Another moment of terrible significance

If the breaking of the ice bridge on the Wilkins Ice Shelf at the start of April was, as a Times leader so rightly reported, a moment of terrible significance, (covered here and here) then what is now happening has to be all the more so.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf has since destabilised and is starting to calve - in other words its seaward edge is starting to break up on a massive scale.

This was reported a few days ago the European Space Agency - though there seems to be no report to be found on its rather rudimentary website - and covered 3 days ago by the news agency UPI. However the mainstream media has in the main been slow to pick up this key development.

From what has trickled in subsequently we learn that 'about 700 sq km of ice - bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York - has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.'

Scientists estimate that 'over the next several weeks the Wilkins shelf will lose some 1,300 square miles (3,370 square kilometers), an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, or two-thirds the size of Luxembourg.'

While more forebodingly: 'even more ice could break off "if the connection to Latady Island is lost" though it is as yet unclear that will happen.'

The best impression can be had by viewing the image slideshow on the ESA website on which Latady Island is clearly visible, while making allowance for the fact that the accompanying text is hopelessly retrospective.

While here is a sample of the press coverage.

The Independent reports

'Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km of ice - bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York - has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.
'She said 370 sq kms of ice had cracked up in recent days.'


The Guardian story went out 9 hours ago, which tells us

'"The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and the largest of its kind"'.

'The Wilkins shelf, which is the size of Jamaica, lost 14 percent of its mass last year'

'Average temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) over the past 50 years — [sic] higher than the average global rise, according to studies.
'Over the next several weeks, scientists estimate the Wilkins shelf will lose some 1,300 square miles (3,370 square kilometers) — [sic] a piece larger than the state of Rhode Island, or two-thirds the size of Luxembourg.

'"We are not sure if a new stable ice front will now form between Latady Island, Petrie Ice Rises and Dorsey Island," said Angelika Humbert of Germany's Muenster University Institute of Geophysics.
'But even more ice could break off "if the connection to Latady Island is lost," she said, "though we have no indication that this will happen in the near future."'


The Telegraph adds

'David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said: "The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and largest of its kind.
'"Eight separate ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have shown signs of retreat over the last few decades.
'"There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere."'

We should be watching with absolute attention as this drama unfolds, with the key question being how the glacier behind disintegrating ice shelf will respond.

Yet also for the historic drama. Not often in humanity's history have we been presented with the chance to bid farewell to an Earth feature as old as the hills - literally - and forever.

Should ever it reappear it will not be in be in the foreseeable future. Nor prior to the next ice age. So make sure your kids get the chance to witness this for themselves.

Apocalyse shortly! - Lovelock

Last October the prognosticator carried Apocalypse shortly? We should know next by next summer.

It was prompted by the disquieting discovery in the dying days of the last Arctic summer of the unprecedented release of methane in large quantity from the Arctic sea floor, and attempted to distill the grave implications resulting.

James Lovelock's latest thoughts on the matter are simpler. They come from an interview carried in the Irish Times of 16 April under the title The genial prophet of climate doom.

Why? Because for Lovelock, it is not a question of if. It is now a certainty.

Along with most climate scientists and specialists in the region, in the case of the Arctic ice the debate is no longer of whether it will endure, merely one of when. From there the process is inevitable:

'Within 30 years, he believes, the Arctic’s floating summer sea ice will all be melted. The polar caps will no longer reflect sunlight back into space and, instead, the ocean will absorb sunlight, heating up. The permafrosts in northern Canada and Siberia will thaw out, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2). At the same time, the tropical forests, which play a critical role in taking CO2 from the atmosphere, will die out. Global temperatures will rise by between five and six degrees in a short period of time, rendering most of the world uninhabitable for the vast majority of mankind.'

'“It is out of our hands. When the floating ice finally melts, it will be the equivalent of nearly all of the CO2 we have put in the atmosphere to date, so the earth begins to join in the act of global heating, doing it in a big way,” he says. “The earth is already moving to its hot stage. The hotter it gets, the faster it goes – and we can’t stop it.”'

'The problem, as Lovelock sees it, is that we have trashed the planet, destroying ecosystems and pumping harmful levels of CO2 into the air. The damage is already done.

'The temperature rises will be permanent, he predicts, and Gaia will adjust. Life will survive, but there is no guarantee that human beings will.'



'He pours scorn on the idea that climate change can be reversible.'

Quite rightly he points out that geoengineering - the concept that we can somehow fix climate change using technology, in essence manage both the planet and its climate - is an absolute conceit and utter folly.

'He pours scorn on the idea that climate change can be reversible.'

We only have to look objectively at our present predicament to see that.

'“I think humans just aren’t clever enough to handle the planet at the moment. We can’t even handle our financial affairs. The worst possible thing that could happen is the green dream of taking charge and saving the planet. I’d sooner a goat as a gardener than humans in charge of the earth,” he says.'

Odd, though, that he attributes that aspiration to the green lobby, as it seems misplaced. Perhaps a small portion of it. But most green solutions are based on living more ecologically and closer to the Earth.

The proponents of geoengineering are those still wedded to technology as the be all and end all (possibly quite literally) of life. In other words those who somehow remain able to believe that the industrial and economic system that has put us on the very brink is miraculously also to be our saviour.

Part of this is a naive and misplaced faith in the powers of science and technology to develop such a solution and on a scale totally unprecedented by orders of magnitude, and to do so perfectly, first time, without any prior testing. That is quite a belief.

But the main reason it is favoured is because it is the ideal recipe for the maintenance of that system as it is - massive investment in new technologies offering a bonanza for all concerned: stockbrokers and financiers; scientists, engineers, designers; manufacturers, materials suppliers; real estate; engineering and construction companies. So the perfect economic stimulus on a planetary scale, just when it is considered so desperately needed.

That is what swings the enthusiasm and support. The system marches on triumphant and unaltered. All predicated on the madness that economic well-being is paramount. Or at least on a par with having a future. Strange kind of thinking, really.

Here is where it has got us so far:

'QUITE THE MOST dire of his predictions is that the human race will be reduced in numbers to around one billion people by the end of this century. The biggest problem, he believes, is that there are just too many of us. Simply by existing, we and our lifestock [sic] account for a quarter of all man-made CO2 emissions.'

Yet like all good stories, this one still manages to surprise by reconciling things against all odds in a happy ending:

“I lived through the second World War and I thought it was exciting even though I was a pacifist. Life is going to be the opposite of boring. Young people will not regard the catastrophe in the same way as our generation will do.”

So there you go.

In closing, for James Lovelock's sake, we should note one error. The Gaia theory is not 'that the world is itself a living organism.' It is that the biosphere behaves in a manner analogous to a living organism in acting to sustain optimal conditions for the continuation of life on the planet. He is not well enamoured with that New Age interpretation.

Lovelock's scientific Gaia theory is by now thoroughly proven. The process it describes is what we have thoroughly derailed by our energy profligate ways of living.

What price a future?


For those wanting more, here is a review of both his latest book and his biography by John and Mary Gribbin which were published simultaneously in February.

Arctic Update 2: "a moment of terrible significance"

Having managed to beat the nationals in their on-line coverage of the National Snow and Ice Data Center winter Sea Ice report for the Arctic, here's the best of coverage they produced, together with a few more pertinent points.

Critical is this story from The Guardian under the headline


Thinning Arctic sea ice alarms experts. Volume of Arctic sea ice last summer may have been lowest


It is important for two reasons. First, it reports on the volume of ice, rather than the surface area, reflecting the issue of the age of the ice and its resistance to melting mentioned yesterday and here in a posting dealing with the end of Summer 2008 data. Volume is arguably the more definitive measure as large areas of new ice come and go each year. The Guardian reports

'a dramatic loss of the thicker "multi-year" ice in recent years, particularly after the summer of 2007, when the sea ice lost an area the size of Alaska in a single season.

