Climatologist says arctic carbon release means "We're Fucked"

[Zak757]

Article link [http://www.iflscience.com/environment/climatologist-arctic-carbon-release-could-mean-%E2%80%9Cwere-fucked%E2%80%9D].

Climatologists have spent decades politely warning that we are cooking our planet, but now one has decided to stop sugar coating it. Professor Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland tweeted ?If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're fucked.?

Box was responding to research by Stockholm University reporting ?vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor? in the Arctic Ocean.

The scientists who made the discovery were more restrained. ?This was somewhat of a surprise,? chief scientist Orjan Gustafsson wrote. Although there have been plenty of reports of methane plumes in the Arctic before, these have been a forewarning of danger, rather than a direct threat themselves. Microorganisms in the water column scavenge methane as it rises. Provided they can get to it before it reaches the surface the climate change damage is small.

However, at some locations the Swedish team saw bubbles reaching the surface. Dissolved methane concentrations were 10-50 times background levels, and expedition members report ?sniffing methane?.

?While there has been much speculation about the vulnerability of regular marine hydrates along the continental slopes of the Arctic rim, very few actual observations of methane releases due to collapsing marine hydrates on the Arctic slope have been made,? Gustafsson wrote.

The methane was released from a steep continental shelf 250-500m beneath the Laptev Sea off Siberia. There is evidence that the last vestige of the Gulf Stream, which reaches this point having wrapped around Scandinavia, has become warmer in recent years, and this may be triggering the release.

Explorations of the Arctic Ocean are so recent we don't know whether such events are unprecedented, but we do know the area has warmed dramatically in recent decades.

Simultaneously, evidence is building that methane release is the cause of the craters that have suddenly started appearing in other parts of Siberia. When interviewed by Vice Box said if he knew the tweet was going to attract so much attention he would have included the methane in permafrost, since this could be equally dangerous, but says he doesn't know enough about the holes to comment on their relation to climate change.

Box is a highly credentialed scientist, whose main area of research is dark snow, snow that has had soot and black carbon fall on it, speeding its melting. He blogs at Meltfactor, where he says we need ?an aggressive atmospheric decarbonization program. We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating. If we don?t get atmospheric carbon down and cool the Arctic, the climate physics and recent observations tell me we will probably trigger the release of these vast carbon stores, dooming our kids? to a hothouse Earth. That?s a tough statement to read when your worry budget is already full as most of ours is.?

Succinctly put, though I doubt that would be nearly enough to make the average greedy and short sighted politician care. I'm hoping there have been some miscalculations on their end and that this isn't going to be nearly as bad as they said it will be, because I don't have much hope that there will be any panic over this until it's too late.

EDIT: If you've read about the mysterious crater on the Yamal Peninsula, Siberia, this is now believed to be the cause of it. Read about it here. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/05/scientists-may-have-cracked-the-giant-siberian-crater-mystery-and-the-news-isnt-good/]

EDIT 2: Could definitely be the beginning stages of the Clathrate gun hypothesis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis]. According to the wiki page, this was possibly what caused a 6 degree (Celsius) climb that caused the Permiam extinction, the most severe extinction event known. Raising the temperature that much won't cause DOOM for humanity or anything but third world countries would suffer a lot from it, which very few in positions of power care about.

 

[Doclector]

Y'know, I have always been cynical of man made climate change. Fact is, our planets has the potential to release a lot of shit into the atmosphere in the first place.

BUT. That's completely fucking irrelevant. Another simple fact is that the fuel is running out, and we'd be better off altogether with renewable, clean energy.

And if this is true, then it's even more dire, so someone needs to remind the politicians how much of a cut they'll get from zero fucking fuel. "Let's see, ten percent of nothing, plus nothing, carry the nothing..."

 

[Queen Michael]

To be honest, I never had any hope in the first place.

 

[Super Cyborg]

Y'know, I have always been cynical of man made climate change. Fact is, our planets has the potential to release a lot of shit into the atmosphere in the first place.

BUT. That's completely fucking irrelevant. Another simple fact is that the fuel is running out, and we'd be better off altogether with renewable, clean energy.

And if this is true, then it's even more dire, so someone needs to remind the politicians how much of a cut they'll get from zero fucking fuel. "Let's see, ten percent of nothing, plus nothing, carry the nothing..."

