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Earth Science

Arctic Permafrost Melting 70 Years Sooner Than Expected, Study Finds (weather.com) 231

An anonymous reader quotes a report The Weather Channel: Scientists studying climate change expected layers of permafrost in the Canadian Arctic to melt by the year 2090. Instead, it's happening now. A new study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters revealed that unusually warm summers in the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 and 2016 resulted in permafrost melt up to 240% higher than previous years. Louise Farquharson, a researcher at the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the study's lead author, told weather.com the three areas of melting permafrost studied in remote northern Canada are believed to have been frozen for thousands of years. She noted that while scientists had predicted the permafrost wouldn't melt for another 70 years, those forecasts didn't take into account the unusually warm summers that have happened in recent years. While researchers believe all indicators point to warmer temperatures continuing, there's no way to know for sure just how quickly the permafrost will continue to melt. Not only is rapidly melting permafrost a symptom of global warming, but it accelerates climate change by exposing thawing biological material to the atmosphere where it decomposes and releases CO2, a key element in global warming.
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Arctic Permafrost Melting 70 Years Sooner Than Expected, Study Finds

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  • No really, this time we are doomed for sure! Unless we do something locally even though all human problems we claim need to be corrected to fix this are largely because of actions by other countries.

    • by GrimSavant ( 5251917 ) on Saturday June 15, 2019 @12:04AM (#58765948)
      Denial is quite the superpower. You can believe whatever you want if you can simply deny the reality of any negative consequences or inconsistencies of your beliefs. All the better if you won't live long enough to be contradicted by your lying eyes and ears for something far enough in the future.
      • Consequences? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by bussdriver ( 620565 )

        Perhaps somebody can find a way to put deniers ON RECORD for history in a public way so they know future generations will be able to see they were on the wrong side of history. So then they and their family can't hide out of shame later on like the former Nazis... or in some cases act proud of it anyway like pro-confederates (who are so ashamed of their ancestors it generates cognitive dissonance.)

        Essentially a monument to idiocy; that will get more attention than their gravestone likely would ever get.

        NOW

        • Perhaps somebody can find a way to put deniers ON RECORD for history in a public way so they know future generations will be able to see they were on the wrong side of history.

          Seems fair. Because if there is not catastrophic warming by mid century we will all know Mann and Hansen were full of shit.

          Or more likely you will simply worship them for having saved us LOL

          • Not worship... but perhaps people should worship SCIENCE instead of primitive folk stories!

            It's solid science, it's not even remotely full of anything but logic. Exact time prediction is not actually important but knowing that CO2 makes it hotter and knowing how tiny the atmosphere is and how much we put into it is not hard stuff; it's not rocket science even though that science is what woke us up to the problem. (see history, why Venus is so hot...)

            Denying man-made global warming is as stupid as fearing di

            • It's solid science, it's not even remotely full of anything but logic. Exact time prediction is not actually important

              The ability to make accurate predictions used to be an important part of science back in the day.

    • even though all human problems we claim need to be corrected to fix this are largely because of actions by other countries.

      If every country points to all other countries, then what's your solution ?

      • If every country points to all other countries, then what's your solution ?

        Destroy the human infestation. Just a single nuclear war would not only fix that, but it would cool down the warming planet with a convenient nuclear winter. We don't even have to attack another country we could aim all the missiles at ourselves and that may create enough radioactive fallout to nuclear winter the planet and kill off most radioactive sensitive life with the radiation. No matter what the question it seems like nuclear power is the answer. The power of the atom.

    • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Saturday June 15, 2019 @12:37AM (#58766040)

      No really, this time we are doomed for sure!

      Relax. It's not a whole wolf that crawled out of the melting permafrost . . . it's just the head:

      Wolf's head preserved by permafrost found in Siberia [cbsnews.com]

    • When even the ancaps behind South Park have given up on denialism, what's keeping you going strong?

      even though all human problems we claim need to be corrected to fix this are largely because of actions by other countries.

      So you're just gonna ignore the fact that western countries, and the US in particular, have released most of the emissions that have brought us to this point. I'm shocked, shocked. And much of the pollution you guys complain about in India and China is used to produce products for your e

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Ignoring the catastrophic stupidity of that argument for a moment, are you really going to leave all those jobs and development opportunities on the table? Cleaning up your own country is the best opportunity you've had since WW2.

    • Hey look it's really a wolf this time!

      Wolf? Is that from the parable that goes something like this:

      There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep when he saw a wolf. He cried out "wolf" and the villagers came running. But the wolf was pretty far away.

      "That wolf is miles away!" said one villager. "You stopped me playing call of duty for this?". The other villagers shared the sentiment and went grumbling back down the hill.

      In time, the wolf wandered closer. "

    • No really, this time we are doomed for sure!

      he continues to say facetiously while ignoring the farmboy cleaning up the sheep carcass.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yes, Madam Doctor, I know I should start exercising and lose weight. But I've been overweight for so long and my entire family overeats, its too late in the game for me to change my life-style. Just give me a prescription for those rose colored glasses, that will make me feel better.

