Climate-gate

[Billy T]

But see that's the thing. In actual fact it's not increasing rapidly. In fact the rate is slowing down. And in general facts trump doomsday theories.

That was true between about 2000 and 2006, as middle graph of top set shows, but rate of release is increasing again:

It is this 400% increase industrialization (500 to 2000) has made I spoke of.

Im' not sure what caused the ~6 year pause, but think it may be related to the slowing rate of petroleum demand in that period coupled with th increased use of CH4 flaring (burning at the wells) instead of just cheaper venting.

BTW I went back thru 25 pages listing my posts and opened all GW ones to search for the graph that spanned last 600,000 years showing the dramatic spike at right edge of CH4 release on that long time scale, but did not find it but one of the EPA, google found for m shows same thing. It seems some of the older global warming thread have disappeared. I think I may have posted at another site also, so will search there too later.

 

[billvon]

Im' not sure what caused the ~6 year pause, but think it may be related to the slowing rate of petroleum demand in that period coupled with th increased use of CH4 flaring (burning at the wells) instead of just cheaper venting.

Probably a combination of that and improved distribution systems for natural gas, so there was less need to flare or dump. Since anthropogenic sources of methane currently dominate the methane cycle, changing that contribution will have a large impact on overall methane levels.

 

[Billy T]

... Since anthropogenic sources of methane currently dominate the methane cycle, changing that contribution will have a large impact on overall methane levels.

I agree man is the reason why: THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT note the 400% rise in CH4 from the last 800,000 year relative steady level (Left half of graph below).

"To clever for his own good" seems to be true of man. Too bad he will make so many others extinct too. "Intelligence" at man's level is Mother Nature's biggest mistake!

 

[billvon]

I agree man is the reason why: THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT note the 400% rise in CH4 from the last 800,000 year relative steady level (Left half of graph below).

Now go back a few billion years, to when methane levels were a THOUSAND TIMES higher. No permanent BillyT-death-state. If a concentration a thousand times higher than we have right now is insufficient to move the Earth permanently to a new state, then going up a factor of 4 isn't going to do jack (when it comes to permanent climactic change, that is.)

 

[rpenner]

Now go back a few billion years, to when methane levels were a THOUSAND TIMES higher.

A few billion years ago, there was no oxygen in the air and nothing alive like a plant and nothing alive with a face.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

 

[brucep]

Yes the atmosphere was mainly CH4, back when green plants were starting to change it into an oxidizing atmosphere. So what. They were the only life on land then. I'll try to dig up the graph I have posted several times that goes back 600,000 years as I recall that gives the facts on CH4 concentrations thru several ice ages and add it here as additional proof that
THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT.

I do admit that while animals lived on earth volcanos did for a couple of years release CH4 at least at the present rate but what makes THIS TIME DIFFERENT is the release rate is not only historically high over decade or longer averaging periods but rapidly increasing via a couple of dozen positive feed back systems!

You think of me as an "alarmists." I think of you as one of the most intelligent "ostrichs" with it head in the sand.

You're not an alarmist. This argument is 'mostly' about probable time lines for when disastrous events related to global warming could occur. I'm alarmed by the folks who predict early [because they predict early] and I'm alarmed by the folks who predict late since they tend to act like it's not that important which is just another form of denial. Interesting that you know some intelligent "ostrichs".

Hopefully they'll be a growing group of alarmed world citizens.

 

[wellwisher]

To add sanity to this discussion, one needs to keep in mind, man-made global warming or manmade climate change has no precedent in natural history. This, at best, is the first occurrence of this unique phenomena in the 5 billion year earth history. Therefore, it is still in the prototype stage, with the experiment not yet completed based on the hyped worse case scenario predictions.

Natural versus manmade is like comparing a car model with many generations of models, to a new model line in the prototype stage and calling the new, fully test proven, even before it is fully manufactured. There is a need to use fear tactics, to create the illusion this prototype, still in development, means done deal as is. This sales pitch is needed to maintain funding levels so one can stack the literature and create the illusion of the preponderance of the data. If we put all the eggs in one basket, that baskets always appear to win best basket based on volume and proportions.

Natural causes of global warming and natural causes of climate change are not prototypes without precedent. There is plenty of data that shows natural causes has occurred more than once, yet this is ignored, in funding, in favor of prototype sales fear. Once politics gets involved there is no rule against lying and cheating to game the system with rhetoric, spin and deck stacking. Periodically, the fear hype is used to gin support for asteroid crashing into the earth science. The fear is enough to paralyze many into jumping on the band wagon where group fear makes it hard to use common sense. The same scam artists found a scenario that they can fear-bleed for decades.

As an example of a natural, what is the impact of forest fires on global CO2 levels, since forest fires burn millions of acres each year. The below link is interesting because it records forest fires in California from 1880 to the present, with the number increasing with time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires

 

[billvon]

A few billion years ago, there was no oxygen in the air and nothing alive like a plant and nothing alive with a face.

Right, but there was plenty of water and plenty of methane. Billy T's claim is that enough methane will flip us into a permanent "steam planet" where all the water on the planet is turned to steam and the steam then forms a permanent greenhouse cap so strong that it never changes, which means that today we would have a steam atmosphere. Given that there is now a thousand times less methane than there was back then, and given that we do not have a steam atmosphere, his statement is unsupportable.

 

[Billy T]

Right, but there was plenty of water and plenty of methane. Billy T's claim is that enough methane will flip us into a permanent "steam planet" where all the water on the planet is turned to steam and the steam then forms a permanent greenhouse cap so strong that it never changes, which means that today we would have a steam atmosphere. Given that there is now a thousand times less methane than there was back then, and given that we do not have a steam atmosphere, his statement is unsupportable.

Nothing wrong with your logic, you just are forgetting that the solar out was lower back then - all main sequence stars (and sun has been one for at least 4 billion years) increase their out put by about 10% every billion years,* as I recall. 1.1x1.1x1.1x1.1 = 1.46 so sun started off about 46% dimmer in output and 2 billion years ago was sending earth 21% less energy to earth. About that time the gravitational collapse energy was mostly radiated a way and solid rocks and water, in form of steam, formed. Probably green plants could evolve when they did on an earth with much less solar energy available ONLY because the methane in the atmosphere was a vastly more effective thermal blanket and let water be liquid near the equator at least, when photosynthesis was invented.

* After that, for solar mass stars, they leave the "main sequence" and are hot enough in the core to fuse the He they have been producing and start to expand in their red giant phase

All the above is from memory and probably full of many errors - I'll let you search and correct. Any way lower solar output when earth had a CH4 dominate atmosphere is why your point is false. BTW, I don't claim that Earth MUST switch to its hot stable state as Venus did - just that I have yet to read any proof that that is impossible if CH4 becomes much more important GHG than CO2, and I expect it will as the oceans warm and the CH4 ice decomposes, especially now that I realized nature has a pump that quickly moves the bubbles up to the surface. Here is more on that pump written just as I realized it existed and is very important, bad news:

{part of post 915}... Even more scary is that possibly this same natural pump is why CH4 is bubbling up fast in roughly circular olumns in the shallow Arctic Ocean in summer. Then wind mixing heat down not only helps the CH4 ice decompose as it raises the water temperature form it densest state temperature ~4C. During the cold winter night surface water cools to 4C and sinks within or around columns of the warmer than 4C water with actual bubbles of CH4 still in it being forced upward. Reason this is scary is than most believe these small bubbles have low terminal velocity of rise an will dissolve before they reach the surface. Fact is they are not doing so - I have given links showing them at the surface now occasionally in kilometer diameter columns. I. e. can anyone assure me that this "natural pump" does not operate in the ocean too so that the argument that CH4 bubble will dissolve before reaching the surface is ill- founded?