I agree with this. Problem is that companies don't seem to invest in it because they want to have a return in a certain number of years. This comes back to the problem of companies being short sighted. Another question is what can we do to fix this besides just renewable, clean energy? There's already a lot of damage done, and even if we stop nature will still produce a lot, so we need something that can clean the air.

Another thing is that this will just be part of the cycle of the planet. All this causes things to change significantly, which will cause a lot of changes, and lots of people, animals, and plants will be screwed, but over time the earth will recover. It would be best to fix it now, but that's not likely to happen. I feel part of the problem is that people focus on small issues that shouldn't matter so we could focus on stuff like this. If we didn't have to worry about representation, bigotry, and other stuff, we could focus on stuff like this. Just to clarify, I'm blaming the people who are actively stopping social progress which by halting that, stops people from focusing on these types of issues. Another problem is that it's hard to convince people when they don't care about stuff till it happens.

 

[Vault101]

If we didn't have to worry about representation, bigotry, and other stuff, we could focus on stuff like this. Just to clarify, I'm blaming the people who are actively stopping social progress which by halting that, stops people from focusing on these types of issues. Another problem is that it's hard to convince people when they don't care about stuff till it happens.

I don't know that sounds like bullshit to me

people can care about more than one thing at a time...its just gay rights is a hell of a lot easyer to "fix" than the climate, which is really at the mercy of governments and companies who seem unable to get their shit together

 

[Shiftygiant]

Well, shit.

And I thought we were at least making some progress.

 

[Super Cyborg]

If we didn't have to worry about representation, bigotry, and other stuff, we could focus on stuff like this. Just to clarify, I'm blaming the people who are actively stopping social progress which by halting that, stops people from focusing on these types of issues. Another problem is that it's hard to convince people when they don't care about stuff till it happens.

I don't know that sounds like bullshit to me

people can care about more than one thing at a time...its just gay rights is a hell of a lot easyer to "fix" than the climate, which is really at the mercy of governments and companies who seem unable to get their shit together

It could very well be, I'm known to spout bullshit at times, but I was just taking a guess. It might affect some people though. The bigger reason is that things that affect people immediately is the causes they will get behind. The LGBT community do parades and protest because it affects them, people will talk about the economy because it affects their pay check and getting a job. All the stuff dealing with religion is talked about because people feel deeply about their beliefs, so they push it. Climate change has always been a thing that won't be terrible till X number of years later, so people are less inclined to prioritize that, because it doesn't affect them now, and for many in power, they will probably be dead when it hits the fan, or that was the initial thought. It is also because companies can't get things straight as well.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Meh ... for starters, we'd probably have enough time to save at least a good portion of the human race. Even if you WERE to have catastrophic climate change it still takes decades, if not centuries. Mass extinctions have never been Day 1 events. It takes decades, sometimes centuries of persistent, gradual change. For example, Sunspot activity during the Little Ice Age ... certainly it wasn't as extreme as 6 degrees celsius, but it was a significant whallop. It caused a lot of death, rendered large amounts of formerly arable land into barren wastes... reduced adequate grain growing altitudes by 300-400 ft.

But it still took a long time to start cooling, and run its course.

If such an occurence was documented and proven to happen, I have reasonable hopes that with 30-40 years preparation time before the worst extensions of malignant meteorology humans could adequately 'future proof' a sufficient amount of farmland for cultivation, regardless.

Take a page from the Dutch. Country the size of a tin can, and they mass export tomatos. You should see their set ups, they're awesome ... and they are all climate controlled. 965 million kilos worth of tomatoes from a country of only 41'000 km2, and with enough space to still house 17.5 million citizenry and perm/temp residents.

Gotta hand it to those Dutch ... they know how to make shit work. Now, if all countries got togther and dedicated their own Netherlands sized plot of land, and just asked the Dutch to build their fancy-schmancy greenhouses, we coud have an international food clearance house ... sit pretty.

They're even eco-friendly compared to traditional farming practices, so where could we go wrong? Each country give the Dutch a $150 Billion, and we'll be bathing in gazpacho regardless of what nature throws at us.

