Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level

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One of the consequences of climate change I just heard about on the news today is out of Siberia. There has been an anthrax outbreak because the permafrost is thawing and releasing anthrax that has been trapped there for ages.
 
I have read that anthrax spores can survive frozen for about a century. It’s certainly possible that a thawed reindeer believed responsible for this outbreak really was responsible. But that leaves lots of outbreaks worldwide unexplained, and certainly not explained by a thawed reindeer. And it’s possible any number of winter-frozen reindeer thaw each year without any fanfare and without anyone thinking it caused by anything but the onset of summer.

Of interest possibly, is the recent outbreak near Ekaterinberg in Russia, where it was believed to have escaped from a former (only former?) Russian biowarfare laboratory there.
 
lynnvinc said:
There are plenty of graphs that go back very far.

Seeing those graphs makes it easier to understand that there are a handful of factors that impact climate, which makes it more predicable than weather. (Note, graphs don’t PROVE climate change, they only reflect it – climate scientists have other very good proofs from physics, etc).

One of the warming factors is greenhouse gases. In the past these were released naturally, and the warming caused by their release and/or the other warming factors also caused more GHGs to be released during great warming episodes, which is something we REALLY need to be cognizant of, during this time when we are forcing the warming much more rapidly, orders of magnitude more rapidly, than nature has done in the past.

It’s like we are poking a sleeping dragon of methane hydrates and methane ice-locked in permafrost. We’re in for a whole lot of trouble. Maybe not us (I’m up there in years and won’t see the worst), but the children and yet-to-be-born.

Here’s the graph you want (also see “paleoclimatology” at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology):🙂 (sorry for this really big image, but it does go back some 500 mill yrs)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png

Several things to note here:
  • The end-Permian 251 mill yrs ago when there was a great warming triggered by burning coal from the “Siberian Traps” – 95% of life died out from that warming and its knock-on effects.
  • the PETM (Paleo-Eocene Thermal Maximum) some 55 mill yrs ago, which also lead to one of the 6 great extinction events.
  • the “Eocene Optimum,” which was a great warming period – with palm trees and alligators in the Arctic – but did not involve a great extinction event because it happened very slowly over millions of years, which gave species time to evolve and/or migrate.
  • the Holocene (the past 12,000 years) during which agriculture arose and the human population expanded greatly.
  • our current global warming, which is now about 1C above the average Holocene temps. However, with the amount of GHGs we are emitting, plus those that are and will be released from nature due to the initial warming we have caused, it is projected that the temps could increase to 6C above that baseline by 2100, and much more thereafter, which will greatly harm agriculture. It will become a killer “musical chairs” of diminishing life-sustaining resources, especially after mid-century and on through centuries to come.
As it is with global warming AND many other environmental assaults some scientists are claiming we are already in the 6th major extinction event in human history.
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This image is so huge it makes the thread impossible to read.
 
lynnvinc said:
“Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level” at theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/25/arctic-ice-melt-trigger-uncontrollable-climate-change-global-level?CMP=share_btn_tw

Arctic scientists have warned that the increasingly rapid melting of the ice cap risks triggering 19 “tipping points” in the region that could have catastrophic consequences around the globe.

The Arctic Resilience Report found that the effects of Arctic warming could be felt as far away as the Indian Ocean, in a stark warning that changes in the region could cause uncontrollable climate change at a global level.

Temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 20C above what would be expected for the time of year, which scientists describe as “off the charts”. Sea ice is at the lowest extent ever recorded for the time of year…
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REPENT The end is near!
 
HelenRose said:
REPENT The end is near!
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I’m not a moral theologian and not sure to what extent our souls may be in jeopardy if we refuse to put forth any efforts to mitigate CC, but I’m thinking that those who deny CC and strive to get others to deny CC (causing them to refuse to mitigate it in any way) may be in greater moral jeopardy.

Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to go to confession often and make Acts of Contrition (which as a Carmelite I am bound to do anyway).
 
Alternatively, one might invest in Valero or XOM and donate the dividends and gain to a charity that helps poor people pay their winter heating bills. 🙂
 
Here’s another effect of CC, it increases negative arctic oscillations or Rossby waves, polar vortexes. That is, it causes more intense and lingering north to south weather patterns in the northern hemisphere (the norm being west to east).

“Polar vortex unleashed: Severe cold snap likely in U.S. next week”
msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/polar-vortex-unleashed-severe-cold-snap-likely-in-us-next-week/ar-AAlgDmx?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

When I moved to Rio Grande Valley, where they told me they only get a killing freeze maybe once in 7 years, I thought the silver lining of GW would be even less frequent killing freezes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, or even the end of them.

However, when we started getting them once in 3 years instead – killing our winter veggie garden (we can’t grow such in summer, too hot) and some of our tropical plants – I started investigating and found out this cutting edge research on CC and increased arctic oscillations.
 
mdgspencer said:
Every few years for decades someone supposedly reputable warns of global disaster because changes in the climate, giving a year when it will be too late to save us if action is not taken. When the year they gave comes, nothing has happened. And so I am quite skeptical of the latest claim of approaching world disaster.
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I have a degree in chemistry but I am not a master of it, especially thermodynamics. But, what non-technical people may not understand is that the ice acts like a sponge for absorbing heat. Once the sponge is gone, so to speak, the earth does not have that sponge for absorbing heat, and the planet’s heating may thereby accelerate.

Meditate on a glass of ice chips melting. It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold, and then it’s warm. That’s my simplistic way of looking at it.

(If the earth has a supervolcano explode, there will be global winter for years, but then it will warm up again, eventually.)
 
psalm90 said:
I have a degree in chemistry but I am not a master of it, especially thermodynamics. But, what non-technical people may not understand is that the ice acts like a sponge for absorbing heat. Once the sponge is gone, so to speak, the earth does not have that sponge for absorbing heat, and the planet’s heating may thereby accelerate.

