"The most important consequence could be in terms of growing methane emissions… a linear trend becomes exponential. This edge between it being linear and becoming exponential is very fine and lies between frozen and thawed states of subsea permafrost"
"Speaking
of various types of permafrost (1) permafrost in ESAS subsea, or (2)
permafrost on land in Siberia, or (3) Alaska permafrost there’s a
new discovery that is spooky, downright spooky. Aircraft measurements
of CO2 and CH4, as well as confirmation of those measurements from
scientific measuring devices on towers in Barrow, Alaska show that
over the course of two years Alaska emitted the equivalent of 220
million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from biological
sources alone, not anthropogenic"
Non
linear, non anthropogenic emissions in a feedback loop that will stun
even the awake with the speed the biosphere will unravel.
Extremely Nasty Climate Wake-Up
by Robert Hunziker
Now
that the Great Acceleration dictates the biosphere with ever more
intensity, sudden changes in the ecosystem are causing climate
scientists to stop and ponder what’s happening to our planet, like
never before… hmm!
The
Great Acceleration: “Only after 1945 did human actions become
genuine driving forces behind crucial Earth systems,”
(J.R.McNeill/Peter Engelke,The
Great Acceleration,
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London,
2014, pg. 208).
Abrupt
changes outside the boundaries of natural variability are signs of
climate fatigue, Mother Nature overwhelmed, defeated, breaking down.
It’s happening fast and faster yet mostly on the fringes of the
ecosystem with fewest people, other than, on occasion, a handful of
scientists.
For
example, for the first time ever, a team of UK scientists discovered
8,000 blue lakes formed in East Antarctica. The suddenness of so many
blue lakes on surface surprised and bewildered scientists. (Source:
Emily S. Langley, et al, Seasoned Evolution of Supraglacial Lakes on
an East Antarctic Outlet Glacier, Geophysical Research Letters, Aug.
24, 2016)
According
to the UK team: “Supraglacial lakes are known to influence ice melt
and ice flow on the Greenland ice sheet and potentially cause ice
shelf disintegration on the Antarctica Peninsula.” That is likely
not good news. Antarctica is a continent covered by 200 feet of sea
level contained in ice. Heavens to Betsy, until only recently
scientists thought East Antarctica was stable!
Meantime,
West Antarctica has blown a gasket three times in a row, big-time
fractures within only two decades, most recently July 12th, 2017 when
one of the largest icebergs of all time broke off Larsen C Ice Shelf.
Previously, Larsen B Ice Shelf collapsed in 2002, and before that
Larsen A Ice Shelf collapsed in 1995. Now, the National Geographic
Atlas is forced to redraw Antarctica.
Larsen
C has a big distinction “measuring about 2,200 square miles, it is
among the largest icebergs in history to break off from the
continent.” (Source: Hannah Lang, Our Antarctica Maps Show the
Larsen Ice Shelf’s Stunning Decades-Long Decline, National
Geographic, July 15, 2017).
Furthermore
“Sea ice in Antarctica has hit a worrisome milestone, reaching its
lowest recorded extent this week according to data from the U.S.
National Snow and Ice Data Center. The daily ice area recorded on
Tuesday represents an all-time low: 2.25 million square kilometers
(872,204 square miles).” (Source: Christina Nunez, Antarctica’s
Sea Ice Shrinks to New Record Low, National Geographic, Feb. 15,
2017). Is that global warming hard at work or is it natural
variability?
Throughout
millennia ice shelf calving is a recognized part of natural
variability but then again, it usually happens in geologic time of
hundreds-to-thousands-to-millions of years rather than Great
Acceleration time with three massive fractures in only two decades.
That’s ice sheets in the Indy 500.
Another
nasty big time wake-up call, hidden monster of the depths, is thawing
permafrost. Russian scientists have identified 7,000 “alternative
pingos” in Siberia (Source: “Russian Scientists Find 7,000
Siberian Hills Possibly Filled with Explosive Gas,” The Washington
Post, March 27, 2017). Vladimir E. Romanovsky, geophysicist at the
University of Alaska in Fairbanks claims: “This is really a new
thing to permafrost science. It has not been reported in the
literature before,” Romanovsky estimates there could be as many as
100,000 “alternative pingos” across the entire Arctic permafrost.
Additionally,
there is new evidence of threat by subsea permafrost, which could set
off Runaway Global Warming (“RGW”) recently revealed in an
interview with Dr. Natalia Shakhova and Dr. Igor Semiletov
(International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Akasofu Building, Fairbanks, Alaska) about their paper
published in Nature Communication Journal, Current Rates and
Mechanisms of Subsea Permafrost Degradation in the East Siberian
Arctic Shelf, Article No. 15872 June 22, 2017. This is esoteric
research that is not found in typical models of future climate
behavior. It is an example of what can go wrong much faster than ever
anticipated.
According
to Dr. Shakova: “As we showed in our articles, in the ESAS (East
Siberian Arctic Shelf), in some places, subsea permafrost is reaching
the thaw point. In other areas it could have reached this point
already. And what can happen then? The most important consequence
could be in terms of growing methane emissions… a linear trend
becomes exponential. This edge between it being linear and becoming
exponential is very fine and lies between frozen and thawed states of
subsea permafrost. This is what we call the turning point….
Following the logic of our investigation and all the evidence that we
accumulated so far, it makes me think that we are very near this
point. And in this particular point, each year matters. This is the
big difference between being on the linear trend where hundreds and
thousands of years matter, and being on the exponential where each
year matters.”
According
to Dr. Shakova, only a fraction of the gas emissions released from
subsea permafrost of ESAS is enough to “alter the climate on our
planet drastically.” That prognostication is nastier than regular
nasty wake-up calls. It fits the prescription for colossal
temperature increases of up to 15-18 degrees and massive agricultural
burn off within only 10 years as suggested by a group of scientists
that think outside the box, non-mainstreamers.
Speaking
of various types of permafrost (1) permafrost in ESAS subsea, or (2)
permafrost on land in Siberia, or (3) Alaska permafrost there’s a
new discovery that is spooky, downright spooky. Aircraft measurements
of CO2 and CH4, as well as confirmation of those measurements from
scientific measuring devices on towers in Barrow, Alaska show that
over the course of two years Alaska emitted the equivalent of 220
million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from biological
sources alone, not anthropogenic (Source: Elaine Hannah, Alaska’s
Thawing Soils Cause Huge Carbon Dioxide Emissions Into The Air,
Science World Report, May 12, 2017).
That
is equivalent to all the emissions from the U.S. commercial sector
per annum. Why is that happening? Alaska is hot, that’s why, and it
may be a climate tipping point that self-perpetuates global warming,
no human hands needed, or in the nasty colloquial, the start of
Runaway Global Warming. That’s as bad as nasty climate wake-up
calls get, nature overtaking anthropogenic global warming duties.
What
could be worse than incipient Runaway Global Warming?
Answer:
Impending Nuclear War.
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