'In 2008, the NSIDC reported that summer sea ice area recovered by 9% but was still the second lowest recorded. However, based on the latest data about the much greater area of thin first-year ice and losses of multi-year ice, especially that of five years or more, they believe that in volume terms last summer was the lowest since records began in the 1930s – and probably for at least 700 years and possibly up to 8,000 years, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the Boulder-based centre. "Our estimate is that it was probably the lowest volume on record," Meier told the Guardian. "Certainly 2007 and 2008 [were] the two lowest [years for] volume and extent."'

The other reason this piece is worth a look is for the very graphic animation showing the loss of multi-year ice. No time line though to put it in context, so best to have a look at the graphic graphics at the end of the NSIDC report itself too.


Equally important is this momentous leading article from The Times. It heads up a sober and apocalyptic warning that we must act urgently under the headline


A Sudden Chill
An ice bridge in Antarctica has disappeared from the map. This is a defining moment that means the world must move much faster against climate change

'The collapse of an ice bridge yesterday, in the remote vastness of the Antarctic, was a moment of terrible significance. It matters much more than its size may immediately suggest. This 25-mile strip of ice is believed to underpin the enormous Wilkins ice shelf, one of ten Antarctic ice shelves that have been in place for 10,000 years, but which have shrunk or collapsed in the past half-century. There is no longer any reasonable doubt that climate change is the cause: temperatures have risen by 2.5C (4.5F) in the Antarctic Peninsula in 50 years, faster than the global average.'

As has been argued repeatedly here in the prognosticator it continues:

'What is most alarming about the events in the Antarctic is their speed, which has taken scientists by surprise.'

And for the apocalyptic warning - don't forget this is The Times - get this:

'The disappearance of parts of Antarctica from the map is a warning that the world should not ignore. The need for polar research and for concerted action against climate change has never been greater. In Bonn tomorrow, 175 countries conclude climate change talks that are intended to help to devise a new climate pact in the run-up to the crucial UN summit in Copenhagen at the end of this year. But the pace is glacial. President Obama warned on his sixth day in office that unchecked climate change could lead to “irreversible catastrophe”. Those were strong words. They need to be matched by dramatic action to move to a more carbon-neutral world. Events in Antarctica may seem remote: but they should send a chill through all of us.'

Meanwhile even The Daily Telegraph offered us

Arctic will be ice-free within a decade

'Records for the Arctic only go back as far as 1979, when it became possible to collect data from space, however scientists are confident that the current levels of ice are lower than they have been for at least a century from observational records.

'"It could be several hundred thousand years ago the last time we were ice free, it was certainly seven to eight hundred years since we have had close to conditions like we have now," '

'He said the melting of the Arctic is happening much faster than previously anticipated because of man made climate change.

'"Things are happening much faster than the climate models suggested so I think change is coming to the Arctic, particularly the Arctic Sea much more quickly than people had expected."'

And this telling quote at the end

'"It is important that people are aware and understand that the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine in terms of climate. I think it is a warning of what may be to come in other parts of the world," he said.'

Finally here's some pretty straight talking from WWF under the banner

Polar bears and penguins 'just tip of climate change iceberg'

“What is happening at the poles will control the world’s climate. If we do not stop the poles from melting, the whole world will feel it, in the form of runaway warming and rising waters.”

Right now the Catlin Arctic Survey expedition is sampling the thickness of Arctic sea ice. The expedition, partly sponsored by WWF, is likely to confirm scientists’ fears that the older, thicker ice is disappearing. This has led them to predict that the summer sea ice could disappear within a generation, leading to catastrophic consequences for the entire ecosystem, everything from single celled animals to whales.

“The Ministers meeting today in Washington have a special responsibility to the world,” said Mr Hamilton.

Meanwhile all eyes must now be on the Larsen C Ice Shelf. If that goes, the sea level rises really will be apocalyptic.

Take your pick from further coverage here. Or google it up - stories are coming in continuously

Associated Press Arctic sea ice thinnest ever going into spring

San Fransisco Chronicle Arctic ice getting thinner, fading fast

ABC Ice bridge collapse sparks fresh climate change concerns

CCTV (Xinhua News Agency) U.S. calls for more protection for poles (with a nice picture of an iceberg)

Pig Business - More 4 tonight 2200

The flurry of important environmental events at short notice continues apace.

The latest is Pig Business, a film by Tracy Worcester, which is being shown tonight on More 4 at 2200.

Tracy did a brilliant job chairing the launch of the groundbreaking and quite possibly historic Wild Law research paper last Tuesday, by all accounts. More on that later.

While if all of us had her commitment to building a better world, just imagine how much better things would be. Here's what she does according to Wikipedia - amongst other things.

In 1989, Tracy Worcester began working with Friends of the Earth. Since then, she has been active in green politics as Patron of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a Trustee of the Gaia Foundation, the Schumacher Society and the Bath Environment Centre, Patron of the UK's Soil Association, and as a member of the advisory board of The Ecologist magazine and a member of the International Forum on Globalisation.

And still has time for making movies!

Pig Business exposes the unconscionable costs of bringing home the bacon on four fronts:

- animal rights

- destroying small farmers - at an astonishing rate as the market is globalised by multi-national farming conglomerates

- polluting the environment - in a big way...

- jeopardising our lives


For example on the environment (my bolding throughout, other than titles)

'One-third of the world’s total cultivable land is dedicated to growing cereal and soya to feed livestock, while a further 7% is used for grazing animals. Eighty per cent of the world's soya beans and 60% of its maize and barley are grown for livestock feed.

'Much of this land is acquired by destroying forests, a major cause of CO2 emissions and loss of biodiversity. Between 2004 and 2005 around 1.2 million hectares of rainforest were cut down as a result of soya expansion, almost entirely for animal feed and livestock pastures.

'How livestock production contributes to 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions

Source: McMichael et al. (2007) Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health. The Lancet, 370(9594), 1253-1263

'In Latin America the land devoted to soya crops doubled between 1994 and 2004, and deforestation, particularly of the Amazon rainforest, now accounts for around 75% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions. Soya cultivation in Brazil to date occupies an area of land the size of Great Britain.'

On the threat to our lives:

'Because of the crowded and unnatural conditions in which factory farmed animals live, they are frequently given antibiotics to prevent disease or bolster their weakened immune systems. Across the world half of all the antibiotics used are administered to livestock. Around 80-90% of all antibiotics used for humans and animals are not fully digested or broken down, leaving them to pass through the body and enter the environment intact through waste.

'Evidence suggests that this over-use of antibiotics is helping to spread drug-resistant strains of diseases such as MRSA and E. coli, which can cause humans serious illness and death. The transfer of MRSA from pigs to humans is already recognised in the Netherlands, and it is feared this new strain of MRSA affecting pigs in some countries will spread to the UK, exacerbating the existing problem.

'Workers at risk
'... at least a quarter of factory farm workers consistently suffer from respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, mucous membrane irritation, asthma-like syndrome, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

'A deadly environment
'Studies repeatedly show that air and water quality are threatened in and around factory farms. Noxious gases in the atmosphere from manure containing hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, and dangerous pathogens cause ill health not only to those working with the animals but those living nearby. Many local residents report unusually frequent headaches, eye irritation, excessive coughing, nausea and asthma. Hydrogen sulphide may cause nausea, blackout periods, headaches and vomiting, and breathing in too much ammonia can cause severe respiratory damage.

'Excessive spraying of faecal material onto fields results in run-off into nearby lakes and rivers, poisoning the water table, eco system and drinking water. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has discovered that 1 in 10 drinking-water wells near factory pig farms contains unsafe levels of nitrates, which has been linked to risk of blue-baby syndrome. Six-month-old infants, pregnant women and adults with immunity deficiencies are especially vulnerable.

