However, there are some positive feedbacks that people worry about which the IPCC didn't include in their assessment, bec
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You really need to get out more. Seriously. Go read the journals. Look at the latest few issues of Science, Nature, Nature Geoscience, Journal of Climate, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, Climate Dynamics, Climatic Change, etc. Count how many of the papers dispute the claim, "AGW is the cause of most of the warming in the past 50 years", or predicate their analysis on a contrary claim. Seriously. Go do it before coming back and telling us what the scientific community doe
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think what you're looking at is the infrared absorption spectrum [wikimedia.org]. I quite agree that the principal frequencies at which carbon dioxide absorbs infrared are quite saturated - to a good approximation, all the infrared at those frequencies is absorbed.
Thing is, though, what happens then? Your molecule absorbs a photon and goes
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
more CO2 = higher temperatures
No. That theory has been soundly rejected by real science in the last 10 years. Get with the times.
[Citation needed] :)
Re:yes and no (Score:4, Funny)
You're referring, of course, to that noted climatologist, Rush Limbaugh?
-Mike
Is it recoverable? (Score:4, Interesting)
Could this be used to drive electric plants? Is it recoverable? Anyone have a match? A really fucking big match?
Re:Is it recoverable? (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt it. I saw a special on the discovery channel about this stuff once, and they basically said it is so diffuse and spread out on the ocean floor that there is no economic way to recover it. And I doubt it is concentrated enough to achieve ignition in open air.
Needs more study (Score:2, Funny)
Let's look at this for a few decades and see if it's really happening.
Could this explode? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It changes the spectrum of the flash a little.
Re:Could this explode? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, there are very few lightning events over the ocean compared to over terra firma, but they do occur, especially when you are trying to save important objects.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
We're advising all our customers to put everything they have into canned foods and shotguns.
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
My PC doesn't fit in canned food. It doesn't run as well, either.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Because of the end of civilization, the Clamp Cable Network now leaves the air. We hope you've enjoyed our programming, but more importantly, we hope you've enjoyed... life.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The peg was removed back in 2005. I wouldn't put my own savings into the RMB/Yuan anyway, because the Chinese have invested massively in the very same failing securities that are bankrupting everyone left and right. They hold, for example, over 300 billions $ worth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and I suspect this is the prime reason for their bailouts: the Feds don't want China to register heavy losses so they don't liquidate their $ assets.
Somehow this is a bit comparable to how the Fed kept inflating duri
Ob. Monty Python (Score:5, Funny)
"I fart in your general direction!"
Love,
Siberian Shelf
Plumes of methane (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, the Russian Navy announced a successful test of a submarine powered by a brand new propulsion system. The exact details are still classified, but sources claim there is a mysterious link between it and a new food and beverage contract awarded by the Navy to Taco Bell
I can live with the methane (Score:3, Funny)
but let's just hope it doesn't follow through.
People have been expecting these Methane clouds (Score:5, Informative)
People have been expecting these Methane clouds:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3U0vEk53bVXHIcGUqqO64rvDAUg [google.com]
"Melting of methane ice unleashed runaway global warming some 635 million years ago, according to a study released Wednesday that has implications for today's climate-change crisis.
Release of the potent greenhouse-gas, at first in small amounts and then in massive volumes, brought a sudden end to the planet's longest Ice Age, its authors believe.
During the "Snowball Earth" era, Earth froze over completely, with glaciers that crept down into the tropics and possibly even reached the equator."
The Hives: Hate to Say I told You So:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsm2hSKkH7E [youtube.com]
Re:People have been expecting these Methane clouds (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, by "sudden" they mean "a mere million years".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because natural global warming comes slowly and is periodic, unlike the unprecedented exponential increase we've seen lately.
I think if more people understood what a first derivative was all this climate change denial bullshit would be far easier to expose as interest group lies.
Well, time to replace democracy and freedom with socialism and planned economies, and murder all the Christians, which, according to the deniers, is all we scientists do
Ob. Russia (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia... the outdoors farts on you.
Methane prime suspect for greatest mass extinction (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2088 [newscientist.com]
"The release of massive clouds of methane from icy hydrates buried under shallow ocean floors is the leading suspect for the most devastating extinction in the fossil record, according to a new analysis.
