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by Nordic » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:39 am
by stillrobertpaulsen » Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:22 pm
Nordic » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:39 am wrote:That map shows another pretty significant blob over what seems to be Fresno, California.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:35 pm
New source of methane discovered in the Arctic Ocean
Methane, a highly effective greenhouse gas, is usually produced by decomposition of organic material, a complex process involving bacteria and microbes.
But there is another type of methane that can appear under specific circumstances: Abiotic methane is formed by chemical reactions in the oceanic crust beneath the seafloor.
New findings by a team of CAGE scientists show that deep water gas hydrates, icy substances in the sediments that trap huge amounts of the methane, can be a reservoir for abiotic methane. One such reservoir was recently discovered on the ultraslow spreading Knipovich ridge, in the deep Fram Strait of the Arctic Ocean. The study suggests that abiotic methane could supply vast systems of methane hydrate throughout the Arctic.
The results were recently published in Geology online and will be featured in the journal´s May issue.
Previously undescribed
“Current geophysical data from the flank of this ultraslow spreading ridge shows that the Arctic environment is ideal for this type of methane production. “ says Joel Johnson associate professor at the University of New Hampshire (USA), lead author, and visiting scholar at CAGE.
This is a previously undescribed process of hydrate formation; most of the known methane hydrates in the world are fueled by methane from the decomposition of organic matter.
“It is estimated that up to 15 000 gigatonnes of carbon may be stored in the form of hydrates in the ocean floor, but this estimate is not accounting for abiotic methane. So there is probably much more.” says co-author and CAGE director Jürgen Mienert.
Life on Mars?
NASA has recently discovered traces of methane on the surface of Mars, which led to speculations that there once was life on our neighboring planet. But an abiotic origin cannot be ruled out yet.
On Earth it forms through a process called serpentinization.
“Serpentinization occurs when seawater reacts with hot mantle rocks exhumed along large faults within the seafloor. These only form in slow to ultraslow spreading seafloor crust. The optimal temperature range for serpentinization of ocean crust is 200 – 350 degrees Celsius.” says Johnson.
Methane produced by serpentinization can escape through cracks and faults, and end up at the ocean floor. But in the Knipovich Ridge it is trapped as gas hydrate in the sediments. How is it possible that relatively warm gas becomes this icy substance?
“In other known settings the abiotic methane escapes into the ocean, where it potentially influences ocean chemistry. But if the pressure is high enough, and the subseafloor temperature is cold enough, the gas gets trapped in a hydrate structure below the sea floor. This is the case at Knipovich Ridge, where sediments cap the ocean crust at water depths up to 2000 meters. “ says Johnson.
Stable for two million years
Another peculiarity about this ridge is that because it is so slowly spreading, it is covered in sediments deposited by fast moving ocean currents of the Fram Strait. The sediments contain the hydrate reservoir, and have been doing so for about 2 million years.
“ This is a relatively young ocean ridge, close to the continental margin. It is covered with sediments that were deposited in a geologically speaking short time period –during the last two to three million years. These sediments help keep the methane trapped in the sea floor.” says Stefan Bünz of CAGE, also a co-author on the paper.
Bünz says that there are many places in the Arctic Ocean with a similar tectonic setting as the Knipovich ridge, suggesting that similar gas hydrate systems may be trapping this type of methane along the more than 1000 km long Gakkel Ridge of the central Arctic Ocean.
The Geology paper states that such active tectonic environments may not only provide an additional source of methane for gas hydrate, but serve as a newly identified and stable tectonic setting for the long-term storage of methane carbon in deep-marine sediments.
Need to drill
The reservoir was identified using CAGE’s high resolution 3D seismic technology aboard research ressel Helmer Hanssen. Now the authors of the paper wish to sample the hydrates 140 meters below the ocean floor, and decipher their gas composition.
Knipovich Ridge is the most promising location on the planet where such samples can be taken, and one of the two locations where sampling of gas hydrates from abiotic methane is possible.
“ We think that the processes that created this abiotic methane have been very active in the past. It is however not a very active site for methane release today. But hydrates under the sediment, enable us to take a closer look at the creation of abiotic methane through the gas composition of previously formed hydrate.” says Jürgen Mienert who is exploring possibilities for a drilling campaign along ultra-slow spreading Arctic ridges in the future.
Barack Obama, announced in January that USA is planning to cut methane emissions from its booming oil and gas industry by as much as 45% over the next decade.
Atmospheric concentrations of methane are currently at over 2000 parts per billion (ppb), four times as high as the preindustrial levels. The methane in the atmosphere increased rapidly in the 18th century and paused in the 1990s. Methane levels began to rise again more recently, potentially from a combination of increased anthropogenic and natural emissions.
Large amounts of methane are stored in the form of hydrates in continental margins worldwide, particularly in the Arctic. Gas hydrate consists of ice-like crystalline solids of water molecules encaging gas molecules, and is often referred to as ‘the ice that burns’.
Many view gas hydrates as a potential energy source. But warming oceans can easily destabilize methane hydrates, causing the gas to escape from the ocean floor, into the water column and potentially into the atmosphere.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:52 pm
The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?
David Ray Griffin, Special for CNN
Updated 2:59 PM ET, Tue April 14, 2015
(CNN)Although most of us worry about other things, climate scientists have become increasingly worried about the survival of civilization. For example, Lonnie Thompson, who received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2010, said that virtually all climatologists "are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization."