'President George W. Bush, in one of his last acts before he leaves office, has proposed to free industrial-scale pig and cattle farms from the Clean Water Act if they declare they are not dumping animal waste in lakes and rivers.

'Exploiting the poor
'In the US, intensive pig farms are clustered typically in non-white areas near low-income communities where people are extra vulnerable to the hazards of factory farms because of existing problems of poor health, poor housing, low income, and lack of access to medical care.

After all that, one may ask why not go the whole hog, keep the poor old hog whole, and just go vegan? George Monbiot came to that conclusion, at least intellectually, in this article last April:

Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger. And if you care, eat less meat A food recession is under way. Biofuels are a crime against humanity, but - take it from a flesh eater - flesh eating is worse

While there are some telling environmental arguments put forward by the Vegan Society here and in the side links dealing with land, water and energy.

Perhaps most telling, particularly for those inclined to blame climate change on the growing human population is this:

'World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and livestock now outnumber people by more than 3 to 1. [2] In other words, the livestock population is expanding at a faster rate than the human population.'

And consuming a substantial proportion of the available resources, particularly land, food and water.

More than enough said.

The Age of Stupid premier Sunday 15 March

Very briefly this is something positive and vitally important. The Age of Stupid takes up the baton from An Inconvenient Truth. It promises to make the vital change perceptions to climate change on a grand scale. The film made a big impression when previewed in the House of Commons tea rooms packed to the limit. Here's what some famous people have already said.

Equally important is that Polly Higgins will be speaking at the premier to give The Trees Have Rights Too campaign its first large scale public airing. The campaign calls for a United Nations Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights to fundamentally repair our broken relationship with the planet, and is the best chance we have of salvaging something from our self-imposed predicament. More on this later.

Little time to say more, so below are some other folks' take on it.


From Wise Women

FIRST SOLAR POWERED PREMIERE LIGHTS UP LEICESTER SQUAREEveryone invited to world’s biggest film premiere!At 6pm on Sunday 15th March, London’s Leicester Square will be hosting the world’s first premiere in a solar cinema tent for the highly anticipated climate change film, The Age of Stupid.The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living alone in what is a devastated world of 2055, looking at “archive footage” from 2008, asking “why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”. Directed by Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and produced by Oscar-winning John Battsek (One Day in September), the £450,000 budget for the film was raised entirely by “crowd-funding” whereby 228 people invested between £500 and £35,000.Held in a tent in the gardens of the square, the premiere also gives the British public an opportunity to be included in the events on the night. Green carpet arrivals and a post-film Q&A will be beamed around the UK via live satellite link-up to over 70 cinemas including the Eden Project in Cornwall, creating a truly exceptional experience and a “People’s Premiere”.Tickets now on sale. You can buy tickets at your local participating cinema for the record-breaking People's Premiere on March 15th (16,000 seats simultaneously at 64 cinemas across the UK!)


From Embercombe

The Age of Stupid has arrived!See the trailer at: http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fvideo%2FtrailerHere’s the press release: FIRST SOLAR POWERED PREMIERE LIGHTS UP LEICESTER SQUAREEveryone invited to world’s biggest film premiere!At 6pm on Sunday 15th March, London’s Leicester Square will be hosting the world’s first premiere in a solar cinema tent for the highly anticipated climate change film, The Age of Stupid.The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living alone in what is a devastated world of 2055, looking at “archive footage” from 2008, asking “why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”. Directed by Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and produced by Oscar-winning John Battsek (One Day in September), the £450,000 budget for the film was raised entirely by “crowd-funding” whereby 228 people invested between £500 and £35,000.The UK Film Council, which is keen to support new and groundbreaking methods of distribution, is supporting the film’s distributor Dogwoof with funding towards the live satellite transmission of the premiere and Q&A to cinemas across the UK. Oscar Nominee Pete Postlethwaite stars as the narrator of the film and will be joined on the “green” carpet by a glittering array of British talent all lending their support to the film and the climate action campaign, “Not Stupid”. Held in a tent in the gardens of the square, the premiere also gives the British public an opportunity to be included in the events on the night. Green carpet arrivals and a post-film Q&A will be beamed around the UK via live satellite link-up to over 70 cinemas including the Eden Project in Cornwall, creating a truly exceptional experience and a “People’s Premiere”. The public can buy tickets at their local participating cinema.With 16,000 expected attendees across the country, the Guinness Book of Records expect to confirm it’s the largest ever premiere.See the trailer at: http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fvideo%2FtrailerTickets now on sale!1. For the record-breaking People's Premiere on March 15th (16,000 seats simultaneously at 64 cinemas across the UK!): http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fpremiere2. For the national cinema release on March 20th (10 cinemas so far): http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fweekone>>>



Aberdeen: THE BELMONT>>> Bath: THE LITTLE THEATRE>>> Birmingham: VUE>>> Blackburn: VUE>>> Bristol: VUE>>> Bury: VUE>>> Cambridge: VUE>>> Cardiff: THE CHAPTER CINEMA>>> Carlisle: VUE>>> Cheshire Oaks: VUE>>> Clones, Co. Monaghan: Clones Film Club>>> Croydon Purley Way: VUE>>> Edinburgh: VUE>>> Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh: FERMANAGH HOUSE>>> Exeter: EXETER PICTUREHOUSE with talk by Mac Macartney of Embercombe>>> Glasgow: GLASGOW FILM THEATRE>>> Glasgow: ODEON Braehead>>> Guilford: ODEON>>> Harrow: VUE>>> Hartlepool: VUE Hartlepool>>> Hatfield: ODEON>>> Hull: VUE>>> Inverness: VUE>>> Kingston: ODEON>>> Leeds Kirkstall: VUE>>> Leeds Light: VUE>>> Leicester: VUE>>> Lincoln: ODEON>>> Liverpool: FACT>>> Livingston: VUE>>> London: ODEON Greenwich>>> London: ODEON Wimbledon with talk by Suzy Edwards of Embercombe>>> London: SOLAR POWERED CINEMA TENT Leicester Square>>> London: VUE Acton>>> London: VUE Finchley Rd>>> London: VUE Fulham (Youth)>>> London: VUE Islington>>> London: VUE Shepherds Bush>>> Maidenhead: ODEON>>> Manchester-Lowry: VUE>>> Naul, Co. Dublin: THE SEAMUS ENNIS CENTRE>>> New Ross: ST. MICHAEL'S THEATRE>>> Newcastle West, Co. Limerick: DESMOND ABILITY RESOURCE CENTRE>>> Newcastle-under-Lyme: VUE>>> Newcastle: TYNESIDE CINEMA>>> Oxford: PHOENIX PICTUREHOUSE>>> Plymouth: VUE>>> Portlaoise, Co. Laois: DUNAMISE ARTS CENTRE>>> Portsmouth: VUE>>> Preston: VUE>>> Reading: VUE>>> Romford: VUE>>> Scunthorpe: VUE>>> Southport: VUE>>> Staines: VUE>>> Swindon: EMPIRE>>> Tinahely, Co. Wicklow: THE COURTHOUSE ARTS CENTRE>>> Tunbridge Wells: ODEON>>> Watford: VUE>>> Wigan: EMPIRE>>> York: VUE


Enjoy and be galvanised

Exclusive? Gulf Stream to weaken by 25 to 30%

'It is very likely that the northward flow of warm water in the upper layers of the Atlantic Ocean, which has an important impact on the global climate system, will decrease by approximately 25-30 percent.'

Well here's one that seems to have gone straight under the media's radar. Probably because its scare-mongering, you might be thinking.