Regardless, probably not going to be my problem. I'm already nearing the end of my prime so, you know. I'm powerless to do anything now. And assuming that sea floor methane is ALREADY going to cause massive climate change, it sounds like the perfect time to send ALL the factories into overtime. Screw environmental standards ... planet wants to kill us, then we'll give her a fight she won't soon forget!

 

[Vault101]

[qsnipll.

also its easyer to suport and understand gay rights compared to something like Climate change

I think in regards to the latter a lot of people feel powerless, I mean yeah we can all do our part but when china/india/the meat industry are going along and all sectors aren't willing to budge what can we do?

 

[Batou667]

I hate to be jaded, but when it comes to doomsday climate change predictions... I've heard it before.

I remember when I was a kid, Acid Rain was going to strip forests bare and wither our food crops. Didn't happen.

Next the Ozone Layer hole was going to cause us foolish humans to be left writhing in the sun like ants under a magnifying glass. Didn't happen.

Around the same time we had fruitcakes telling us the Halle-Bop comet was going to ignite Jupiter and we'd be fucked, the Y2K virus would send us back to the stone-age, Nostradamus' predictions "proved" we were on the brink of the Apocalypse, yadda yadda yadda.

So, as willfully ignorant and anti-intellectual as it is, you'll excuse me for not rushing to the confession box just because the weather is getting a bit warm or there's the possibility of some gas coming out of the ground. The world is robust and has survived worse crap than this. It's the height of self-centered vanity to assume that *we're* the chosen few who have the power to avert the Apocalypse, or at the very least will have front row seats to Armageddon.

 

[mmiki]

So, as willfully ignorant and anti-intellectual as it is, you'll excuse me for not rushing to the confession box just because the weather is getting a bit warm or there's the possibility of some gas coming out of the ground. The world is robust and has survived worse crap than this. It's the height of self-centered vanity to assume that *we're* the chosen few who have the power to avert the Apocalypse, or at the very least will have front row seats to Armageddon.

You're right, it is an ignorant statement.

We're not characters in the great movie of the Universe. Things won't happen or not happen depending on whether it would be dramatically appropriate for it to be an "apocalypse" at that moment.

Global climate change is happening, it's due to human activity and we know how to slow down the heating if we start working on it *now*. So, no, it's not the Apocalypse unless we decide to sit around and believe things will work out for themselves.

To illustrate just how screwed we are if we don't do anything, let me point you to this helpful diagram: http://www.xkcd.com/1379/

 

[leberkaese]

if the frozen Methane on the seafloor is released to any significant degree...then yes "we're fucked".

read about this report yesterday...have known about the potential of frozen Methane release since i was a teenager and it's always formed part of the nightmare scenario in relation to the temperature of the earth rising.

That methane on the seafloor can be our doom or our rescue. If we're able to harvest those we will have energy for centuries.

snip

Acid rain killing forrests did happen, Ozone Layer didn't grow anymore because we stopped using CFC, Halle-Bop was made up by idiotic non-scientific-world-doom-prophets.

The world will survive whatever we do. Maybe we'll destroy most life on Earth one day, but Earth will recover. Man-made apocalypse will (for example) spare cockroaches and new life will form out of these surviving insects.
The important thing is not that we're saving Earth from its doom because we're the chosen ones. The important thing is that we save our own species and sustain our societies.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Next the Ozone Layer hole was going to cause us foolish humans to be left writhing in the sun like ants under a magnifying glass. Didn't happen.

You haven't been to Australia. That being said, according to climatologists in the Southern Hemisphere, the Ozone Hole is shrinking. Which other climatologists turn around and say it's going to get marginally colder, with increased rains.

So ... yeah ... it seems like there is nothing but a whole bunch of conflicting noises coming from climatologists. Oh no! Planet is going to warm! Are you daft? Climate Change = the next Ice Age ... EUROPE WILL BE UNINHABITABLE BY 2050! Totes, the droughts in Australia are due to CLIMATE CHANGE, it will be nothing but drought conditions from here on out ... and then we have the worst flash flooding in 80 years.

People say that CC skeptics are stupid, that the environment could drastically be altered ... but it's climate change scientists who are making it hard to believe any of this stuff in the first place. They tell us fifty different things, and if 90% of them can't get it right ... why the hell should we have any faith in them in the first place?