Informed journalists share this concern. The climate crisis "threatens the survival of our civilization," said Pulitzer Prize-winner Ross Gelbspan. Mark Hertsgaard agrees, saying that the continuation of global warming "would create planetary conditions all but certain to end civilization as we know it."
These scientists and journalists, moreover, are worried not only about the distant future but about the condition of the planet for their own children and grandchildren. James Hansen, often considered the world's leading climate scientist, entitled his book "Storms of My Grandchildren."
The threat to civilization comes primarily from the increase of the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. Before the rise of the industrial age, CO2 constituted only 275 ppm (parts per million) of the atmosphere. But it is now above 400 and rising about 2.5 ppm per year.
Because of the CO2 increase, the planet's average temperature has increased 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Although this increase may not seem much, it has already brought about serious changes.
The idea that we will be safe from "dangerous climate change" if we do not exceed a temperature rise of 2C (3.6F) has been widely accepted. But many informed people have rejected this assumption. In the opinion of journalist-turned-activist Bill McKibben, "the one degree we've raised the temperature already has melted the Arctic, so we're fools to find out what two will do."
His warning is supported by James Hansen, who declared that "a target of two degrees (Celsius) is actually a prescription for long-term disaster."
The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas has made the planet warmer than it had been since the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. Civilization was made possible by the emergence about 12,000 years ago of the "Holocene" epoch, which turned out to be the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold. But now, says physicist Stefan Rahmstorf, "We are catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene."
This catapult is dangerous, because we have no evidence civilization can long survive with significantly higher temperatures. And yet, the world is on a trajectory that would lead to an increase of 4C (7F) in this century. In the opinion of many scientists and the World Bank, this could happen as early as the 2060s.
What would "a 4C world" be like? According to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (at the University of East Anglia), "during New York's summer heat waves the warmest days would be around 10-12C (18-21.6F) hotter [than today's]." Moreover, he has said, above an increase of 4C only about 10% of the human population will survive.
Believe it or not, some scientists consider Anderson overly optimistic.
The main reason for pessimism is the fear that the planet's temperature may be close to a tipping point that would initiate a "low-end runaway greenhouse," involving "out-of-control amplifying feedbacks." This condition would result, says Hansen, if all fossil fuels are burned (which is the intention of all fossil-fuel corporations and many governments). This result "would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans."
Moreover, many scientists believe that runaway global warming could occur much more quickly, because the rising temperature caused by CO2 could release massive amounts of methane (CH4), which is, during its first 20 years, 86 times more powerful than CO2. Warmer weather induces this release from carbon that has been stored in methane hydrates, in which enormous amounts of carbon -- four times as much as that emitted from fossil fuels since 1850 -- has been frozen in the Arctic's permafrost. And yet now the Arctic's temperature is warmer than it had been for 120,000 years -- in other words, more than 10 times longer than civilization has existed.
According to Joe Romm, a physicist who created the Climate Progress website, methane release from thawing permafrost in the Arctic "is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle." The amplifying feedback works like this: The warmer temperature releases millions of tons of methane, which then further raise the temperature, which in turn releases more methane.
The resulting threat of runaway global warming may not be merely theoretical. Scientists have long been convinced that methane was central to the fastest period of global warming in geological history, which occurred 55 million years ago. Now a group of scientists have accumulated evidence that methane was also central to the greatest extinction of life thus far: the end-Permian extinction about 252 million years ago.
Worse yet, whereas it was previously thought that significant amounts of permafrost would not melt, releasing its methane, until the planet's temperature has risen several degrees Celsius, recent studies indicate that a rise of 1.5 degrees would be enough to start the melting.
What can be done then? Given the failure of political leaders to deal with the CO2 problem, it is now too late to prevent terrible developments.
But it may -- just may -- be possible to keep global warming from bringing about the destruction of civilization. To have a chance, we must, as Hansen says, do everything possible to "keep climate close to the Holocene range" -- which means, mobilize the whole world to replace dirty energy with clean as soon as possible.
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:38 am
by stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:21 pm
Why is there a huge methane hotspot in the American Southwest?
BY Laura Santhanam June 3, 2015 at 12:40 PM EDT
A team of scientists scrambles to better understand a gigantic cloud of methane looming over the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. This single cloud is believed to comprise nearly 10 percent of all methane emissions derived from natural gas in the United States. But its origins remain a mystery.
LEAKING METHANE — An image from a thermal camera as seen on a laptop screen shows a storage tank spewing a significant amount of methane gas next to a natural gas facility near Aztec, New Mexico. The camera is operated by Andrew Thorpe of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Photo by Shaun Stanley
The Four Corners region of the southwest United States is a magnificent, otherworldly place, marked by red rock vistas, ancient cliff dwellings and sweeping blue sky. The names alone paint a picture of the landscape: The Painted Desert. The Petrified Forest. Monument Valley.
But billowing above the rust-colored earth is the country’s largest concentration of methane, according to satellite data. That’s because this spot where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet is also home to one of the nation’s most productive natural gas fields and coalbed methane basins. About 10 percent of the country’s estimated methane emissions from natural gas is found in this region, according to recent scientific research and the Environmental Protection Agency.
