Permafrost: The Tipping Time Bomb
New research places tighter constraints on when contiguous permafrost begins to melt in large amounts. The news is grim.
New research places tighter constraints on when contiguous permafrost begins to melt in large amounts. The news is grim.
5 comments
3 | Aligarr Thu, Feb 28, 2013 11:09:11pm |
The same can happen on the Oceans floors , where methane is basically trapped due to low temperatures . Warming of the ocean can precipitate enormous amounts of methane into the atmoshere .
4 | KiTA Fri, Mar 1, 2013 2:42:51am |
SO…… given that there’s a ~50 year delay on our carbon’s effects on the climate, and thus we’re seeing the effects of climate change due to 1963’s emissions… And that’s enough to get us to .8C…
We’re screwed, right? That’s the takeaway I’m getting from all the climate news lately. As a civilization, as well, members of the “life on Earth” community, we’re well and truly boned. We’re going to blow past 1.5C, and suddenly, arctic ice and the permafrost melt, releasing the carbon bombs, reducing our climate to a poor man’s version of Venus.
That about right?
5 | PSinclair Fri, Mar 1, 2013 6:17:36am |
ON the positive side, Dr Vaks studied a period 400,000 years ago when extensive areas of permafrost did thaw. We know that they refroze as the following interglacial set in.
That was not until substantial melt had taken place in Greenland and the West Antarctic, which resulted in quite a few meters of sea level rise.
This video also does not consider possible effects of undersea methane clathrate release, which is of some concern to other scientists at U. of Alaska. I think there is going to be some more info on that soon from the European Geophysical Union meeting in April.