Increasing 0-40 Year Human Race Lifespan

Under current accelerating rates of carbon and methane gases release, human life ends 2050-2055 CE. If Arctic Region methane clathrates carbon reserves become explosively unstable by temperature increase, tectonic uplift, or undersea landslides -- global warming temperature quickly rises and there are no more human races. Therefore, estimates for the continuation of human-life range from a minimum of zero-years to a maximum of 40-years.  

If the Arctic Region water is warm enough to melt the fringes of the Arctic Ocean ice cap, the water is now warm enough to melt huge amounts of global warming methane clathrates, which releases the very powerful methane global warming gas. Further destabilization of the Arctic Region methane clathrate cap is very threatening to human life continued existence:

"Study finds warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica"

April 25, 2012

PHYS.ORG

Reporting this week in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has established that warm ocean currents are the dominant cause of recent ice loss from Antarctica. New techniques have been used to differentiate, for the first time, between the two known causes of melting ice shelves - warm ocean currents attacking the underside, and warm air melting from above. This finding brings scientists a step closer to providing reliable projections of future sea-level rise.

Researchers used 4.5 million measurements made by a laser instrument mounted on NASA's ICESat satellite to map the changing thickness of almost all the floating ice shelves around Antarctica, revealing the pattern of ice-shelf melt across the continent. Of the 54 ice shelves mapped, 20 are being melted by warm ocean currents, most of which are in West Antarctica.

In every case, the inland glaciers that flow down to the coast and feed into these thinning ice shelves have accelerated, draining more ice into the sea and contributing to sea level rise and water temperature increase.

Lead author Dr Hamish Pritchard from British Antarctic Survey, which is part of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), said: "In most places in Antarctica, we can't explain the ice-shelf thinning through melting of snow at the surface, so it has to be driven by warm ocean currents melting them from below. We've looked all around the Antarctic coast and we see a clear pattern: in all the cases where ice shelves are being melted by the ocean, the inland glaciers are speeding up. It's this glacier acceleration that's responsible for most of the increase in ice loss from the continent and this is contributing to sea-level rise.

"What's really interesting is just how sensitive these glaciers seem to be. Some ice shelves are thinning by a few metres a year and, in response, the glaciers drain billions of tons of ice into the sea. This supports the idea that ice shelves are important in slowing down the glaciers that feed them, controlling the loss of ice from the Antarctic ice sheet. It means that we can lose an awful lot of ice to the sea without ever having summers warm enough to make the snow on top of the glaciers melt - the oceans can do all the work from below.

"But this does raise the question of why this is happening now. We think that it's linked to changes in wind patterns. Studies have shown that Antarctic winds have changed because of changes in climate, and that this has affected the strength and direction of ocean currents. As a result warm water is funnelled beneath the floating ice. These studies and our new results therefore suggest that Antarctica's glaciers are responding rapidly to a changing climate."

A different picture is seen on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula (the long stretch of land pointing towards South America). Here, the ice-shelf thinning found by this study can be explained by warm summer winds directly melting the snow on the ice-shelf surfaces. Both patterns, of widespread ocean-driven melting and this summer melting on the Antarctic Peninsula, can therefore be attributed to Antarctica's changing wind patterns. This research is part of international efforts to improve understanding of the interactions between ice and climate in order to improve the reliability of sea-level rise projections. Professor David Vaughan is the leader of ice2sea - a major EU-funded FP7 programme. Ice2sea will improve projections of the contribution of ice to future sea-level rise. He said, "This study shows very clearly why the Antarctic ice sheet is currently losing ice, which is a major advance. But the real significance is that it also shows the key to predicting how the ice sheet will change in the future is in understanding the oceans. Perhaps we should not only be looking to the skies above Antarctica, but also into the surrounding oceans."

The study was carried out by an international team from British Antarctic Survey, Utrecht University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Earth & Space Research in Corvallis, Oregon. NASA's ICESat – Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite – measurements were collected during the period 2003 – 2008 to detect changes in ice-shelf thickness through time.