This image shows methane hotspot, highlighted in red, in the Four Corners area. This map shows how much methane emissions varied from average background concentrations from 2003-2009 (dark colors are lower than average; lighter colors are higher. (AP Photo/NASA, JPL-Caltech, University of Michigan)
Methane is odorless, colorless and invisible to the naked eye. Following carbon dioxide, methane ranks as the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted by human activity in the United States. But in the short term, atmospheric methane is more than 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide at holding the sun’s heat, according to Colm Sweeney, the lead scientist for the NOAA Earth System Research Lab Aircraft Program.
“It’s a very strong greenhouse gas and traps heat really effectively,” he said. “It’s like putting an inch of insulation in your attic versus putting 100 inches of insulation in your attic with the same amount of CO2.”
TRACKING METHANE — A plane that contains equipment to detect methane levels flies above natural gas production facilities in the San Juan Basin area of New Mexico. Photo by Shaun Stanley
Scientists first realized methane was flooding the Four Corners after a satellite in 2003 detected higher-than normal amounts of the gas. A year earlier, the European Space Agency had launched Envisat, an eight-ton, sun-powered satellite the size of a school bus. While orbiting the planet, its mission was to track ocean temperature and ozone depletion, improving environmental studies.
Onboard was SCIAMACHY, an image spectrometer that monitored gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, including methane, and created novel data maps. For years, the satellite captured images of sunlight reflecting off the Earth’s surface. Absorptions of methane in the data revealed its distribution around the globe.
But one day in April 2012, for reasons still unclear, ESA ground control crews lost all contact with Envisat and its instruments.
The satellite had disappeared, but the data remained.
In that data, Christian Frankenberg, a scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found what he initially thought might be an error. A startling red spot of methane hovered over the U.S. Southwest, burning brighter, he said, than any other hotspot in the United States.
Atmospheric scientist Eric Kort of the University of Michigan plumbed the data further, using satellite images produced between 2003 and 2009. The team collected air samples, conducted on-the-ground observations, performed simulations and analyzed readings before concluding that the methane floating above the Four Corners represented the country’s largest concentration of the gas. In findings they published in October in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists also suggested that the EPA was underestimating methane emissions nationwide, including in the Four Corners.
Still, they puzzled over the source of the hotspot.
HOW METHANE KILLED THE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE
The Four Corners is part of the San Juan Basin, a region that covers 7,500 square miles and is “the most productive coalbed methane basin in North America,” according to the EPA. For years, oil and gas companies have tapped into this massive energy stash in the middle of the desert. About 60,000 wells are scattered across the area.
Seth Chazanoff of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducts final checks on a Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer mounted within an aircraft used to study methane gas emissions in the Four Corners area. Photo by Shaun Stanley
But scientists don’t understand how such massive amounts of methane are getting released into the air. Is it coming from natural sources, like the exposed coal seam jutting above the earth’s surface in parts of the San Juan Basin? Is it coming from open mine shafts or leaking equipment that belongs oil and gas companies? Is it a combination of these factors, or none of these factors?
“The interesting part of the Four Corners is that there’s a lot of stuff coming out of these coal beds. I’m not going to say natural because we’re not sure how much that is going into production is influencing how much seepage is coming up,” Sweeney said.
Methane is generally harmless, but it can be problematic when it exists in extremely dense quantities or confined areas. Under sustained conditions for a long period of time, studies have found that people may have trouble breathing or even lose consciousness.
In cramped spaces like a coal mine, methane is dangerous and can ignite easily. That’s where the term “canary in a coal mine” came from. If a caged canary in a mineshaft stopped singing and died, that signaled that there was too little oxygen and too much methane, carbon monoxide and other gases, and miners needed to get out, stat.
That’s also why coal mines typically pump fresh air into the shaft and use ventilation systems to dilute the gas.
Often when industrial sources emit methane, they also release volatile organic compounds into the air, said Mary Uhl, an environmental protection specialist with the federal Bureau of Land Management. These compounds trigger chemical reactions that create ozone, which can harm people with asthma or respiratory conditions. Ozone levels in the Four Corners hover at 0.071 parts per million, which means they just barely meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s national air quality standards of 0.075 parts per million. And if federal standards drop to 0.065 to 0.070 parts per million, as proposed, the Four Corners would no longer meet the legal rate.
That’s a problem normally seen in urban areas with far more people and cars than what you would find in the Four Corners, Uhl said. “Rural areas of the country haven’t typically bumped up against the federal air quality standard for ozone,” she said.
A reduction in methane emissions would likely reduce volatile organic compounds along with ozone levels, Uhl said.
In April, a team of scientists traveled to the Four Corners to study methane in this region. They flew five aircraft with equipment designed to detect the gas and drove two research vehicles roughly 3,000 miles — the distance between Los Angeles and Portland, Maine. Ultimately, they collected hundreds of air samples of methane that will be analyzed for 55 different trace gases and two methane isotopes.
Now the scientists are sifting through terabytes of data, searching for answers. Air samples must be analyzed, and maps studied further to identify the origins of the gas.
“This is where the detective work comes in, and where the fun of it comes in,” Sweeney with NOAA said.
It will take months, but Frankenberg said he hopes that the team can produce findings by the end of the year.
“It’s really rare that we get to observe an anomaly like this, but at the same time have measurements on the ground that confirm it,” he said.
NASA CAMERA — Andrew Thorpe of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory powers up a thermal camera imaging system next to a storage tank believed to be leaking methane at a natural gas facility near Aztec, New Mexico. Photo by Shaun Stanley
THE HEALTH FALLOUT
Meanwhile, people who live in the Four Corners have mobilized to address the issue. Residents in the region have long reported respiratory problems. High ozone days when ground-level ozone blankets parts of the region are not uncommon, and lead to frequent emergency room visits.