  • Just as a sci-fi plot idea, wouldn't it be interesting if there was some kind of bacteria or virus roaming around 20+K years ago that modern creatures don't have any defense against. Something that cripples plankton or earthworms or some basic foundation block that, as it turns out, other life on earth depends.
    • Just as a sci-fi plot idea, wouldn't it be interesting if there was some kind of bacteria or virus roaming around 20+K years ago that modern creatures don't have any defense against.

      The mental model that people tend to have about plagues is that they are powerful destructive forces that one must build defenses against.

      A more accurate model would be that plagues occupy a delicate ecological niche and must be tuned to occupy it through natural selection over time.

      A plague must defeat the biological defenses of the body true - not be killed - but they must also be efficient in growing and propagating themselves and then disseminating to new hosts and this requires carefully tuning to the

    • Spoiler alert:

      You can check out this four-book series [rifters.com] -- what you're describing shows up in some form in the third and fourth books. A good (if gritty) read, and free in multiple formats online.

      • Oh, I thought Rifters was only three books ... I must have missed one. Thanx for the link!

        • While the webpage shows four book covers, the single Behemoth cover on the webpage is actually two dead-tree books, which is what I meant, and the Blindsight cover isn't part of the Rifters series. Glad I could provide some subtle confusion on that point.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Saturday June 15, 2019 @02:30AM (#58766306) Homepage

      Well, you are close. They earlier than expected melt is related to biological activity. It depends how nitrogen rich the permafrost is, the more nitrogen the more rapid the growth of methane generating organism is and a by product of that biological activity is heat. Now normally you would expect the permafrost to freeze come winter but the heat went down deep enough, in nitrogen rich soils, to really get things going and the heat generated by the biological activity, is able to sustain the melt and more biological growth. Now add in winter and a snow cover, think igloo if it helps and the now very active methane generating biology keeps ticking over and not freezing and the heat generated melts more permafrost, generating more activity and more heat. This generates what has become the now familiar methane blow outs, overnight very circular ponds.

      The biological heat is enough to greatly accelerate melting even during winter, actually a little worse because the snow blanket works as insulation. It does require nitrogen rich soils to accelerate so it is not uniform but fairly diverse dependent upon, environmental conditions over the tens of thousands of years as the soils were created and deposited.

      What is new is the greater heat at this time, driven by the moronic fossil fuellers, tapping into tens of thousands of years of stored biological fuel and the heat generated by the biological process to drill down into the soon to be ex-permafrost. How deep, depends on localised conditions and accessible nitrogen. Make no mistake, summer or winter, that permafrost is going to melt at all locations rich in nitrogen, once that fuel is gone the process will settle down but by then, way too late. Once the Arctic ocean heats up enough to melt the methane hydrates, well expect a short, sharp sudden sea level rise, will relatively short, it will some small number of years, but their will be a distinct, definite, ohh fuck moment when it is entirely too late.

      On a side note, China and Russia win because the USA is totally fucked by a 1.5m sea level rise, which of course totally cripples the US economy, it simply can not lose the east coast in the way it will. Don't worry though, entirely too late and you should only ever worry over things you can change, with things you can't, why worry, you are fucked already and all the worry in the world will not change it one iota.

      Don't buy in any location that would be impacted by a 1.5m sea level rise, it would be mind bogglingly stupid to do it at this time. Although an amphibious car and a house on stilts might well be fun.

      • I would wager that both the coasts of Russia and China are longer than the coast of USA ... a 1.5m rise is bad for nearly every nation. Obviously Switzerland and Nepal have no coasts ... so don't nitpick.

    • That is actually not SiFI but a current strong concern. E.g. regarding antrax. We already know that there are antrax infected corpses in the perma frost.

  • We don't have to save for retirement anymore.
    • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      We don't have to save for retirement anymore.

      Always look on the bright side of life. *whistle*
      Always look on the bright side of death. *whistle*

  • This doesn't contradict the main predictions of The Model as such. Don't lose faith in your model. Obviously these guys are deniers getting paid by the oil industry to make these claims. Just ignore it and continue your backyard farming and vegan bicycling. Everything else The Model predicts will come true exactly when and exactly how it predicts. Do not even think of questioning The Model. The Model is science and believe me you don't want to be anti-science. Do not even let your mind stray in that directi

  • We might find some more mammoth carcasses in the thawing permafrost.

  • This is caused not just by China's co2, but the massive amount of particles that fall on Western Canada, Alaska and cause fast melting.
  • Humans are so stupid and irrational and create suffering for each other with systematic precision. We should go extinct. The planet is better off without us. Those of us that do have answers and insight into how to change civilization into a peaceful, intelligent group that celebrates life and human existence, we are never listened to. Instead we pursue stupid shit like money, status, sex, power and the list goes on and on. If that's what we value as a civilization, perhaps we deserve what's coming.
  • by mapkinase ( 958129 ) on Saturday June 15, 2019 @06:09PM (#58769298) Homepage Journal

    I like how "vegetation" used universally as positive change in any other context now is suddenly creepy, losing all the positive connotations.

  • Dang....

    I wager you can find a study that predicts just about anything with climate...but heck, I am all for allowing gray whales to return to their north Atlantic crossings.

    (and I am not a Troll, I am a Dwarf.)

Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. - Anonymous

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