Look, environmentalism is important. Because we share this planet with a whole lot of other living things that I hope are still living by the time humans ditch this planet and go look for another planet to settle. One hopefully made entirely of chocolate with vanilla-shake waterfalls.

But the sad truth is, that weather changes ... humans didn't 'make' the LIA. Nor did they contribute to the Medieval Warm period ... and in both situations the temperature variation was about 2-3 degrees celsius within a matter of 200 years.

So I Have doubts that the recent 'spike' in global warming has even 20% to do with human air pollution. Or human-caused air pollution. It could just be a residual side effect of Solar activity 'reflaring' like it did back in 1000 AD. I would posit that any significant climate change won't have anything remotely to do with humans, and rather Nature simply being the biggest ***** we will ever know.

 

[krazykidd]

Meh, i personally think that it's mostly the human race that will be fucked. I mean isn't this how evolution works? I guess some future species will be finding our bones under ground. And try to peice together what happened to us.

 

[Vault101]

Meh, i personally think that it's mostly the human race that will be fucked. I mean isn't this how evolution works? .

'
no....no I don't think it is

a meteorite hitting earth and killing off the dinosaurs had nothing to do with evolution, it was a freak accident (of coarse there are many suposed seasons its not like they were wiped out overnight)

 

[Esotera]

Y'know, I have always been cynical of man made climate change. Fact is, our planets has the potential to release a lot of shit into the atmosphere in the first place.

BUT. That's completely fucking irrelevant. Another simple fact is that the fuel is running out, and we'd be better off altogether with renewable, clean energy.

And if this is true, then it's even more dire, so someone needs to remind the politicians how much of a cut they'll get from zero fucking fuel. "Let's see, ten percent of nothing, plus nothing, carry the nothing..."

I agree with this. Problem is that companies don't seem to invest in it because they want to have a return in a certain number of years. This comes back to the problem of companies being short sighted. Another question is what can we do to fix this besides just renewable, clean energy? There's already a lot of damage done, and even if we stop nature will still produce a lot, so we need something that can clean the air.

Another thing is that this will just be part of the cycle of the planet. All this causes things to change significantly, which will cause a lot of changes, and lots of people, animals, and plants will be screwed, but over time the earth will recover. It would be best to fix it now, but that's not likely to happen. I feel part of the problem is that people focus on small issues that shouldn't matter so we could focus on stuff like this. If we didn't have to worry about representation, bigotry, and other stuff, we could focus on stuff like this. Just to clarify, I'm blaming the people who are actively stopping social progress which by halting that, stops people from focusing on these types of issues. Another problem is that it's hard to convince people when they don't care about stuff till it happens.

Companies don't have any incentive to switch to clean energy as fossil fuels are really cheap and aren't going to run out for a few decades at least. It's unfair to expect companies to go green & get run out of business by 'dirty' competitors, so there either needs to be regulation from government, or a reduction in the cost of clean energy (which we're sort of seeing in solar).

OT: I think we're adaptable enough as a species to survive a catastrophic extinction that wipes out 95% of species on the planet, but the problem is that the world will be a horrible place to live in. Global warming is already affecting us, the smart thing would be to reduce & reverse the damage we've done whilst it doesn't require a lot of resources.

 

[leberkaese]

a meteorite hitting earth and killing off the dinosaurs had nothing to do with evolution, it was a freak accident (of coarse there are many suposed seasons its not like they were wiped out overnight)

But some life survived and new dominant species could rise. There has to be a really big catastrophe - like killing every single bacteria on this planet or completely destroying the atmosphere - to really f*ck up Earth.
I think that's what he meant. Humanity might be destroyed, but other species and therefore life on Earth will survive.

 

[Vault101]

But some life survived and new dominant species could rise. There has to be a really big catastrophe - like killing every single bacteria on this planet or completely destroying the atmosphere - to really f*ck up Earth.
I think that's what he meant. Humanity might be destroyed, but other species and therefore life on Earth will survive.

sure but thats not "evolution"

maybe I'm being pedantic but people tend to misunderstand what it actually means

 

[AdagioBoognish]

Well, shit.

And I thought we were at least making some progress.

Yeah, that's the tricky part about running in a circle.