Community and government leaders have formed the Four Corners Air Quality Group, which meets periodically to figure out how to mitigate the effects of methane and the ozone that its presence aggravates.
San Juan County, which is in the affected area, got a C grade for ozone-related air quality, according to the American Lung Association’s 2015 State of the Air report. But the link between ozone and respiratory problems extends beyond the Four Corners region. Studies have shown that visits to the emergency room for asthma are more frequent on high-ozone days, according to the EPA. Those with asthma may be more sensitive to ozone, this online report states, and “the injury, inflammation, and increased airway reactivity induced by ozone exposure may result in a worsening of a person’s underlying asthma status, increasing the probability of an asthma exacerbation or a requirement for more treatment.”
About 200 people attended a public forum in San Juan County’s city of Farmington in April. Participants included members of the oil and gas industry, the local scientific community, nearby tribal communities and the general public.
Julia Madrid, 31, a baker in Durango, Colorado, was among them. She suffers from lupus and said she has wondered if the region’s air has aggravated her illness. Her mother alerted her to a map of the region’s methane hotspot in the local newspaper. Madrid’s father mined coal, and her brother drilled for oil and gas.
THE TEAM — Personnel from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NOAA, University of Michigan, University of Colorado, Scientific Aviation and Twin Otter International assemble on the tarmac of the Durango-La Plata County Airport prior to their study of methane levels in the Four Corners region. Photo by Shaun Stanley
“If you look at the map, it’s a trip. Just out of nowhere, there’s this giant red spot,” Madrid said. “The data show such high levels of methane. Is that naturally occurring, or is it something we’re doing to the environment?”
Frankenberg still speaks with nostalgia about the lost satellite and the promise it held. A Japanese satellite tracks methane from space, but doesn’t produce the same type of images like the old satellite did. Meanwhile, Europe is scheduled to launch a new satellite instrument in 2016 that will measure methane, ozone and other gases in the atmosphere with more precision. He hopes the new data will pick up where SCIAMACHY left off.
“With satellites, you have global coverage,” Kort said. “There’s a real power in that. You can look in places you didn’t know you needed to look.”
by stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:15 pm
Arctic temps warmer than Miami? We have a serious methane problem!
July 5, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdOTyGQOso
by Robert Hunziker
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as world governments ignores the risks of an ice-free Arctic (Wadhams). Rather, an ice-free Arctic is widely applauded by much of the world as a positive way forward for re-opening of northern shipping routes, new trips for cruise lines, and access to a huge cache of fossil fuels.
According to Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, an ice-free Arctic with its concomitant methane outbreak potential is scarcely mentioned by the IPCC in its assessment. Evidently, the IPCC does not want to discuss the possibility of major catastrophes.
In truth, an ice-free Arctic tempestuously opens up eons of methane entrapped ever since the last Ice Age. The ramifications are profound.
When the Vatican recently held meetings with leading scientists about climate change in preparation for the Pope’s encyclical of June 2015, one of the invited guest speakers was Professor Peter Wadhams. Assuming that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences listened carefully to his words, they may still be suffering from bouts of sleeplessness.
Status of Arctic Sea Ice & Why it Matters
Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge recently committed to a very candid interview (video above): “Our Time is Running Out – The Arctic Sea Ice is Going,” May 15th, 2015, (all subsequent quotes are from that interview).
“I’ve been measuring the ice thickness go down by 50% over the last 30 years. In the summer for instance, you used to see very heavy pack ice so that a ship would have great difficulty getting through it. Today, it’s more like a blue planet. It’s almost an ice-free Arctic. That’s a big change.”
Accordingly, with the passage of time, the risk of a massive methane outbreak increases along with the ongoing disintegration of sea ice.
“We’re really concerned about the Arctic offshore… the continental shelves of Siberia are very shallow waters. And up until recently there was always sea ice over those shelves, even in the summer… now, it retreats in the summer and it already disappears for 2-3 months off of those shelves. That allows the water to warm up. And, when the water warms up, it causes underwater permafrost to melt, which hadn’t melted since the last Ice Age, and that’s allowing methane to be released.”
According to Professor Wadhams, the East Siberian Sea is a lurking monster. He believes the effect of a methane outbreak could be as catastrophic as an asteroid collision into Earth. The amount of warming would be immediate and large. The probability it will happen: “I would say it is about 50% because we’re seeing the permafrost melting and we’re seeing the methane already being released.”
In fact, field scientists are already seeing sizeable increases of big plumes of methane in the summer whilst discovering new areas of methane release. Until only recently, the East Siberian Sea was monitored every year by one Russian ship. Whereas nowadays, and over the past couple of years, Swedish ships are going elsewhere in the Arctic, and “they’re seeing just as much methane coming out as in East Siberia.”
“So, it’s not a low probability, high catastrophic risk. It’s a high catastrophic, high probability risk.”
He believes complete disappearance of the ice in mid summer could occur within the next couple of years. Presently, the volume of ice in the summer is only a quarter of the 1980s. If that trend continues, summer ice will go to zero very soon.
Impact of Ice-Free Arctic
Changes in the Arctic are driving changes elsewhere on the planet. “For instance, the disappearance of ice in the Arctic is leading to warmer air masses moving over Greenland in the summer. That’s causing the Greenland ice sheet to melt faster. And, that’s causing global sea level rise to elevate.”