Who is it making these exaggerated and irresponsible predictions? Some group of eco-nuts way out west of Greenpeace, skeptics might well presume.

Unfortunately not. In fact it is the Geological Survey of none other than the United States of America - good 'ol Uncle Sam in person, in effect, previously a.k.a. the self-proclaimed climate change skeptic in chief.

Astonishing what a change at the top will do. Let us just hope its not too late. It is now perilously close to it - wait for the update on CO2 and others, later this week, Inshallah.

An unimpeachable source, then. Or as near as we are likely to get to one. Here's what they have to say in their Newsroom feed March Science Picks released on 6 March (all bolding is mine):

'The United States faces the potential for abrupt climate change in the 21st century that could pose clear risks to society in terms of our ability to adapt. A new report led by the USGS makes the following conclusions about the potential for abrupt climate changes from global warming during this century:

'Climate model simulations and observations suggest that rapid and sustained September Arctic sea ice loss is likely in the 21st century.

'The Southwestern United States may be beginning an abrupt period of increased drought.

'It is very likely that the northward flow of warm water in the upper layers of the Atlantic Ocean, which has an important impact on the global climate system, will decrease by approximately 25-30 percent. However, it is very unlikely that this circulation will collapse or that the weakening will occur abruptly during the 21st century and beyond.

'An abrupt change in sea level is possible, but predictions are highly uncertain due to shortcomings in existing climate models.

'There is unlikely to be an abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere from deposits in the earth. However, it is very likely that the pace of methane emissions will increase.'

The feed summarises US Climate Change Synthesis and Assessment Report 3.4. Abrupt Climate Change. Assessment and Findings which is a quick read in 4 pages replete with graphs, excellent diagrams and some pretty pictures.

It all sounds positively reassuring until you adjust to the cool scientific language. Then you may not find statements like those that follow quite so reassuring.

(The AMOC referred to is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, of which the Gulf Stream is perhaps the most famous component.)

'Inclusion of these ice-sheet and glacier processes into future modeling experiments will likely lead to sea-level rise projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed those presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report (IPCC AR4).'


'It is very likely that the strength of the AMOC will decrease by approximately 25–30 percent over the course of the 21st century in response to increasing greenhouse gases, which will affect the distribution of heat in the North Atlantic. Even with the projected moderate AMOC weakening, it is still very likely that on multidecadal to century time scales a warming trend will occur over most of the European region downstream of the North Atlantic Current in response to increasing greenhouse gases, as well as over North America.'

'It is very unlikely that the AMOC will undergo a collapse or an abrupt transition to a weakened state during the 21st century. It is also unlikely that the AMOC will collapse beyond the end of the 21st century because of global warming, although the possibility cannot be entirely excluded.'

'The summer arctic sea-ice cover has undergone dramatic retreat since satellite records began in 1979, amounting to a loss of almost 30 percent of the September ice cover in 29 years. Climate model simulations suggest that rapid and sustained September arctic ice loss is likely in future 21st century climate projections. It is notable that climate models are generally conservative in the modeled rate of Arctic ice loss as compared to observations, suggesting that future ice retreat could occur even more abruptly than simulated in almost all current models.'


'While a catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere in the next century appears very unlikely, it is very likely that climate change will accelerate the pace of persistent emissions from both hydrate sources and wetlands. Current models suggest that wetland emissions could double in the next century. Methane release from the hydrate reservoir will likely have a significant influence on global warming over the next 1,000 to 100,000 years.'

On the last, my suspicion is that the data used did not include the latest findings which came in right at the end of the Arctic summer last September covered previously in 'Apocalypse shortly? We should know next summer.'

As to a 25% to 30% reduction in the Gulf Stream, for those living in the atypically warm areas on the west coast of Europe bathed in its currents the best analogy I have been able to come up with so far is someone turning the central heating down permanently by that a quarter to a third.

Enough to make most folks complain, it would seem fair to say. As well as reach for the duvet jackets...if not take to bed permanently, were it not for the countervailing effect of global warming

'a warming trend will occur over most of the European region downstream of the North Atlantic Current in response to increasing greenhouse gases, as well as over North America.'

expected to result in a net rise in temperature.

Put the two together,and that sounds like they are expecting the planet to heat up. I suppose you could say 'quite radically'. Which all sounds like bad news all around - particularly for most of the rest of the world that does not have the countervailing effect of a weakening Gulf Stream to cool them.

Add in unstated, highly uncertain effects on the weather, and there is a lot to be concerned about.

Cap, Trade and Lobby

Much remains to catch up on, but here is one hot off the press.

It is James Hansen's reflections following his testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means of the US House of Representatives on 25 February.

His testimony lays out starkly the reasons why cap and trade - which he argues should properly be called 'tax and trade' - is intrinsically incapable of addressing climate change effectively.

Because it is inherently inefficient, far too slow, and wide open to exploitation, as well as just plain unjust.

More than just disquieting, then, that cap and trade is the principal and more or less unique mechanism world leaders are prepared to envisage as a response to the perils of climate change.

Here are some key quotes from Hansen's testimony:

'A ‘cap’ increases the price of energy, as a tax does. It is wrong and disingenuous to try to hide the fact that Cap is a tax. Other characteristics of the “cap” approach: (1) unpredictable price volatility, (2) it makes millionaires on Wall Street and other trading floors at public expense, (3) it is an invitation to blackmail by utilities that threaten “blackout coming” to gain increased emission permits, (4) it has overhead costs and complexities, inviting lobbyists and delaying implementation.

'The biggest problem with Cap Tax is that it will not solve the problem. The public will soon learn that it is a tax. And because there is no dividend, the public will revolt before the Cap Tax is large enough to transform society. There is no way that the Cap Tax can get us back to 350 ppm CO2.

'We need a tax with 100% dividend to transform our energy systems and rapidly move us beyond fossil fuels. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we cannot let the special interests win this fight.

'Our planet is in peril (1). Climate disruption threatens everyone, but especially the young and the unborn, who will bear the full brunt through no fault of their own. Recent science makes it clear that if we continue to burn most of the fossil fuels we will leave our children a deteriorating situation out of their control.

One scientific conclusion is crystal clear (1): we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without setting in motion a process of climate disruption that threatens the very existence of many species on our planet. This potential injustice is not limited to the innocent species we exterminate. The greatest injustice is to our own species (2) – our children, grandchildren and the unborn, and people who live with nature, who we may call ‘undeveloped’, indigenous people who want only to live their lives without bearing burdens that we create.'

[please see the paper for footnotes 1 and 2 - link below]

Instead he argues passionately for a 'Carbon Tax & 100% Dividend' where the entire yield of the tax is returned to the community so as to reward low carbon users whilst penalising profligate ones. This is a simple measure that can be quickly introduced which will immediately change consumer behaviour directly. One reason is that it will shift the balance decisively in favour of renewable energy over carbon.

In his testimony he suggests:

'a tax large enough to enough to affect purchasing decisions: a carbon tax that adds $1 to the price of a gallon of gas. That’s a carbon price of about $115 per ton of CO2. That tax rate yields $670B per year. We return 100% of that money to the public. Each adult legal resident gets one share, which is $3000 per year, $250 per month deposited in their bank account. Half shares for each child up to a maximum of two children per family. So a tax rate of $115 per ton yields a dividend of $9000 per year for a family with two children, $750 per month. The family with carbon footprint less than average makes money – their dividend exceeds their tax. This tax gives a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure. It spurs the economy. It spurs innovation.

'This path can take us to the era beyond fossil fuels, leave most remaining coal in the ground, and avoid the need to go to extreme environments to find every drop of oil. We must move beyond fossil fuels anyhow. Why not do it sooner, for the benefit of our children? Not to do so, knowing the consequences, is immoral. The tax rate likely must increase in time, but when gas hits $4 per gallon again most of that $4 will stay in the United States, as dividends. Our vehicles will not need as many gallons. We will be well on the way to energy independence.'