Methane best matches the unusual carbon-isotope fingerprints found at the scene of the crime, says Robert Berner of Yale University in Connecticut, US, though it cannot explain atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time.
Berner says: "It's possible that you could have a combination" of effects causing the mass extinction that ended the Permian period, 250 million years ago. The event wiped out the vast majority of marine species and left Europe a near-desert."
Oh shi...
What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Methane currently makes up 0.00017% of the atmosphere. That means these very localised 100x concentrations have 0.017% methane. This would mean if this concentration was worldwide, it would be approx 10x worse than the CO2 in the atmosphere. EVERYBODY PANIC.
However these are concentrations close to the surface over a very localised area. Permafrost makes up 25% of the earths surface, so that means on average this methane will now be of concentration to be 2.5x worse than the CO2. Still pretty bad.
However there are other factors, not mentioned. It's safe to assume 100x was the worst they found, not the typical (afterall makes for the best headlines), what was the average reading? How far above the surface was the reading taken? How does the concentration diffuse as you take readings higher up?
The article also neglects to mention that Methane breaks down after about 12 years (compared to 50-100 for Co2) and there's plenty of bacteria that break it down. Whilst this may cause levels to spike, once the vents in the exposed area are spent, it won't take long for levels to stabalise again.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To answer your question -- no, not in itself.
However, that's not the question. The question is, has there been any change in the mechanisms releasing methane. If so, we don't know whether we've seen the full impact of the change that has taken place, or whether the change is progressing.
It's not a cause for panic, it's something to look into. Even if this change has no global implications, the Arctic is changing in ways that make it very worth keeping an eye on.
I've only got one thing to say about Siberian gas (Score:3, Funny)
This time, it wasn't me!
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Re:Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
Um.. what? You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right? Or are you suggesting that somehow the crust is thinning beneath the methane deposits and warming them, but at the same time there are no seismic events tied to this phenomenon, even though it is happening across a very large geographic region? Or are you just talking out your ass?
Re:Speculation (Score:5, Funny)
Pun certainly not intended, I'm sure.
Here is a theory for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
> You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right?
Normally..... unless there is volcanic activity in the region like is currently going on around the north pole.
Study finds Arctic seabed afire with lava-spewing volcanoes:canada.com [canada.com]
But oh no, it just has to be global warming. It get shot somewhere: Global Warming! Record cold? That's Global Climate Change for ya. Floods? Drought? Plague of Locusts? Manmade Global Warming every time and the ONLY solution is the destruction of Wes
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
jmorris
"...replacing the values of the Enlightenment with Socialism and Planning."
Hyperbole straw man much? How about replacing our inefficient and inequitable society with a mix of small local initiatives like small organic farms supported by CSAs, co-ops, and farmers, and more local sustainable power generation like windmills and solar with SOME public large infrastructure like more trains and more subsidized broadband that seems to be working so well in Europe and Japan. The small local farms seems MOR
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh know, its the red threat all over again! Where is Patrick Swayze when we need him?! How is life in false dichotomy land? I hear you guys are trying to build a strawman that will someday reach the moon!
Seriously though, I don't think anyone advocated the end of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, nor even would recommend such. Sure, maybe your particular view of western civilization is threatened, but I doubt that most of us in the West share your values (I'm guessing extreme libertarian/freemarketeer). Yes, perha
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which Reason was advocated as the primary source and basis of authority.
The intellectual and philosophical developments of that age (and their impact in moral and social reform) aspirted towards governmental consolidation, centralisation and primacy of
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is actually a very simple, process...one that we could perhaps do without, of course, but hey - the times they are a change'n and Mother Nature is making the calls.
Re:Get it while it's hot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mods (Score:4, Informative)
Strange then that we haven't seen any from you in this thread, but since you have now named a source I will happily be moded flaimbait again by repating my original call of bullshit to your "facts". I like this random site [astro-sharp.com] by an amature astronomer, it mentions Svensmark, but I encourage readers to do their own debunking like that scientific amature has done, what follows is my own summary...