Result, instead of a one-meter sea level rise this century, as predicted by the IPCC, Greenland’s melt could cause a rise of a couple of meters, or more. In fact, some glaciologists are talking about 4 or 5 meters [13-16 ft.].
The final cataclysmic impact of too much sea level rise would be some areas of the world, like Miami, would have to be completely abandoned, vacated, evacuated similar to Chernobyl, and very much like Chernobyl, because of cuckoo energy policies.
Not only that, global warming accelerates as a result of Arctic sea ice loss, which reduces global albedo whereby radiation is reflected straight back into outer space, but with loss of the white icy reflective background the sun’s radiation absorbs into a dark background, all of which results in the rate of worldwide warming much faster than anticipated by mainstream science, the IPCC.
“So, this attempt to pretend that we can keep global warming below two degrees C, which was already a pretense, is even more ridiculous. It’s certainly going to get to 4 C or 5 C degrees by the end of this century, which will have quite catastrophic impacts on agricultural production.”
What to do?
As for stopping offshore methane release by “bringing back Arctic sea ice, some people are proponents of doing that. The problem is you really cannot bring back the ice without cooling the planet. Global temperatures govern sea ice; it cannot be isolated or targeted. Finding a way to bring back Arctic sea ice won’t work unless you can cool the entire planet.”
The only realistic possibility, ironically, is modification of the fracking method used in oil and gas drilling by utilizing offshore platforms along the Arctic coastline, a network of horizontal drills into the creation of cavities to suck up the methane to prevent it from emitting into the atmosphere (Wadhams). But, no research has been done on this. It has only been suggested.
Regardless of how, what, or when, resolution of the problem is an enormous, overwhelming task: “There is a conspiracy of complacency around the world in which they still imagine that if we do a few minor things, minor adjustments and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, then all will be well. But, it won’t because we’ve already got too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’re already going to have more than 2C degrees of warming even if we don’t emit anymore because of the already existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So, we’ve got to not only stop emitting it or reducing it, reducing emissions, but find ways to take it out of the atmosphere, and that’s a technology that hasn’t been developed.”
Climate change has a progressive effect, slowly working throughout the world. But, all of the slowness is building up to a big change. Moreover, by the time anomalous weather patterns disrupt agriculture, causing worldwide starvation, it’ll be too late to do anything. Unfortunately, global inertia is the problem. “The forces of inertia are so enormous… the use of fossil fuel is so built into our society. Everything in life results from burning fossil fuels.”
Timing of the Worse Case
The only way to save civilization as it currently exist is to bring CO2 levels down, and that can only be accomplished by some drastic method of actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere. “We can’t do it by messing around with reducing our emissions, we can’t even do it by stopping our emissions because we’ve gone too far. We’ve got to actually take it out.”
Professor Wadhams claims climate change research must, front and center, become the major thrust of a worldwide scientific effort, and it must be done urgently, similar to the Manhattan Project (ironically.) Society will be forced to use some technology, which is not yet proven, to remove CO2 to prevent a catastrophe. Accordingly, there is no time to tinker around.
He believes in a worse case scenario, “by ten years time, we’ll really be in the soup.
Current Arctic Weather Conditions
According to Arctic News, as of July 2nd, “While the media gives wide coverage to the heat waves that have been hitting populous countries such as India, Pakistan, the U.S., Spain and France recently, less attention is given to heat waves hitting the Arctic.”
Furthermore, “The heat waves that hit Alaska and Russia recently are now followed up by a heat wave in East Siberia… a location well within the Arctic Circle… temperatures as high as 37.1°C (98.78°F) were recorded on July 2, 2015.”
And, even more, “With temperatures as high as the 37.1°C (98.78°F) recorded on July 2, 2015, huge melting can be expected where there still is sea ice in the waters off the coast of Siberia, while the waters where the sea ice is already gone will warm up rapidly. Note that the waters off the coast of Siberia are less than 50 m (164 ft.) deep, so warming can quickly extend all the way down to the seabed, that can contain enormous amounts of methane in the form of free gas and hydrates.”
Also, on July 1, 2015, a temperature of 36°C (96.8°F) was recorded near the Kolyma River that flows into the East Siberian Sea.
The Arctic is hotter than Miami!
Somehow or other, 98°F in the Arctic makes the world seem upside down/sideways. Is it?
by elfismiles » Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:06 am
Three scientists investigating melting Arctic ice may have been assassinated, professor claims
Cambridge Professor Peter Wadhams suspects the deaths of the three scientists were more than just an ‘extraordinary’ coincidence
By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter
12:56PM BST 25 Jul 2015
Professor Peter Wadhams (top left) believes fellow scientists (top right clockwise) Seymour Laxon, Tim Boyd and Katherine Giles may have been assasinated
A Cambridge Professor has made the astonishing claim that three scientists investigating the melting of Arctic ice may have been assassinated within the space of a few months.
Professor Peter Wadhams said he feared being labelled a “looney” over his suspicion that the deaths of the scientists were more than just an ‘extraordinary’ coincidence.
But he insisted the trio could have been murdered and hinted that the oil industry or else sinister government forces might be implicated.
The three scientists he identified - Seymour Laxon and Katherine Giles, both climate change scientists at University College London, and Tim Boyd of the Scottish Association for marine Science - all died within the space of a few months in early 2013.