On the way we get some insights into the world of climate change politics and lobbyists in particular:

'the number of lobbyists in DC working to influence federal policy on climate change increased in the past few years by 300% to 2,340 lobbyists -- four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.'

'The question is: who will Congress listen to? Protesters (bringing no gifts - it's hard enough to pay their own way) or lobbyists (with lobbying expenditures last year of about $90M).

'Young folks, if you need an indication of what you are up against, let me give you one example. Peabody Coal (a.k.a. Peabody Energy) hires Dick Gephardt, paying him $120,000.00 per quarter in 2008. The amount of money going into lobbying is increasing rapidly. As Shakespeare would say, gird up your loins.

'If democracy does not win this one, if the lobbyists win, perhaps the best we can do for our grandchildren is buy them a ticket to another planet. Of course, Congress would have to borrow the money from our grandchildren. But at least we would show that we are giving them some consideration.'

And I guess that goes equally for every one of us too.

Gird up your loins, folks. The Last Battle approaches. Truly.

For those with the time, his testimony is well worth a look to see how the world's top climate scientist summarises our position and policy responses to it. Find them all at

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/02/james-hansen-ways-and-means-and.html

Perfectly on form - in denial again

I suspect that if there are historians still around at the end of all this, they will look back to that story in the Independent on 23 September as an absolute watershed in human history. It marks a clear divide at the end of the long period just finished during which the population at large could regard the prospect of runaway climate change as just another hypothesis which, despite the odd disquieting signal (and later the slow but relentless stream of them), could be relegated to the realms of fantasy. Alongside so many others that emerged from odd quarters of the scientific community but turned out to be mumbo-jumbo at best, if not positively laughable with hindsight.

That option was never there for the scientist. But the lay person has a wonderful ability to disregard unpleasant uncertainties as if they were nothing but fictional, or even as if they had never been thought of at all. Somewhat akin to a gambler who, having placed bets on certain runners, is able to exclude all the others from his or her reality as if they did not exist, and maintain the focus of interest and attention exclusively on the progress of his or her chosen subjects.

Curiously, in practice it tends to work as long as they place safe bets on tried and trusted riders, and dark outsiders do not overturn the cosy predictability of normality too often. The occasional upset can be endured on the basis of the overall average. But it is at best no more than a coping strategy, and one that limits the practitioner to a restricted group of set responses - whilst completely preventing a more full and objective engagement. Or any at all in new developments that fall outside their self-defined safe boundaries.

Probably most people live their lives on a strategy more or less similar. But it is no more than a coping strategy, and one that is fundamentally flawed because should one of the possibilities that has been dismissed and is being ignored actually come to pass, not only are they completely unprepared for it, but it appears to come as a bolt out of nowhere and with the force of Thor's hammer. It wasn't really - its evolution and arrival were perfectly foreseeable to any who had been able to maintain objectivity, taken the trouble to look and observe. But to those who had blanked it out, that would be how events would appear. Nowhere is this more apparent than over climate change and the various other environmental threats pressing down on us from all sides.


Nor is it only the common person. When you look for it, this form of denial is manifest more or less universally. And most reprehensibly by those who hold power and would lead society.

On the one hand the world of business and economic interests seems unable to grasp the enormity of the threat that is upon us, and stumble on under the illusion that business as usual, or as close to it as can be approximated under the circumstances, will somehow get us through - and admirably. This stems from an extreme and irrational overvaluing of profit above, and more or less to the exclusion of, all else. Hence most of what are alleged to be imaginative business responses to climate change turn out to be little more than repackaging exercises designed to minimise real change to the fundamental model and the resulting bottom line, while putting a bright new and very saleable spin on what has always been offered. It ought by now be painfully apparent to all that economic activity has always been the main driver of environmental damage, so that very model is utterly bankrupt faced with something on the overwhelming scale of climate change, not least because it has been and remains the very cause.

Much the same goes for governments and the machinery that composes them. Politicians elected - laughably, as is apparent under the circumstances - for their vision, integrity and ability to lead, have proved over and over that they are afflicted by the very same symptoms as the person in the street, and seem incapable even to perceive the magnitude of the threat let alone respond to it, so prove completely inept at ordering a rational set of priorities, and intrinsically incapable of convincing, facilitating and inspiring society to restructure radically as is imperative in response.

Instead they downplay the priority and focus upon the tried and trusted, playing to - or more probably sharing - the anxiety of the mass over economic downturn. In part because they, like the folk in the street, have failed to manage their finances with prudence, left themselves exposed, so got caught hopping when the inevitable crunch happened along.

Far from being a greater disaster, recession is actually quite normal and not the huge threat it is made out to be. It is merely the other side of the economic cycle which follows growth as inevitably as low tide follows high, and can be charted just as visually. It should not, therefore, be such a big deal. Indeed it ought properly be an event anticipated and planned for in our lives, with as much certainly as we do for winter. If anything is currently remarkable, it is the length of the period of positive growth that has preceded the current downturn. So its end ought rightly to be cause for thanks and celebration for the boom we have enjoyed for so long and the wealth we have been able to accumulate as a result, rather than a churlish and mealy-mouthed angst that we don't have as much coming in today, and how can we possibly get buy/by? All that serves to reveal is the depths of our greed, together with our lack of prudence and economic management resultant from it.


Meanwhile those employed by the state for their expertise to guide governments along the process - the diplomats, civil servants, policy advisors and so on - seem almost equally lost in illusion. As a body they have failed to grasp that you cannot negotiate with Gaia (or with the environment, if you prefer). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the utterly narcissistic idea that the timing of the introduction of the replacement for Kyoto, which is absolutely critical for our survival, should be decided by diplomatic timetables fixed years ago for late next year to keep the diaries neat, and not by the real, physical urgency of what is happening on the ground, in the waters and in the atmosphere. Do they really think climate change is going to kick around outside the door waiting their decision because they and the politicians they serve are VIPs (Very Important Persons - there can be few titles more narcissistic) with hectic schedules to fulfil and too many calls on their time? And whatever defences they may throw up for this critical failure, is it not absolutely self-apparent that were it a war they were trying to avert, none of this timetable nonsense, this procedural protocol, would be allowed for one moment to impede attempts to broker peace. Yet no war yet fought has been as threatening to the future as climate change, and only an all-out nuclear Armageddon could be. It is but one more reflection of the critical failure of society to grasp even the bare essentials of the peril in which it lies, and of the denial that is rampant everywhere you look as a result.


Scientists never had this luxury. Once it became clear that methane was detectable in the Arctic waters in areas where it had never before been measurable, they could not simply disregard the prospect of runaway climate change as mere hypothesis. The methane was there, and methodology obliged them to ask from where was it coming, and why. Until those two questions have been answered, any hypothesis which postulates a plausible explanation has to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, in this case there are few if any, other than runaway climate change.

So scientists have been living with this possibility for a long time, watching intently for more evidence to understand better, and calling for caution and timely, proportionate action. May that the rest of society now come to its senses, and come and join them on the Arctic ice - in spirit at least.

Apocalypse shortly? We should know by next summer

Here is the news that we all hoped would never happen.

Guess we thought we would all get away with it. That it just wouldn't come to pass. Despite all the inevitability. That it would turn out to be no more than another apocalyptic scare story from those crackpot Earth scientists – the ones who were running around thirty years ago predicting arrival of the next ice age.

Or if it really is inevitable, not in our lifetimes. Or at least, for pity's sake, not until 2070 when we've had our best years and are about ready to depart this mortal coil.