The "beautiful theory" that they will not reach the surface but dissolve is nice and comforting, but would not be the first "beautiful theory" to be destroyed by "ugly observations." If you want to see these 'UGLY FACTS" for your self, watch the 3 second video here: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/ne...ubbling-up-from-the-arctic-ocean-floor/33078/
an read the only days old text, apart of which is:
"These hydrates are kept frozen by the extreme low temperature and crushing pressure at the bottom of the ocean, but with our oceans accumulating more heat all the time now, these hydrates could 'melt' and release the methane in gas form. If that were to happen, all that methane bubbling up to the ocean surface and into the atmosphere would likely result in the accelerated rate of climate change we're seeing now turning into catastrophic abrupt climate change."
... scientists have noted that the 'end' of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, which is a relatively warm 'tongue' of water that flows past northern Europe and through the Arctic Ocean towards East Siberia, may have been warming up in recent years. "Our SWERUS-C3 program is hypothesizing that this heating may lead to destabilization of upper portion of the slope methane hydrates," he wrote. "This may be what we now for the first time are observing." Does this mean that the disaster scenario is now developing? Unfortunately, at the moment, that's an unknown."

I have noted in several posts that in this regions sub's sonars no longer work in the patches of rising bubble clouds, but the never had this problem in WWII.
THIS CH4 BUBBLING UP IN DENSE "CLOUDS" {despite the comforting, "beautiful theory"} IS NEW AND SCARY!

 

[andy1033]

None of the consequences that the fool gore came out with ever existed, or come to be, and people are still trying to push this moron science con on people.

Amazing the theory was so rubbish they had to change it to climate change when thats happening all the time, morons actually believed that the weather stayed the same, lol. The weather is always changing normally and no dunce moron called humans could ever predict it, so how can they say what will happen.

The morons whom were seen to bring this con, are still trying to convince people that change is manmade, when change is normal within normal cycles.

 

[billvon]

None of the consequences that the fool gore came out with ever existed, or come to be, and people are still trying to push this moron science con on people.

What's with your Gore fetish? He didn't "come up with it." Why do you bring him up all the time?

Amazing the theory was so rubbish they had to change it to climate change when thats happening all the time, morons actually believed that the weather stayed the same, lol. The weather is always changing normally and no dunce moron called humans could ever predict it, so how can they say what will happen.

So you ignore your doctor when he diagnoses you with an illness, since no one completely understands how the human body works?
(I bet even you take an umbrella when rain is predicted.)

 

[iceaura]

I mean... Why are you assuming the hole was 100% filled with ice?

Ah, I thought you were - I was just going along.

So how thick could the ice depth that melted have been (how thick are these "active layers", how high could it have pushed up before collapsing) and do any reasonable estimates of that thickness allow for such a sudden formation of such a very large hole as an ordinary ping? Noticde that the examples you posted are all pretty much full of meltwater - they aren't deep holes with the melt layer way at the bottom, and we wouldn't expect them to be from the formation sequence depicted.

 

[Trippy]

Ah, I thought you were - I was just going along.

Nope.

So how thick could the ice depth that melted have been (how thick are these "active layers", how high could it have pushed up before collapsing) and do any reasonable estimates of that thickness allow for such a sudden formation of such a very large hole as an ordinary ping?

No idea - i'm not an expert on these things. The only thing that I can tell you is that, at least according to the source I linked to people that are familiar with these things seem to think it's plausable.

Noticde that the examples you posted are all pretty much full of meltwater...

They also appear to be more like years old rather than weeks old.

they aren't deep holes with the melt layer way at the bottom, and we wouldn't expect them to be from the formation sequence depicted.

Because the ice that formed them has melted, because they're years old rather than weeks old - also note that Yamal has had an unusually warm summer this year.

 

[iceaura]

They also appear to be more like years old rather than weeks old.

So? the formation sequence depicted shows no stage of formation in which the pingo is a deep empty hole like this thing.

How much ice has to have melted down below ground level to form this hole as a pingo, minimum? It looks toy me like fifteen meters, minimum - the depth of the hole - not counting any ice that protruded above ground level in the initial uplift.

 

[Trippy]

So? the formation sequence depicted shows no stage of formation in which the pingo is a deep empty hole like this thing.

How is it empty if it is 80% filled with ice?

How much ice has to have melted down below ground level to form this hole as a pingo, minimum? It looks toy me like fifteen meters, minimum - the depth of the hole - not counting any ice that protruded above ground level in the initial uplift.