Professor laxon fell down a flight of stairs at a New year’s Eve party at a house in Essex while Dr Giles died when she was in collision with a lorry when cycling to work in London. Dr Boyd is thought to have been struck by lightning while walking in Scotland.
Prof Wadhams said that in the weeks after Prof Laxon’s death he believed he was targeted by a lorry which tried to force him off the road. He reported the incident to the police.
Asked if he thought hitmen might have been behind the deaths, Prof Wadhams, who is Professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, told The Telegraph: “Yes. I do believe assassins possibly murdered them but I can see that I would be thought of as a looney for believing this.
"But it’s just very odd coincidence that something like that should happen in such a brief period of time.”
He added: “They [the deaths] were accidents as far as anybody was able to tell but the fact they were clustered like that looked so weird.”
Asked who might have wanted them out the way, he replied: “I can only think of the oil lobby but I don’t think the oil lobby goes around killing people.”
He admitted it would have been "stupid" to go to the police with his concerns over the three deaths, not least because he was "suspicious" of the authorities - he cited the example of the death of the government’s weapons expert Dr David Kelly.
David Kelly (Reuters)
Prof Wadhams added: “I thought if it was somebody assassinating them could it be one of our people doing it and that would be even more frightening. I thought it would be better not to touch this with a barge pole.”
His suspicions drew outrage on Saturday from Prof Laxon’s partner, who was also a close friend of Dr Giles. When told what Prof Wadhams had said, Fiona Strawbridge, head of e-Learning at UCL, replied: “Good god. All of this is completely outrageous and very distressing.”
The couple had been staying in a friends’ converted mill in the Essex countryside when her partner fell down the stairs in the early hours of New Year’s Day. He died the next day from head injuries.
“It was very steep stairs and I heard Seymour fall,” said Ms Strawbridge, “It is just completely bonkers [to suggest murder].
"I am sure there are some climate scientists who do get trolled and pursued but Seymour wasn’t one of them. I would have known if anybody had been pursuing him.
“Sometimes there are tragic coincidences and you have to accept that.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/e ... laims.html
by stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:24 pm
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:16 pm
Bombshell Study Reveals Methane Emissions Hugely Underestimated
Findings throw EPA emissions database and countless other fracking studies into question
by
Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Published on
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
The amount of methane being leaked from natural gas production sites has been hugely underestimated, according to a "bombshell" new study released on Tuesday.
In a paper published at Energy & Science Engineering, expert and gas industry consultant Touché Howard argues that a much-heralded 2013 study by the University of Texas relied on a faulty measurement instrument, the Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler (BHFS), causing its findings to low-ball actual emission rates "by factors of three to five."
"The data reported by the University of Texas study suggest their measurements exhibit this sensor failure, as shown by the paucity of high-emitting observations when the wellhead gas composition was less than 91% CH4, where sensor failures are most likely," Howard writes, "during follow-up testing, the BHFS used in that study indeed exhibited sensor failure consistent with under-reporting of these high emitters."
Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org called Howard's findings a "bombshell," adding: "The more we learn about fracking, the worse it is for the environment."
If Howard is correct, the study throws into question countless other estimates of methane emissions from natural gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has been hailed as a low-emission energy solution.
Since 2003, natural gas companies have often shared BHFS recordings with the Environmental Protection Agency to help compile a national greenhouse gas inventory.
"If Howard's right, we'll need to review other emission estimates used in EPA inventories," Robert Jackson, an earth science professor at Stanford University who studies methane leaks, told Inside Climate News. "We need to sort this out as quickly as possible."
The study comes just a day after President Barack Obama unveiled his new climate plan, which calls for an increase in natural gas production to balance cuts in carbon emissions. However, scientists have long warned that methane is potentially even more destructive that other fossil fuel emissions. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, in the first two decades after its release, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The backpack-sized BHFS has two sensors: one for measuring low level methane emissions and one for higher levels as the gas rises. According to Howard, who happens to hold the patent for some of the technology used in the Bacharach product, unless the sampler is carefully and frequently recalibrated, the switchover from the first sensor to the second can fail, causing an under reporting of total emissions.
Further, Howard notes that without independent measurement at the time of the malfunction, "there is no way to determine the magnitude" of the error. Therefore, the missed emissions could be as high as ten- to a hundredfold for a particularly large leak, he said.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:08 pm
Newly Exposed Methane Threat Trumps Latest 'False Solution' on Emissions
Previously overlooked natural gas gathering facilities spewing as much methane as 37 coal-fired power plants
Published on Tuesday, August 18, 2015
by Lauren McCauley, staff writer
The newly identified emissions "would increase total emissions from the natural gas supply chain in EPA’s current Greenhouse Gas Inventory by approximately 25 percent if added to the tally," said EDF's Mark Brownstein. (Photo: EnergyTomorrow/cc/flickr)
Environmental groups are raising flags over what they say is another "false solution" as the Obama administration on Tuesday put forth its new proposed methane emissions rules.
Meanwhile, a new study revealed that those very emissions are in fact "substantially higher" than official estimates, adding to the growing body of evidence showing that the proliferation of natural gas—even if "capped"—will only exacerbate climate change.
The study, led by researchers at Colorado State University and published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that natural gas gathering facilities lose about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year, amounting to roughly eight times more than previous estimates used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The facilities, which collect from multiple wells before distributing the gas to power plants and homes, have been overlooked by previous emission surveys. "Yet," notes Mark Brownstein, vice president in the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate and Energy Program, "they may be the largest methane source in the oil and gas supply chain."