Provided by British Antarctic Survey

Fin

Top-level Space Assessment Missions - ICESat-2 and SMAP

Unfortunately ICESat failed as predicted March 2009. The scheduled launch of ICESat replacement, ICESat-2, is about 2015, but is now in a funding delay by anti-science President Obama. NASA could be forced to delay two approved, top-tier Earth science missions by more than one year due to the poorly defined nature of President Obama's 2010 Federal Budget. Delayed top-level space assessment missions are: Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) and Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) missions.  Although NASA requested $75 million and $132 million this year for ICESat-2 and SMAP, respectively, NASA could be forced to reduce planned spending on ICESat-2 by $22 million in order to stay within the $1.4 billion spending ceiling Congress appropriated for Earth science initiatives of 2011. SMAP funding would have to be reduced by $30 million.

Both missions topped the National Research Council’s list of large-scale climate-monitoring priorities in its 2007 Earth science decadal survey. ICESat-2 is designed to continue measurements of changes in polar ice-sheet mass to anticipate changes to global sea levels. SMAP, is designed to improve weather forecasts and flood and drought predictions.

Maintaining the launch schedule of ICESat-2 and SMAP data collection is essential to measure direction and progress of the effectiveness of global warming mitigations.  

Global Warming Response

"Obama vows to fight for climate action, make global warming a key 2012 issue" Fox Nation, 26 April 2012. The combination of greenhouse gases Arctic Region methane (from warming deposits of methane clathrates) and increasing hydrocarbon energy gases releases, define human-life range of existence as from a minimum of zero-years to a maximum of 40-years. If President Obama is to influence human lifespan, he must quickly implement an effective energy plan that reduces natural and human greenhouse gas emissions.

To prevent the destruction of all human life from global warming temperature increase by 2050-2055 CE, human and natural greenhouse gases must peak by 2020 CE and decline thereafter. After 250-years of using global warming hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas), the only clean energy source with the energy capacity to displace carbon producing hydrocarbon energy is NUCLEAR ENERGY. ONLY by rapidly replacing hydrocarbon energy with clean nuclear energy can the lifespan of human life be extended. Human life expectancy depends upon how quickly and how much global nuclear energy capacity is expanded and how well nuclear fuel cycle is expanded.

Global Warming PHYSICS (Part 3) Catastrophic Crisis

If humans want to regulate Earth’s temperature, it is necessary for humans to control ocean temperatures in order to regulate methane clathrates release of methane.

In the 1990s, there was UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “business as usual” scenario reporting.  “Businesses as usual” lost out to promoting “renewable” energy politics and the politics of not reporting greenhouse gas methane.  

Because methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, methane leads to further regional and global temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization.  Methane (CH4) (about 85% of natural gas) is 105 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (GHG) on a 20-year period and taking aerosol impacts into account.  

Why Global Warming is a Catastrophic Crisis for Human Races

Carbon dioxide global warming potential (GWP) is exactly one unit (since it is the baseline unit for all other greenhouse gases).  In 2007, methane’s official GWP is 53 to 75 over 20 years (or GWP 105 taking all into consideration). Example, if there is one tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) and one tonne of methane (CH4) in the atmosphere, the tonne of methane over the next 20 years heats Earth 75 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.

Whereas both carbon dioxide and methane has historically regulated Earth’s temperature, post 1750 industrial age, atmospheric METHANE now dominates global warming temperature increase.    

Based upon known historical geological events, geophysicists early noted the possibility of a sudden release of methane if Arctic ice were to disappear, as is now the case.  Release of even a small percentage of total ocean methane deposits could have a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere temperature rise. The warming ocean currents and subsequent breakdown of methane clathrate (aka, methane hydrate) release of global warming gas methane is a developing catastrophic event.  The release of Polar Region methane is dependent upon ocean current temperatures.

To control Earth’s methane atmospheric level and the global warming temperature increase it is necessary for humans to control methane clathrates release of methane by controlling ocean temperatures.  

GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSE STATEMENT

Even if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stopped tomorrow, climatically important amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and other compounds emitted today continue to influence the atmosphere for thousands of years.