Best of all, that it should be like all those other things you read about in the news that everyone gets so exercised about, but then just seem to dissolve and leave nothing. Nothing happens, then later people seem hardly to remember. The millenium bug, the asteroid that is going to hit, the killer bees. Perhaps avian flu. Things like that. Scary stories that spice life up and cause a big hoo-ha... but ultimately come to zilch.

Like positive feedback cutting in and spiralling climate change - more or less literally - into the stratosphere. Images of millions of tonnes of methane liberated from the sea floor, bubbling up to the surface in great plumes over vast swathes of ocean, making research vessels look like toy boats in some infernal hot tub with the jacuzzi turned up full... Ideas like that.

But of course that all remains incorrigibly hypothetical, because the tipping point has always been w a y over yonder.

If it is not totally mythical. Or so goes the thinking.



Well guess what...?


...No!


Yep.


Afraid so.


Or - if it isn't - it is something never before seen that just happens to bear the most uncanny likeness.

'"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."

At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.

"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."'

This is not science fiction. Nor is it the script from some topical TV drama.

It comes from an exclusive called, aptly enough, Exclusive: The Methane time bomb carried by the Independent on 23 September. The quote above is how it covered a rather breathless report by the leader of an international scientific expedition, made direct from the decks of the research vessel immediately it finished sailing the entire length of Russia's north coast.

Arguably this is the most important news story of all time - because it indicates, for the first time ever, a reasonable possibility of the arrival of conditions that will bring life as we know it shortly to an end, (including the two-legged ones - and history too, being an exclusively anthropocentric interest, also, for that matter). As such it deserves detailed examination, so here is a cheat sheet.




What we have here is more or less exactly what is predicted by the positive feedback model. So is that what is going on?

Well there seems to be a strong case in that direction. It would seem to be primary evidence that climate change has now got to such a magnitude that it is causing the melting of permafrost and methane hydrates on a large scale. First, the fit is near perfect. The Arctic as the hotspot for global warming is heating up tremendously – the latest figure is by an astonishing five degrees. The Arctic ice seems to be in terminal retreat with the consequence that yet more energy gets transferred to the system as it gives way to seawater – one of the most absorbant substances known. The tundra is certainly melting, and very quickly too. Methane has been detectable in the Arctic waters since 2003 or earlier whereas it was not present before, suggesting that the methane hydrates and permafrost have been under stress and starting to leak for some time. Yet we have not reacted.

Second, it is hard to postulate another explanation. There are no other sources of methane on this scale to look to, other than huge deposits of submerged, rotting material not presently known to exist. So it would seem likely that whatever is causing this is triggering release from the methane hydrates and the permafrost.



OK, so it looks like positive feedback, but are there credible alternatives to climate change as the cause?

Not really. One could postulate that that is being caused by a different mechanism unrelated to climate change, for instance:

The permafrost cap in these areas may have been fractured by seismic activity. But if that was the case, these plumes would have been observed since time immemorial.

A large but localised geothermal hotspot could have caused the melting. But again, that possibility has always been around, so why has this not been seen until now? You could argue that as a result of the temperature changes in the Arctic waters caused by climate change, the permafrost cap has now been weakened by thawing to a state where it is vulnerable to such hotspots, whereas before it was not. This does still not seem as likely though, as so far we have no evidence linking what is happening to hotspots. But it is coherent enough to deserve further scrutiny to see if it stands up.


There are no other obvious ones at present. Of these, only one seems to stand up to even mild scrutiny. And it still looks close to a no-hoper alongside the positive feedback model.



So is it positive feedback for sure?

Not yet. It can be considered positive feedback when it is known to be either triggering a runaway release of the stored methane; or it causes runaway effects elsewhere in the climate system. Neither of these have yet been proven. But it is clearly a strong signal that the first may already be in train; and that may well give rise to the second over a longer period.

The first could be observed fairly readily, so should be obvious by the end of next summer at latest. The second depends upon how catastrophic the effect. The more so the quicker it will become apparent.



So what next?

The Arctic Ocean is now be freezing over again with the onset of winter, which will impede research in the short term. It also gives rise to a number of possible scenarios overwinter. If the methane release continues unabated or at an increasing rate it may either be trapped beneath the ice in huge bubbles or reservoirs, or it may dissolve in the sea water and diffuse somewhat.

If the former, there will be a colossal release of trapped methane about next March when the sea ice begins to break up, which should prove interesting. Once liberated to the atmosphere it will add to forcing, possibly by a significant factor depending on how much is released. This could lead to a significant hike in temperatures, and possibly to positive feedback in that respect.

If the latter, the release will be more attenuated. But this will make little difference to the net amount released or to the climatic effects medium to long-term.

Alternatively the rate of methane release may slow up over winter. This could result from a reduction of biological activity if this is a factor in play, or other unforeseen changes as a result of falling temperature.



Could it stop altogether for the winter... or forever?

The problem here is to find a mechanism that would cause that to happen.

If, as seems likely, the release is being caused by a weakening of the permafrost cap caused by melting, the only mechanism likely to stop that is if the cap refreezes again, sealing itself in the process. But that seems most improbable under present conditions, which are giving rise to long-term and potentially irreversible melting, generally through the region.

Sea ice may reform in winter, but it does so at the surface, and in fairly thin plates. The only conceivable way for this process to affect permafrost lying on or below the sea bed would be if the entire body of water from surface to sea bed were to freeze. Whilst the depths involved are not explicitly stated in the report, we must assume sufficient depth for the research ship to pass – say five metres at absolute minimum. Given that sea temperatures have been rising, and freezing delayed by the increased area of open water and by the milder climate generally, it seems vanishingly unlikely this would happen, short of a catastrophically severe winter, or more convincingly, a succession of them. That, in turn, seems highly unlikely for the same reasons.



Methane – that's pretty nasty stuff – right?

The worst greenhouse gas arising naturally and in quantity. Here's a cheat sheet from the Independent. The bad new is it is about 20 times more potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The good is that it decays after around 12 years. But it fails to mention that it probably decays to CO2, so that is only the start of the story. Also both those figures are quoted quite variably in the various papers relating to this story. For instance the lifespan has been quoted at between 6 and 20 years, depending on conditions.



That's serious. So how much of this stuff is there?

A definitive study was published in September entitled Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle which tells just about everything you could want to know on this subject. This estimates the total soil carbon in the northern circumpolar permafrost zone to be 1672 petagrams (Pg; 1 Pg = 1 billion metric tons), with 277 Pg of that in peat-lands. This doubled previous estimates, which means all previous climate modelling will be way out in this respect.

To put it in context 1672 petagrams is considered to be twice as much as currently exists in the atmosphere:

Overall, this permafrost C[arbon] pool estimate is more than twice the size of the entire atmospheric C[arbon] pool, and it is more than double previous estimates of high-latitude soil C[arbon](Gorham 1991, Jobbágy and Jackson 2000). The 0–3 m permafrost- zone soil C[arbon] estimated here at 1024 Pg represents a large fraction of world soil C[arbon] stocks; global soil C[arbon] stocks from 0 to 3 m depth (peatlands not included) have been estimated to be 2300 Pg (Jobbágy and Jackson 2000).

Twice as much as is up there now – that's curtains!

Global average greenhouse gases are currently at 385 ppm CO2 equivalent. Hypothetically if all that carbon is released it would treble that to 1155 ppm.

Well it all depends on what happens - but it sure doesn't look reassuring, to put it mildly. On thawing there will be a big spike as the gases that are currently trapped by the permafrost cap are released in large quantity. But most of this carbon is held in biological material requiring decomposition by microbes to release it, which is considered to be the dominant continuous process. Fire is the dominant episodic one.