The newly identified emissions "would increase total emissions from the natural gas supply chain in EPA’s current Greenhouse Gas Inventory by approximately 25 percent if added to the tally," Brownstein notes.
Further, the emitted methane "packs the same 20-year climate impact as 37 coal-fired power plants," and is said to be 87 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
The new research comes on the heels of another study which found that the instruments used to measure methane emissions were faulty, causing current assessments to underestimate actual emission rates "by factors of three to five."
Natural gas has been championed by the White House and other politicians as a "green" alternative to coal and oil. However, research into the environmental impacts—whether by fracking or methane emissions—have shown it to be increasingly unviable.
On Tuesday, the Obama administration released the first-ever plan to reduce methane emissions as part of its new climate strategy. The proposed standards would cap the amount of methane and volatile organic compounds (VOC) being emitted from new and modified oil and gas facilities.
While individuals who live closed to fossil fuel facilities welcomed the rule as a major public health effort, environmentalists said it neglected to account for the significant emissions from older wells and did not go nearly far enough to address climate change.
"The regulation of methane cannot become a justification for continuing our reliance on fossil fuels," said Friends of the Earth climate and energy campaigner Kate DeAngelis. "The real solution to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground and to clean up the abandoned wells that continue to poison our air."
And Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, agreed, saying that the rules "could not possibly hold off the growing climate crisis."
Rather, Hauter added, "these regulations would wrongly promote natural gas as a ‘clean’ alternative to oil and coal. These weak regulations leave the impression that pursuing natural gas benefits the environment, providing a justification for continuing to drill and frack."
by stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Nov 23, 2015 2:46 pm
Permafrost: hiding a climate time bomb?
AFP By Catherine Hours
November 20, 2015 6:24 PM
Umiujaq (Canada) (AFP) - On the front line of climate change in the Canadian Arctic, scientists hunt for clues to a potentially catastrophic global warming trend: melting permafrost.
On the rolling landscape of shrubs and moss around Hudson Bay, they probe the once impenetrable ground now thawing in places due to global warming.
Teams are measuring the soil's carbon content, temperature, pace of melt and the resulting release of once-trapped greenhouse gases.
"There is twice as much carbon in permafrost than in the atmosphere," said Florent Domine, a researcher with France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
"So if we transformed all the carbon in the permafrost into CO2, we would triple the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that would mean the end of the world as we know it."
Permafrost is perennially frozen ground covering about a quarter of exposed land in the northern hemisphere.
It contains an estimated 1.7 trillion tonnes of carbon in the form of frozen organic matter, which escapes as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane as it warms and decomposes.
- CO2 or methane? -
Releasing the carbon threatens to unleash a vicious cycle in Earth's global warming problem -- adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which in turn will spur further warming and ice melt.
"People have called it a climate time bomb, because of the danger of a rapid release of gas from the permafrost," said Domine.
But in a brand-new field of research, the picture today is fuzzy: scientists do not know whether we risk a major release of most of the CO2 and methane, or a slow, small leak.
"We have to quantify these processes to evaluate the risk," Domine explained.
For two years, Domine and a team have been monitoring the slow transformation of the once rock-hard ground in Canada's furthest northern to mush.
They use sensors to monitor temperature, humidity and albedo -- a measure of light reflectivity which is highest in the frozen areas of the world.
The team conducts its experiments in a variety of locations, including a boreal forest and the isolated islands of Ward Hunt and Bylot off the Canadian north coast.
Climate change is warming the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions at more than double the global average, making these areas windows into the types of impacts global warming is likely to have.
A top priority is to determine what kind of gas escapes as the permafrost thaws -- and how much of it.
"Will the bacteria set free essentially be CO2? Or methane, which has an even greater warming effect?" asked Domine, a snow specialist.
Carbon dioxide or CO2 is the most abundant greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, but methane is much more potent at trapping heat.
- 'Can't ignore it' -
Impacts of the thaw are already visible.
Millions of ponds of different sizes have formed, scattered over the Arctic region, as the receding permafrost collapses unevenly in on itself.
Any hollows quickly fill with melted ice and rainwater.
"About 10 to 100 times more CO2 escapes from the ponds than from the soil," said Maria Belke-Bria, a doctoral student on Domine's team.
The moisture speeds up decomposition of the now-exposed organic material.
But at the same time, the melt has created small valleys in the once barren ground, where spruces and dwarf birch trees now flourish. Plants absorb carbon dioxide.
"We want to know if this new vegetation... protects the permafrost or is hastening its melt," said Belke-Bria.
Scientists do not yet know whether the net effect will be one of cooling or warming.
In fact, the entire field of study remains shrouded in uncertainty, and permafrost's potential contribution to planet warming is not included in future projections of climate change.
The UN's climate science panel also did not quantify the risk from permafrost thaw in its latest, seminal global warming report.
Part of the problem is that this is such a challenging and expensive phenomenon to study -- not least because the region is remote and hard to reach, and the pockets of research funders empty.
But Domine insisted: "we cannot ignore this question."
What is clear is that there will be no "local" solution to the problem, he stressed.
"We cannot capture carbon escaping over a surface of 10 million square kilometres," stated the researcher.
"Stopping global warming is the only answer."