Meditate on a glass of ice chips melting. It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold, and then it’s warm. That’s my simplistic way of looking at it.

(If the earth has a supervolcano explode, there will be global winter for years, but then it will warm up again, eventually.)
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A physicist explained it in much the same way to me. Also energy goes into melting the ice rather than heating the planet.

RE the volcano issue, it is true that they spew out aerosols that cool the earth, but those have residency in the atmosphere for only a few weeks (altho a cooling trend could trigger more snow/ice coverage and further cooling to some extent). Volcanoes also spew out GHGs that have a much longer residency. CO2, they say, stays for about 100 years, but a portion can stay for up to 100,000 years.
 
mdgspencer said:
Every few years for decades someone supposedly reputable warns of global disaster because changes in the climate, giving a year when it will be too late to save us if action is not taken. When the year they gave comes, nothing has happened. And so I am quite skeptical of the latest claim of approaching world disaster.
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The scientists don’t really know when we will (or have already) reached the tipping point into a life-inhospitable climate that will drastically reduce food production for humans.

Actually there are several tipping points. And truth be known, we have probably already committed to a very different and life-threatening future from climate change. That’s why they are not speaking of “sustainability” anymore, since our present Holocene climate is irreversibly changing into something harmful to life; they speak of “resilience” in this more dangerous climate. The best we can do is cut our losses and try to make it less than the worst case, reduce our killing of people on into the future as much as possible.

It is sort of like cancer – which in its initial stages is imperceptible, except by medical tests, but in later stages when it does become perceptible, it is often too late to cure.

Or, it is like the Titanic – by the time the navigators saw the iceberg (the rich patrons had taken the telescopes), it was too late to turn the ship away.

We would do well to follow the Christian and prudent path of mitigating climate change, hoping and praying the future will not be too horrible for those coming after us.
 
lynnvinc said:
Actually there are several tipping points. And truth be known, we have probably already committed to a very different and life-threatening future from climate change. That’s why they are not speaking of “sustainability” anymore, since our present Holocene climate is irreversibly changing into something harmful to life; they speak of “resilience” in this more dangerous climate. The best we can do is cut our losses and try to make it less than the worst case, reduce our killing of people on into the future as much as possible.
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And here I thought it was too many people were calling them on this bunk.
 
lynnvinc said:
The scientists don’t really know when we will (or have already) reached the tipping point into a life-inhospitable climate that will drastically reduce food production for humans.

Actually there are several tipping points. And truth be known, we have probably already committed to a very different and life-threatening future from climate change. That’s why they are not speaking of “sustainability” anymore, since our present Holocene climate is irreversibly changing into something harmful to life; they speak of “resilience” in this more dangerous climate. The best we can do is cut our losses and try to make it less than the worst case, reduce our killing of people on into the future as much as possible.

It is sort of like cancer – which in its initial stages is imperceptible, except by medical tests, but in later stages when it does become perceptible, it is often too late to cure.

Or, it is like the Titanic – by the time the navigators saw the iceberg (the rich patrons had taken the telescopes), it was too late to turn the ship away.

We would do well to follow the Christian and prudent path of mitigating climate change, hoping and praying the future will not be too horrible for those coming after us.
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And scientists are apparently too frightened to tell us the worst:
climatechangenews.com/2016/09/26/scientists-too-frightened-to-tell-truth-on-climate-impacts/

“Sooner or later, there will be an unbridgeable gulf between global food needs and our capacity to grow food in an unstable climate. Inevitably, starvation will reduce the world’s population.”
 
lynnvinc said:
And scientists are apparently too frightened to tell us the worst:
climatechangenews.com/2016/09/26/scientists-too-frightened-to-tell-truth-on-climate-impacts/

“Sooner or later, there will be an unbridgeable gulf between global food needs and our capacity to grow food in an unstable climate. Inevitably, starvation will reduce the world’s population.”
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As just one example from one of the CC effects, N. Mexico had a $1Billion loss in winter crops during the CC-enhanced negative arctic oscillation (Rossby wave, polar vortex) that cause a killing freeze several years ago. These are expected to increase with CC.

This, along with increased, more intense droughts, floods, heatwaves that kill crops mid-season, and CO2 causing C3 weeds to overpower C4 crops, are just some things associated with our refusal to reduce our GHG emissions that will harm and reduce food productivity.

One study found that while the increased daytime (maximum diurnal) temps to date are helping paddy crops in South and Southeast Asia, the more quickly increasing nighttime (minimum diurnal temps) are harming these crops with the 2 effect cancelling out each other, but within a couple of decade both will be harming and reducing crops.

Another study concluded that at this point CO2 fertilization and longer growing seasons are slightly helping crop in the U.S., but that after 2050 the increased warming will have a net negative impact and crops productivity in the US will sharply decline.

I realize few of us here will be around in 2050 and thereafter to see that happen and suffer the consequences.
 
I realize few of us here will be around in 2050 and thereafter to see that happen and suffer the consequences…thus we feel safe making claims that we cannot be held accountable for.
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There. Fixed it.
😉
 
MMGW ideology always wins it’s argument for MMGW’s existence, because it is an ideology.

If it’s colder, it’s because of MMGW
If it’s warmer, it’s because of MMGW
If it’s drier, it’s because of MMGW
If it’s wetter, it’s because of MMGW
If there is no change in temps, the heat is hiding somewhere; in the deep ocean, in the arctic, but always somewhere. Soon it will break out and fry us all. Besides, it’s now “climate change” anyway, so it can be cooler, warmer, drier, wetter that some reference time because it’s “change”.
 
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