No idea, and I'm not much in the mood to speculate.

On the other hand, it seems that Andrei Plekhanov, the source I was citing that seemed to think it was a Pingo is no longer suggesting that it was a Pingo, so that's that then.

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/arti...y-have-been-caused-methane-gas-scientists-say

 

[iceaura]

So? the formation sequence depicted shows no stage of formation in which the pingo is a deep empty hole like this thing.
How is it empty if it is 80% filled with ice?

The part that's full of something is not a hole, eh? There's a deep, empty hole in those pictures. It extends far below the original ground level. The depiction of pingo formation posted here does not feature such a hole, at any stage of that formation. Also, the sheer size of the hole coupled with the apparent rapidity of its formation requires a suitable mechanism, and air-temp sun-melting ice seems far too slow, by appearances.

 

[billvon]

Also, the sheer size of the hole coupled with the apparent rapidity of its formation requires a suitable mechanism, and air-temp sun-melting ice seems far too slow, by appearances.

Why? It could have been melting for decades, not collapsing simply because no one disturbed it - but eroding and getting weaker all the time. Then one day a fox runs across the top of the pingo and it collapses.

 

[Trippy]

The part that's full of something is not a hole, eh?

You're being disingenuous - that's not what I said and you know it. You described it as a big empty hole and I asked "How is it EMPTY" if it's 80% filled with ice?" By my reckoning, something that's 80% full of ice is mostly filled with ice, not empty.

There's a deep, empty hole in those pictures. It extends far below the original ground level. The depiction of pingo formation posted here does not feature such a hole, at any stage of that formation. Also, the sheer size of the hole coupled with the apparent rapidity of its formation requires a suitable mechanism, and air-temp sun-melting ice seems far too slow, by appearances.

That's your opinion. billvon has presented you with one scenario, meanwhile I can't help but notice you've only addressed one sentence from my entire post, ignoring others which were directly relevant to the continuation of our discussion, for example, this one:

On the other hand, it seems that Andrei Plekhanov, the source I was citing that seemed to think it was a Pingo is no longer suggesting that it was a Pingo, so that's that then.

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/arti...y-have-been-caused-methane-gas-scientists-say

 

[iceaura]

Why? It could have been melting for decades, not collapsing simply because no one disturbed it - but eroding and getting weaker all the time. Then one day a fox runs across the top of the pingo and it collapses.

That would require an unsupported dome over a cathedral sized cavern 80 meters in diameter, solid and holding for years while the insulated, permafrost surrounded ice mass melted down below ground level under the warming influence of - of something unspecified (not water percolating through cracks in that remarkable dome, as in the pingo depiction). You sure you think that's a reasonable guess? It's about twice the size of this guy's major accomplishment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi

You described it as a big empty hole and I asked "How is it EMPTY" if it's 80% filled with ice?" By my reckoning, something that's 80% full of ice is mostly filled with ice, not empty.

And by my reckoning, a big empty hole such as we see in those pictures is not 80% full of ice. It's many meters down to the ice at the bottom of that hole, and a clear drop all the way. I am looking at a picture of a big empty hole, right?

 

[Trippy]

And by my reckoning, a big empty hole such as we see in those pictures is not 80% full of ice. It's many meters down to the ice at the bottom of that hole, and a clear drop all the way. I am looking at a picture of a big empty hole, right?

Because perspective in photos has never been misleading, especially when they lack a sense of scale, and you've been to Yamal and investigated it for yourself, right?

I'm only repeating to you what has been conveyed by the person who investigated the hole first hand. If you have some evidence that contradicts what he has to say then I', 'all ears'.

Meanwhile, let me repeat this sentence to you for a third time:

On the other hand, it seems that Andrei Plekhanov, the source I was citing that seemed to think it was a Pingo is no longer suggesting that it was a Pingo, so that's that then.

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/arti...y-have-been-caused-methane-gas-scientists-say

And seeing as you seem to be having trouble grappling with its relevance, let me ask you a question: If the person who proposed the hypothesis has changed their mind on the basis of the evidence they gathered at the site, what makes you think I have any interest in pursuing the discussion regarding that particular hypothesis any further with you?