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Dec 08, 2015 3:46 pm
The Invisible Spill Spewing the Gases of a Half-Million Cars
by Mark Chediak Harry Weber
December 4, 2015 — 4:14 PM PST
Updated on December 7, 2015 — 2:15 PM PST
Call it the invisible spill.
You can’t see it, but it’s there -- a steady stream of natural gas seeping out of the pipe casing in a well in Southern California that may spew as much greenhouse gas into the air as a half-million cars do in a year. Pipeline operator Sempra Energy says it may take three to four months to plug.
Using the same tactic that eventually ended the giant 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is boring a well that’ll intercept the damaged one to stop the seepage. Meanwhile, it’s moving hundreds of people into temporary housing and faces as much as $900 million in costs including relocation and legal expenses, based on Bloomberg Intelligence and government data estimates. The 8,700-foot-deep (2,650-meter) well has leaked 800,000 metric tons of gases contributing to global warming over the first month, about a quarter of California emissions by state estimates over the same period.
“You have this huge volcano of methane pollution and except for the fact that a lot of people are getting sick, it hasn’t engendered a lot of attention,” said Tim O’Connor, California oil and gas director for the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund. “When you think about an oil spill, you have birds and fish that are damaged. Here you have future generations, children and people across the world that are feeling the effects.”
Spill Costs
The $900 million cost estimate is based on a worst-case scenario that assumes maximum injuries and includes relocation, response, litigation and the loss of natural gas expenses, according to the analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes and data from state officials. It doesn’t include potential fines and penalties.
Javier Mendoza, a spokesman for Sempra’s Southern California Gas Co. utility, said the company has “no idea how an estimate of that amount could be reached.”
“It is much too early to speculate on any financial implications from the situation at the Aliso Canyon facility,” he said by e-mail. “We will not be speculating on ‘what if’ scenarios.” The company has insurance for its storage business, he said.
Sempra fell as much as 4.7 percent on Monday. Shares were down 2.7% to $95.00 at the close in New York.
Much as with the crude spill from BP Plc’s Macondo well five years ago, regulators have struggled to get a handle on the magnitude of the leak blowing gas into the Porter Ranch neighborhood. Sempra won’t be able to tell how much gas has escaped until the flow’s been stopped, Mendoza said.
Sempra and its Southern California Gas Co. unit face at least two lawsuits by Porter Ranch residents who claim to have been sickened by the leaked gas. The city of Los Angeles filed suit against Southern California Gas over the incident, according to an e-mail statement Monday from city attorney Mike Feuer.
"The only environmental effect is the additional greenhouse gas," said George Hirasaki, a Rice University engineering professor and former Shell Oil Co. official who was involved in the response to an oil spill off Louisiana’s coast in the early 1970’s. “But it is not going to dirty the environment the way an oil spill would.”
Rapid Expansion
The incident highlights the risks associated with the rapid transformation of America’s natural gas pipeline network. Cheap supplies surging out of shale formations in the past decade are altering pipe flows and increasing the country’s dependence on the heating and power-plant fuel.
Workers for Southern California Gas discovered the leak on Oct. 23 at a well in the mountainous Aliso Canyon storage field, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. Efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids straight into the well have failed. The utility started drilling the intercepting well on Dec. 4, the company said in a statement on Monday. The utility continues to withdraw gas from the storage facility to serve customers, the statement said.
Southern California Gas CEO Dennis Arriola has apologized and said in a letter to Porter Ranch residents that the gas utility is doing everything it can to fix the leak. The county health department said those exposed to it may experience short-term symptoms including nausea, coughing and headaches.
Southern California Gas is trying to determine the best way to cap emissions from the site, the utility said in its statement.
60,000 kilograms
As much as 60,000 kilograms of natural gas an hour has been leaking, according to David Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, a state agency that regulates emissions. That translates to about 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas that has already seeped out of the well, he said.
About $12.2 million worth of gas may be lost should it take Sempra three months to fix the leak, said James Williams, president of energy consultancy WTRG Economics, basing his estimates on the state data and natural gas prices last week. The leak hasn’t affected regional gas or power markets, said Chris DaCosta, a Boston-based analyst for energy data provider Genscape Inc.
A handful of state agencies are coordinating a joint response to the leak, said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. There will probably be a third-party investigation once it’s plugged, he said.
"Right now,” Drysdale said, “the emphasis is on getting this thing fixed.”
by stillrobertpaulsen » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:02 pm
I interviewed Erin Brockovich tonight about the massive methane leak in L.A. County. Investigators at the town hall said it is two to three times worse than the state is claiming. Brockovich called it the BP oil spill on land and the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history.
I get why people are obsessed with the Bundy occupation in Oregon. It is lurid, ludicrous, and they are cartoon villains. But the methane leak has already had the same global warming impact as if 4 million cars were suddenly added to the roads, and the leak may continue for months. The leak is from an underground storage facility owned by SoCal Gas and it has allegedly known about the corroded pipes for up to five years. It's undone years of bitterly won progress in mitigating climate change. The impact is also worse than Deepwater Horizon because methane is 84 times as efficient at heat-trapping than carbon dioxide.
This is 100 times as important as the Bundy Bunch, but the left is giving it barely 1% the attention. We deride Trumpsters because they blame groups rather than understand structures of power, particularly the intersection of capital and the state. But it does appear many on the left are committing the same fallacy here.
by Luther Blissett » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:07 pm
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