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)

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