Svensmark for those who don't know him belives cosmic rays influence cloud cover, and this explains...well, everything! The glaring problem with this idea, (that incidently demands a "do nothing because nothing can be done" response), is that the 3-4 decade long data set that measures cosmic rays shows no statisticaly significant trend whatsoever. Extra points for those who can find the raw cosmic data sets, AFAIK they are available 'somewhere' on the net. Svensmark now claims that the current cooling is because of a change in cosmic rays, problem is we are not currently cooling and no change in cosmic rays has been detected. Now some people will confuse cosmic rays with sunspots and this is encouraged by Svensmark, problem is that if it's "sunspots" then why doesn't the climate have an 11yr cycle like sunspot activity does? - IMHO and as a holder of a science degree Svensmark's "theory's" are like swiss cheese and his motivations for demanding inactivity are embarrasingly obvious.
For those who like Occam's razor here's how to shave Svensmark: Clouds are the most uncertain part [wikipedia.org] of climate models, the effect of cosmic rays on clouds is even less certain and produces no detectable forcing outside the current margin of error for clouds.
Here [metoffice.gov.uk] is a similarly terse application of Occam by the UK's Met office. It's the only myth they can be bothered debunking in their "toolkit", the rest of their toolkit panel contains "facts" that you might want to look at, you know - to support your future arguments.
BTW: A genuine attempt on your behalf to debunk those "facts" will also inform your "strong beliefs" as only genuine skepticisim can.
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Dude. The glaciers on Greenland are several thousands of years old. The southern cape of Greenland, the part being inhabited by people from Norway and Iceland, was not covered with ice, and neither has it been since then. It is in fact at about the same latitude as Erik the Red's birthplace in Norway -- south of Iceland, about as far north as Anchorage. Also, the reason for Greenland being called Greenland may have been because of its shallow ("grunn") fjords, as it was also transcribed Gruntland back in th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, but while you're stating quite a lot that really doesn't help since that's either your opinion or an unproven hypothesis.
Uh, no, it's basic physics. If you think the oceans have been warming the planet since the 1970s, they should be losing heat, but they are gaining heat. The heat penetration pattern indicates that the heat is coming from the surface, i.e. the atmosphere. This is in the Levitus paper I mentioned. If you look at the spatial pattern of temperature change which correlates with the PDO, it doesn't look like the overall temperature pattern, and the PDO-correlated warming is only a small fraction of the total
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Maybe a warming trend has lasted for long enough that it's finally hit the ocean bottom in that area?
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So you say that because one data set of many is off somewhat, all the other evidence (glacier retreat, dissolving ice shelfs, animal and plant habitats shifting northward, and record summer temperatures measured on the ground) isn't real either, and that an obscure paper is the only one that knows the truth?
Sounds a lot like one of the usual conspiracy theories to me. The corrected data will be used in the next IPCC report, let's see how much it changes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
the warming trend peaked in the 1930's
Your link fails to make clear that the records it mentions are for the USA only, the global peak for that data set remained 1998.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed the climate changes over time, but this time around 6 billion people are going to be in the ways of Mother Earth - this means we are going to see climate refugees and climate wars, again nothing new, we have always had something to run away from or fight over, the difference this time is the scale its going to happen on.
Oh also, it might be part of a natural cycle, but you keep saying that to yourself when standing knee deep in water, hoping for someone to pick you up.
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:5, Informative)
It's called thermal inertia, however your question is still interesting.
I have followed the IPCC for many years and one of their biggest failures in accuracy has been what is sometimes called the "missing methane" problem. The 1997 IPPC report (and those that followed) predicted methane would keep rising but the follow up observations have (until now) shown the trend to be flat for the last 10yrs or so.
In otherwords the question is not why has it started rising again but rather why did it take an unexpected break for a decade?
BTW: I find it odd that the psuedo-skeptics have not lept on the missing methane issue as a way to discredit the IPCC, surely that would be more plausable than denying the North Pole is disintergrating, but that's politics for ya!
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:5, Informative)
>>BTW: I find it odd that the psuedo-skeptics have not lept on the missing methane issue as a way to discredit the IPCC
I think the IPCC has done a good enough job discrediting themselves, with their predictions historically overstating global warming:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001317verification_of_1990.html [colorado.edu]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Climatologist James Annan has a whole series of blog posts debunking Pielke's claims, e.g. here [blogspot.com] and here [blogspot.com], here [blogspot.com], etc. The short answer is that given the large amount of interannual noise present in the data, the 2.5 C "best estimate" trend is consistent with the observed trend, i.e. you can't say with statistical confidence whether the discrepancy is due to statistical fluctuations in weather or is something real in the underlying climate system. Pielke also makes the common mistake of pretending that the
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:5, Interesting)
"It's called thermal inertia"
No, it's really not, at least in this case.
