I'm seriously interested in what is happening to this planet. I do have this peculiarity, though. To find out, I look at the planet. I'm sure Carbon is intending to come back with a followup, showing how she has since applied a little thought to what that article claims and seeing that it is a pile of BS, but it is the xmas period and people are busy. So, here are a few shortcuts.
"Mind you, the more conservative climate science types, represented by the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), paint scenarios that are only modestly less hair-raising, but let’s spend a little time, as I’ve done, with what might be called scientists at the edge and hear just what they have to say. "
You've got to laugh when the UN is called 'conservative' about climate science, given that they set up the IPCC specifically to look at 'man's affect on the climate' (and specifically not to look at natural variation); but in comparison with the Doomsday folks in this article, they are indeed 'conservative', for the very good reason that the methane hydrate scare is thoroughly debunked. Even Gavin Schmidt distanced himself from these claims, saying on Twitter, and I quote:
'Wadham's statements on sumer ice disappearance: guardian.co.uk/environment/ea... based on extrapolation: real climate.org/index.php/arch... Consensus imaginary'
'@afreedma Methane not mentioned until 6th paragraph & nowhere is the v.low plausibility of emission pulse discussed. Scenario is not BAU!'
'@freedma Losses are associated with a greater global climate change because of postulated 6xCH4 increase. Implication for Arctic policy=0.'
'@ClimateCentral Only under their implausible scenario. This is not a study about ongoing Arctic warming impacts.'
But we aren't paying attention to authority figures, we are thinking for ourselves, so let's look at the evidence.
First, 99% of methane hydrate deposits are within the deepwater marine realm. At less than 200m they are inherently unstable, which means they have always been bubbling up. Most of these bubbles never reach the surface, because up to 90% or more of the CH4 that reaches the sulphate reduction zone may be consumed by anaerobic CH4 oxidation. You can read an overview of the process (from a pro-warming site) [http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/methane-hydrates-and-contemporary-climate-change-24314790 here]].
In an Alaskan experiment, they used greenhouses to artificially warm tundra by 2degC for 20 years (10x the actual rate of warming since the 1800s). They found no net change in the amount of carbon stored in the soil, not the slightest hint of accelerated methane release. But we can look at larger scale events than that.
Consider Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS-11) approx 450,000 years ago, where there is clear evidence that the Arctic was at least 5degC (and probably 6-10deg) warmer than today, yet no widespread thawing of permafrost. What about the Eemian interglacial (the one before the present one)? It was overall about 2deg warmer than today, and possibly 5deg warmer in the Arctic (remember, heating and cooling episodes affect the poles much more than the tropics). Nope, that didn't have any significant effect either. According to the data in Vaks (2013) the MIS-11 was at least 5deg warmer than the Holocene Climatic Optimum, which was in turn at least 2 deg warmer than today. The Arctic was routinely ice-free during the summer for most of the Holocene up until about 1,000 years ago. The Little Ice Age was the coldest 1000 years in the entire Holocene interglacial, and we are only just coming out of it. Yet those hydrates are still there.
Okay, what else do we have in this 'truth-out'/guardian piece?
'British scientist John Nissen, chairman of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (of which Wadhams is a member), suggests that if the summer sea ice loss passes “the point of no return,” and “catastrophic Arctic methane feedbacks” kick in, we’ll be in an “instant planetary emergency.”'
Oh no, not another 'tipping point'? How long are people willing to appear foolish? Since it has been much warmer than this in the past - many times - how can anyone with half a brain claim there is a 'tipping point' just a couple of degrees above where we are now?
'Professor Peter Wadhams, a leading Arctic expert at Cambridge University, has been measuring Arctic ice for 40 years, and his findings underscore McPherson’s fears. “The fall-off in ice volume is so fast it is going to bring us to zero very quickly,” Wadhams told a reporter. According to current data, he estimates “with 95% confidence” that the Arctic will have completely ice-free summers by 2018. (U.S. Navy researchers have predicted an ice-free Arctic even earlier -- by 2016.)'
Now where have I heard this before, let me think... was it here when the Arctic was ice-free in 2008 (except it wasn't)? No, was it here when it was ice-free in 2013, no, that can't be it. Maybe it was here? Or maybe, people should stop consulting failed models as if they are the oracle at Delphi and actually look at the planet. Antarctic sea ice extent is at record highs (why is this never mentioned?), Arctic sea ice now recovering in both extent and volume. We have snow in Cairo for the first time in 100 years, and below average temperatures out numbering above average temperatures globally. No increase in surface temperatures for over 17 years (no significant increase according to satellite data for over 23 years). We have doom sayers prognosticating on nothing more than models that cannot replicate the warming in the early part of the 20th century, failed to predict the current stasis, cannot reproduce the LIA or MWP when hind cast, yet they still treat them as sacred.
What else? Oh yes, I'm missing the best bit:
'“We as a species have never experienced 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona and a climate change expert of 25 years, told me. “We’ve never been on a planet with no Arctic ice
Absolute classic! I want this for my scrapbook. 'We as a species', wait, how long is that again? Generally taken that Homo sapiens arose about 100,000 years ago. (Gosh, that long? Feels like yesterday...) But then that was during the Pleistocene, a cold period of ice ages (technically, we are in an ice age right now, because we have permanent ice caps, whereas for most of Earth's history we haven't), interspersed with interglacials. Don't you think it is interesting that the scaremongers want to convince us that ice ages are wonderful things? How we will have a massive extinction, and the price of tea will skyrocket, if we should get temperatures a little warmer like, well, like most of the time the planet has existed? News just in: cold kills! Life does much better under warmer conditions than colder conditions. Want to compare the biodiversity of the antarctic with the tropics? Did life have a hard time during the many warm periods in the Earth's history? What warm periods? Surely it has never been warmer that it is today? Surely CO2 levels have never been higher than today, you say? Oh, but it has! The Earth has warm periods and cool periods, and right now we are in a cool period (ice age, remember). CO2 levels are very low right now, but thankfully recovering a bit. The levels of CO2 have generally followed temperatures with a lag of 800 years or so, as the seas outgassed.
Enough about models, let's consult the data. First question, how good is the data? Well, for 20th Century data, not very good. Even in rich western countries where it should be of the best quality, it isn't, and has been subjected to dubious adjustments. Yes, it is quite surprising how much colder the 1930s have become over the last 10 years or so. Apparently, we are much better at reading thermometers in the 1930s than they were in the 1930s. The arctic ice seems to have been less then than it is now, too, and such a short time ago. Greenland and Antarctica ice core estimates showing higher temps during Eemian here. Here is a little graphic for you. See? It's cool. CO2 levels got dangerously low until we started returning some of it to the biosphere. Here is CO2 overlaid onto that temperature graph. [[http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/bio/qubitmanual/coaphoto/advanced/CO2analysislab-PP.pdf] Photosynthesis] rate decreases markedly as you go below around 400ppm; as it has started to increase again, we see increased crop yields, and the greening of the Sahel. One independent indication that CO2 levels are now lower than they have been for most of the planet's existence is that the C4 pathway in plant photosynthesis evolved so recently (Eocene-Miocene); this is a specific adaptation to low CO2 levels.
References
Vaks, A., et al. (2013) Speleothems Reveal 500,000-Year History of Siberian Permafrost. Science. Vol. 340 no. 6129 pp. 183-186. DOI: 10.1126/science.1228729
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic
