Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

A large chunk of the Arctic seabed that sits on a methane reservoir has become unstable and is releasing some of the heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere, new research suggests. ... Methane can be 20 times more effective at trapping heat than can carbon dioxide.

Methane concentration in the atmosphere was as high as 0.7 parts per million in pre-industrial times, but reached 1.7 ppm in the 1980s. The level has been stable for the past 15 years, but no one knows exactly why.

You will notice that article is from last winter, not this one.

In the words of the old bluegrass tune, It's goin' and it ain't comin' back.

And please don’t try to say the “slowing” is based on measurement, it is not, it is based on a model developed by JPL.

the deep ocean is warming

methane levels are rising

Vast Amounts of Frozen Methane Escaping into Atmosphere from Leak in Arctic Seafloor By Laurie J. Schmidt
Posted 03.05.2010 at 10:29 am 14 Comments


Siberian Sea The sea surface above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is full of ice and bubbles. Sonar is the only way to detect the vast clouds of methane bubbles rising from the seafloor. courtesy of Igor Semiletov, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Large amounts of methane are leaking into the atmosphere from a section of seafloor under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, according to new study by an international research team. Methane is a greenhouse gas that lies frozen in sediments and permafrost -- frozen soil that remains below 0°C for several years -- in arctic continental shelves.

Permafrost was thought to act as a leak-proof barrier that sealed in the methane, but warming arctic temperatures are thawing the permafrost.

And the frozen methane is not only dissolving in the water -- it's escaping into the atmosphere. The researchers say that release of just a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger sudden climate warming.

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf covers more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. Even prior to the new study, the region was known to be a significant source of methane -- releasing 7 teragrams a year (a teragram equals about 1.1 million tons).

Previous studies in Siberia focused on methane escaping from thawing permafrost on land, but the new study went beyond the coast to offshore areas. From 2003 -- 2008, the research team embarked on annual research cruises to sample seawater at various depths; they found that more than 80% of the deep water and more than half the surface water had methane levels that were eight times greater than that of normal seawater.

Besides storing large amounts of frozen methane, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is also very shallow, which means that methane gas doesn't have enough time to oxidize into carbon dioxide before reaching the surface. So, more methane reaches the atmosphere.

Methane release is one of the critical climate "feedbacks" that affect the entire planet's climate system as the result of a warming Arctic region. The volume of methane currently venting from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is about the same as the amount coming out of the entire planet's oceans combined, according to researcher Natalia Shakhova, who co-led the study. "The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict," she said.

The team plans to continue its studies, including drilling into the ocean floor to estimate the amount of methane stored there. A paper on the study appears in the March 5 issue of the journal Science.

The problem also is that dinosaur populations weren't dependent on highly connected, highly capital-intensive industiral, transportation, and agricultural networks the way we are. Just to take one example, if rainfall patterns, snowmelt runoff and river and aquifer levels change drastically, which is one of the consequences of global warming (and already seems to be happening), that's going to cause political havoc and cost one hell of a lot to try to mitigate, and is likely to screw contries, LIKE THE US, which will see less rainfall on our most fertile cropland which is already suffering severe water stress.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
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Chemist Dr. Daniel W. Miles, a former professor of physics who earned his PhD from the University of Utah, expressed skepticism of climate fears in 2007. "It is very apparent from a dozen or so peer-reviewed scientific articles that fluctuations in cosmic radiation have an important impact on climate change," Miles wrote in a November 8, 2007 essay titled "Scientific Consensus on Global Warming Not Overwhelming." "It is claimed that even if the carbon dioxide concentration in the air were doubled, its greenhouse effect would be canceled by a mere one percent rise in cloudiness. The reason is simply that greater cloudiness means a larger deflection of the solar radiation away from the surface of our planet," he wrote. "The more intense the influx of cosmic rays, the more clouds. Cosmic rays ionize air molecules, transforming them into condensation nuclei for water vapor, where the ice crystals - from which clouds are created - are formed. The quantity of cosmic rays impacting the atmosphere is controlled by changes in the so-called solar wind - when the winds are stronger, they drive cosmic radiation away from the Earth, fewer clouds are formed and the Earth becomes warmer," Miles explained. (LINK)