In combination with dry conditions or increased water infiltration, thawing and fires could, given the right set of circumstances, act together to expose and transfer permafrost C[arbon] to the atmosphere very rapidly. Lastly, fire can interact with decomposition by creating warmer soil conditions and deeper permafrost thaw, which in turn promote the loss of C[arbon] from increased microbial activity.

Clearly the result will depend on the amounts of methane released, and the rate at which it is. But when they say very rapidly, they mean just that. We now have data from Antarctic ice cores proving that this happened at least twice previously, and at astronomical rates.



1155 ppm CO2? Can you put that in context?

The European Carbon Trading Scheme wa hailed as a big success as the first working carbon trading scheme, with the cap set at 550 ppm CO2. But as it soon became clear this would make absolutely no difference to climate change other than being a quick road to the hot house, it wasn't such a success after all.

IPCC4 caused massive angst when it brought the figure down to 450 ppm at the start of 2007, but by that summer the science had moved on so fast that it was clear that wouldn't save us either.

Various authorities then suggested we needed to limit CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere to 425 ppm or 400 ppm.

The soundest thinking emerged this June when James Hansen, a monumental figure in climate science, brought the figure down again to 350 ppm. This was discussed at length by the pensive prognosticator in“Finding oil isn't the issue – it is whether we want to find it, burn it and all fry” . But it must be confessed with one omission – it failed to stress that the actual levels already stood above the 380 ppm mark – 30 ppm or more into the danger zone. Which only goes to suggest that we have simply been waiting for something to blow, which might go along way to explain why this is happening. It all fits Hansen's model perfectly.

To give it a time line, 100 Months is based upon an estimate on when we will pass 425 ppm CO2. That campaign commenced on 01 August, so we are currently in month 98. However as 425 ppm looks incredible as a safe limit, it is unlikely we have that long. But don't let that put you off the campaign – that aside it is a good campaign, one of the few positive things going on and is well worth supporting.

If you take 400 ppm CO2 as the red line, we currently stand at 385 ppm. Greenhouse gases have been growing at 2 ppm per year and appear to be accelerating slightly. In addition we now have this new and significant source of methane to add to that. Make your own estimates on that basis – but if you get to a figure of more than seven and a half years from now, you've cooked it.



How soon will we know?

Winter conditions will impede research, and the presence of ice will obscure large-scale surface observations. Divers and mini subs might still be able to check out the sub-surface activity and the sources of methane. Surface measurements of trapped methane build up should still be possible.

Despite that it is unlikely we will have a good idea before:

the scale of the release of methane during the sea ice break up is know (next spring);

open water will allow direct observation of the extent of the plumes over a large area (next summer);

the renewed scale of activity and whether this is accelerating significantly is clear (probably not until late summer).

unless one or more proves to be catastrophic in scale, in which case we shall know all the sooner.



Further developments

Incredibly, only one.

Two days later, on 25 September, the Independent followed up with Hundreds of methane 'plumes' discovered . This story dealt with entirely unrelated research which had also just discovered the release of methane for the first time in a completely different part of the Arctic, this time off Svalbard in Norway. However the details are quite different.

At Svalbard there has been no prior investigation, the locations were much deeper, and the methane sources are not currently capped by permafrost. So it is conservatively assumed the process there has been going on for some 15,000 years. But this does not rule out that the scale is increasing in response to climate change, and clearly the researchers are onto that.

Unlike the first research it was able to confirm the source as methane hydrates degassing, in line with James Hansen's predictions.

Here is an extract or two.

'Yesterday, researchers on board the British research ship the James Clark Ross said they had counted about 250 methane plumes bubbling from the seabed in an area of about 30 square miles in water less than 400 metes (1,300 feet) deep off the west coast of Svalbard. They have also discovered a set of deeper plumes at depths of about 1,200 metres at a second site near by. Analysis of sediments and seawater has confirmed the rising gas is methane...'


'An analysis of sediments taken from the seabed show that the gas is coming from methane hydrates – ice-like crystals where molecules of the gas are captured in "cages" made of water molecules, which become unstable as water pressures fall or temperatures rise.

'Professor Westbrook said the area surveyed off the west coast of Svalbard was very different to the area being studied by the Russian vessel because the water was much deeper and does not have a layer of permafrost sealing the methane under the seabed.

'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.

'"We were very excited when we found these plumes because it was the first evidence there was an active gas system in this part of the world. Now we know it's there we know we have to very seriously consider its effect."'

And that - oddly enough - seems to be the entire media coverage to date on the most important news item in all of history.

It does not seem to have been picked up on by other periodicals. Nor has the Independent, which has to be praised for getting onto the story so fast, followed up. Searching has not brought up any scientific papers by the scientists quoted – which in itself is not unreasonable given that there are huge data sets to be crunched and analysed, conclusions to be tested and the paper itself to be produced.

But may leave you wondering why, if you missed the Independent stories first time around, you should have to be depending on a haplessly late story in the pensive prognosticator, a bottom of the heap blog, to bring you news which is arguably the most important in your life, critical to your entire future and a major factor in every decision you subsequently make. And the same for the world collectively.

But I leave that with you to ponder. And shall try to deal with the question as to how we should respond as individuals in the next instalment.




Stay happy





Sources

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hundreds-of-methane-plumes-discovered-941456.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-connor-the-ultimate-gas-leak-that-scientists-dreaded-938935.html

Arctic Meltdown - End of season report

Greetings

INTRODUCTION FOR NEW RECIPIENTS
If you are receiving one of these emails for the first time, we met (if only fleetingly) at the recent Wild Law weekend so have been added you to the distribution accordingly. Its purpose is flag up key issues relating to Wild Law, the precariousness of our position in the face of environmental threats and other information otherwise easily missed.The frequency is perforce very low, though there is likely to be a slight flurry of half a dozen or so in the short-term to catch up on several major developments.

Should you wish to get a better feel of what is involved, current and previous emails are posted on the pensive prognosticator where most of the traffic from the now defunct Wild Law forum hosted by forumality.com can also be found. All are welcome to post comments and discuss if so moved.

However if this is not to your wishes please let me know and I shall immediately remove you with apologies for the presumption.


PLAIN TEXT READERS
If you are reading this email as plain text and have difficulty locating links please view the blog copy posted at

http://pensiveprognosticator.blogspot.com

If you could also let me know I would be grateful, particularly if this expedient does not work well for you.



And so to the Arctic...


WINTER RETURNS


The arctic summer came to an end on 14 September when the thaw ceased and freezing conditions returned.

The ice is now reforming as the seas freeze and the snows fall, and assuming historical weather patterns continue to hold this will continue until next March, when the next thaw should commence.

This report summarises the main scientific conclusions at the season's end, where disquieting trends underly the superficial data on the extent of this summer's melt.

As this might have made for a rather dry read, it is worth noting that it also acts as as background for next email which contains developments of the gravest significance which broke at the end of September, and which rightly should have us all standing by at the emergency exits ready to abandon ship in short order. As it is so critical to our entire situation the intention is to get it to you as soon as I can.

All emphasis by bolding in the quotes which follow is mine.



ICE LOSS
In the end this summer's melt did not break the 2007 record, which is probably taken as reassurance that things aren't really so perilous after all in quarters where that is what people hope to believe. But it did come within 390,000 square kilometres or 9% of the all-time minimum, as these figures summarised by the International Polar Foundation in an article entitled Long Term Arctic Sea Ice Decline Continues show:

September 2005: 5.57 million km2
September 2007: 4.28 million km2
September 2008: 4.67 million km2

It all looks good until you realise that 2007 was 'perfect storm' conditions for melting, whilst this summer was for the most part somewhat unfavourable from that point of view. June and July were cool and cloudy, and the rates of melting indifferent. Nonetheless the 2008 September low was still 34% below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000, and only 9% shy of 2007.

The reality was exposed in August, when the summer finally got going, when the NASA Goddard Space Flight Institute reported the rate of melting was the fastest ever recorded - and at a gob-smacking rate, too:

'From August 1 to August 31, NASA data show that arctic sea ice extent declined at a rate of 32,700 square miles [84,693 km2] per day, compared to a rate of about 24,400 square miles [63,196 km2] per day in August 2007. Since measurements began, the arctic sea ice extent has declined at an average rate of 19,700 miles per day at the point when the extent reaches its annual minimum.'

The 2008 rate of melting represents an increase of 66% over the average quoted, and a massive 34% over what were unprecedented rates in 2007, as the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported on 02 October. One reason for this was the increasing vulnerability of the ice because with each year's losses, more and more of what remains is one year old ice at the start of the season. This simply does not have the thickness to resist melting conditions, so melts much faster than the perennial ice it has replaced.

Or, as they added:

'In March 2008, thin first-year ice covered a record high 73% of the Arctic Basin. While this might seem like a recovery of the ice, the large extent masked an important aspect of sea ice health; thin ice is more prone to melting out during summer. So, the widespread thin ice of spring 2008 set the stage for extensive ice loss over the melt season.'

And

“Warm ocean waters helped contribute to ice losses this year, pushing the already thin ice pack over the edge. In fact, preliminary data indicates that 2008 probably represents the lowest volume of Arctic sea ice on record, partly because less multiyear ice is surviving now, and the remaining ice is so thin.”

To beef up on that point, we only have to consider this key quote from a University of Colorado press release from January (i.e. not including this summer's melt)

'The team used satellite data going back to 1982 to reconstruct past Arctic sea ice conditions, concluding there has been a nearly complete loss of the oldest, thickest ice and that 58 percent of the remaining perennial ice is thin and only 2-to-3 years old, said the lead study author, Research Professor James Maslanik of CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research. In the mid-1980s, only 35 percent of the sea ice was that young and that thin according to the study, the first to quantify the magnitude of the Arctic sea ice retreat using data on the age of the ice and its thickness, he said.'

In fact the position at the end of this summer can best be appreciated by taking a look at the excellent images in the 24 September summary produced by NSIDC which illustrate graphically the extent of ice remaining, the predominance of young ice, and also the odd fact that the pattern of winds was partially responsible for the 2007 record not being broken this year. To qualify as ice, the sea has to contain a mere 15% of ice - there is not nearly as much as the raw figures quoted above suggest. This summer, the winds acted to disperse the ice over a large area of water, thus qualifying a greater area as ice, whilst in 2007 the opposite occured.



ARCTIC ICE SHELVES

The Arctic ice shelves faired very badly this year, and seem to be in terminal decline, as there is no foreseeable way they can recover short of the next ice age. Here is a repeat the BBC story reported in the last update which informs that:

'The ice shelves in Canada's High Arctic have lost a colossal area this year, scientists report.'

'The floating tongues of ice attached to Ellesmere Island, which have lasted for thousands of years, have seen almost a quarter of their cover break away.

'One of them, the 50 sq km (20 sq miles) Markham shelf, has completely broken off to become floating sea-ice.'

'As well as the complete breakaway of the Markham, the Serson shelf lost two sections totalling an estimated 122 sq km (47 sq miles), and the break-up of the Ward Hunt has continued.'

And, by way of interpretation

'Loss of ice in the Arctic, and in particular the extensive sea-ice, has global implications. The "white parasol" at the top of the planet reflects energy from the Sun straight back out into space, helping to cool the Earth.

'Further loss of Arctic ice will see radiation absorbed by darker seawater and snow-free land, potentially warming the Earth's climate at an even faster rate than current observational data indicates.'

The link has some telling before and after satellite images well worth a look too.



GREENLAND

Has also taken a big hit this year, and we found out that a lot more melting is going on there than we previously realised:


SMALL GLACIERS – NOT LARGE – ACCOUNT FOR MOST OF GREENLAND’S RECENT LOSS OF ICE, STUDY SHOWS

'The recent dramatic melting and breakup of a few huge Greenland glaciers have fueled public concerns over the impact of global climate change, but that isn’t the island’s biggest problem.
A new study shows that the dozens of much smaller outflow glaciers dotting Greenland’s coast together account for three times more loss from the island’s ice sheet than the amount coming from their huge relatives'

'...scientists at Ohio State University reported that nearly 75 percent of the loss of Greenland ice can be traced back to small coastal glaciers'

'Aside from Antarctica, Greenland has more ice than anywhere else on earth.'

While 09 October the IPF brought brought us the story Satellite Data Reveals Extreme Summer Snowmelt and Record Number of Melting Days in Northern Greenland

'The northern part of the Greenland Ice Sheet underwent extreme snowmelt during the summer of 2008, and large portions of the ice sheet experienced a record number of melting days

'Dr. Tedesco said that the melting, which lasted 18 days longer than previous maximum values and had a melting index three times greater than the 1979-2007 average, was "extremely interesting," as northern Greenland is usually much colder than southern Greenland, which experienced record melting in summer 2007.'

LAST WORDS

Dr Walt Meier of NSIDC at Boulder, Colorado in an interview with the BBC

'I think this summer has been more remarkable than last year, in fact, because last year we had really optimal conditions to melt a lot of ice.

'We had clear skies with the Sun blazing down, we had warm temperatures, and winds that pushed the ice edge northwards," he told BBC News.

'We didn't have any of this this year, and yet we still came within 10% of the record; so people might be tempted to call it a recovery, but I don't think that's a good term, we're still on a downwards trend towards ice-free Arctic summers.'

The NASA Goddard scientist previously quoted said

'Based on what we've learned over the last 30 years, we know that the perennial ice cover is now in trouble. You need more than just one winter of cooling for the ice to recover to the average extent observed since the measurements began. But the trend is going the other way. A warming Arctic causes the surface water to get warmer, which delays the onset of freeze up in the winter and leads to a shorter period of ice growth. Without the chance to thicken, sea ice becomes thinner and more vulnerable to continued melt.'

And two scientists here, quoted from a short and rather indifferent article by the New Scientist, which some might find useful nonetheless because it runs very quickly through the main drivers of ice loss.

'"We are now well outside the range of natural variability," says Meier. "It is clear from how low the ice extent has been recently, the significant long-term trend, and the way the ice-cover is responding to atmospheric conditions and ocean circulation, that we've entered an entirely new regime of the Arctic sea ice".

"I think most glaciologists would be very surprised if the Arctic went back to normal," agrees Graversen.'

From all of this is seems overridingly apparent that the loss of the Arctic is unstoppable and is likely to continue at an unprecedented rate. Unless we have a succession of extremely hard winters to beef up the perennial ice in a significant way - which in itself seems improbable because all the trends are in the opposite direction, as would be expected with global warming as it is - it seems likely that the next hot summer will cause loss of ice on a massive scale, and probably considerably more break up than we have so far seen. A few summers like that and there will be precious little left - with all the dire consequences that entails.


NEXT ISSUE
This summary has dealt with the physical extent of Arctic ice, which is critical for Earth's albedo, for the moderating effect on the planet's average temperature, for their role in the circulatory systems in the atmosphere and the ocean. It is also critical for being the sole habitat of animals like the polar bear and home to unique peoples such as the Inuits.

Yet for scientists considering climate change there remains another question which is perhaps the most loaded of all - the moderating effect on the surrounding environment. At the end of September the news no one ever wanted to hear broke in this area. Because of its potentially devastating nature I will cover it separately in the next newsletter and as quickly as practicalities make possible.

To close with something for the soul and the heart, here's a sublime lament for the Arctic, though he though he would have been entirely unconscious of that when he wrote it. Nice video too of what hangs in the balance. For those with 4.50 to spare out of the chaos.


With thanks for your attention