From the article:
"It is likely that methane emissions off Svalbard have been continuous for about 15,000 years - since the last ice age - but as yet no one knows whether recent climactic shifts in the Arctic have begun to accelerate them to a point where they could in themselves exacerbate climate change, he said."
In other words, no, anthropogenic climate change doesn't seem to have a real link to this.
The "missing methane" problem is still there. Despite this (and other) clathrate/methane releases, actual MEASURED methane in the atmosphere isn't anywhere near high enough to make up the difference in the IPCC's predictions.
Clathrates at this sort of depth are more pressure-sensitive than temperature-sensitive, and according to the IPCC and others, the oceans are supposed to get deeper as the ice caps melt. So they have to choose one or the other scenario - they can't have both.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Should have previewed:
I find it odd that the IPCC fails to mention that increased underwater volcanic activity under the arctic has been occurring since at least 1999, including a pyroclastic eruption and one that supposedly was as large as Pompei
It's not odd; the heat generated by undersea volcanoes is negligible compared to the heat necessary to melt that quantity of ice. This is noted in other press releases [canada.com]. It would actually make a nice physics "Fermi problem" for students to estimate, back of envelope, the amount of ice that could be melted this way.
or would it be better to go ahead and destroy (or at least tax to ruin) western civilization as a precautionary measure?
... and here we descend from a seemingly honest question into insane political hyperbole.
Clue: "Carbon taxes will destroy the economy" is the conservative scare s
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the difference in interpretation of exactly what "murder" is that determines the destructive societies from the constructive ones.
Funny thing is that Islam has an even stronger moral code against killing innocents than Christianity, yet they are the ones which have the least problem with targeting purely civilian populations.
Perhaps this goes to show that it's not necessarily what your holy book says literally, it depends on who your contemporary religious leaders are.
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:4, Insightful)
The current Rehabilitating Mr Wiggles [mrwiggleslovesyou.com] answers this question: because it's kind of a dick thing to do.
Seriously though, if everyone went around killing each other whenever it suited them, you'd always be in danger of being killed yourself. There's very compelling reasons for a society to collectively agree that killing each other is a bad thing and that it won't be tolerated. No need for a fear of divine retribution.
why is it "wrong" to kill someone (Score:4, Insightful)
It does touch on a point I've wondered about: religion seems to be the foundation of much of our societal moral code. Without the framework of religion, why is it "wrong" to kill someone?
Reminds me of thing Nietzsche wrote about the madman in the market place, "now that we've killed God, which way is up or down?" This is known as the question of 'grounding' and is the subject of much debate in the study of ethics.
Religion does provide one ground. It is perhaps most effective because it relies on blind obedience and discourages thinking. "What is wrong with murder ... easy ... God says don't do it." But other grounds, more suitable to thinking creatures do exist. Kant's categorical imperative, for example, "Want to live in a world where every person tries kill every other? No? Then don't kill."
Putting aside the question of grounding, it is my contention that a Christian cannot appreciate the true gravity of murder in the way an atheist can. Christians have convinced themselves in the existence of an afterlife. For them killing a human is merely removing them from this world (the less important world). An atheist on the other hand realises that killing a human being is the snuffing out of an individual and unique consciousness for all time. A consciousness which longs for existence, just as much as our own does. It is this moral consideration which stops the atheist killing. Theists instead act only in obedience to their God motivated by ultimate personal reward. You might go even further and state that whereas atheists can truly be moral creatures, theists can't.
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"it is my contention that a Christian cannot appreciate the true gravity of murder in the way an atheist can. "
That's very wrong if that Christian believes that there is a place/situation/state called Hell, and that is is a very very very bad place/situation/state to be in[1].
Whereas many atheists believe once you die, that's it - nonexistence. IMO that is arguably an _infinitely_ better situation to be in.
Based on popular Christian doctrine:
If you killing a nonchristian you risk sending them to Hell.
If you