Kyoto Protocol Response Identification - With the 2010 understanding of global warming, while not fully considering increasing atmospheric methane (CH4) considerations, to have any reasonable 75% chance of keeping the global warming temperature rise below +2 °C — global carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) need to peak global greenhouse gas equivalent emissions (CO2-eq) by 2015-2020, and fall at least 16% worldwide by 2030 (based on 1990 levels). Additional global human and natural greenhouse gas emission-reductions are necessary beyond 2050 towards a zero carbon economy by the end of the century. To remain below a +1.5 °C threshold requires greater earlier reductions of human global carbon dioxide emissions.

Global Warming Response Identification - World Leaders must establish the intent to save human races 2050-2099. This identification of intent is a Modern Global Warming temperature reduction goal. A greenhouse gas-reduction statement must contain identified results over time, carbon dioxide and methane atmospheric levels, units of measurements, Earth temperatures, consider all global warming forces, probabilities of achieving events, stated starting levels, and goals. The Modern Global Warming starting level for greenhouse natural and human gas reduction is 1750 CE historic carbon dioxide peak levels (~280 ppm) and methane peak levels (~700 ppb). The goal is to achieve human survival well past 2100 CE

When do we hit the point of no return for climate change?  Around 2017 CE

Based on everything we know about climate science, the basic game plan is that if we want to limit global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (so as not to risk the most dangerous and unpredictable impacts), we will need to prevent the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere from rising above roughly 450 parts per million (ppm).  Currently, we are at about 392 ppm.  However, no one geophysical measurement defines reaching the 2oC temperature increase.  There are several factors at cause of global warming temperature increase: mix of several greenhouse gases, water vapor, albedo, ozone, aerosol cooling, atmospheric chemical reactions, and natural cycles are among the causes of Earth’s temperature regulation.  

Defining a target figure for reduction of global warming is not straightforward.  The loss of aerosol cooling from emissions reductions means we likely need huge cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid 2 oC temperature increase with greater than 90% probability.  Huge means something like a 50% reduction within 20-years and 90% reductions within 50-years.  If you combine that with converge and contract for equity reasons (i.e., greenhouse emissions accounting standards for contracts), Europe needs 80% emission cuts by 2020, the US 90% emission cuts by 2020 and both need 95%-plus emission reductions by 2050.  Greenhouse gas reductions for developing nations also need inclusion.  These are fantasist reductions and require fantastic energy use changes.  Work that is a great deal more technical is necessary to identify adequately global warming global goals and procedures.  

According to the Paris based International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new “World Energy Outlook 2011” (WEO 2011) report, the key issue to curbing global warming is something known as a “infrastructure lock-in” of the “carbon budget.”  Carbon budget refers to the contribution of various sources of carbon dioxide on the planet. Carbon budget has nothing to do with political agendas, climate change legislation, carbon controls, carbon storage, or geopolitical carbon footprint.  Carbon budget is a physical event.  Infrastructure coal plants in countries like China and India that are being rapidly constructed right now are going to last another 50 years-plus, at least.  Energy-inefficient buildings we are erecting will stay up for some time.  There is a large time lag to rebuild energy infrastructure while Earth’s temperature responses have time lags.  Once we edge near carbon dioxide level of 450 ppm it becomes imposable to turn off the global warming effects of the 200-year-old carbon tap of coal, oil, natural gas, and methane.  As the IEA found, we are about five years away from building enough carbon-spewing infrastructure to lock us in and make it extremely difficult — maybe impossible — to avoid 450 ppm carbon dioxide.  The point of no return comes around 2017.  

What happens when we lock ourselves in?  We could still avoid exceeding 2oC or more of warming, because above 2oC warming mitigation becomes much, much more costly and difficult.  It is far more expensive to shut down a shiny new coal plant than it is to have never built one to begin with.  It is more arduous to retrofit a bunch of homes and buildings after the fact than it would have been to set rigorous efficiency codes beforehand.

As per the IEA agency calculations, four-fifths of the total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 ppm carbon dioxide Scenario (450 Scenario) have already been locked-in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories. The world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80 percent of that “carbon budget” — producing around 390 ppm. And without any real action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the carbon dioxide emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035, leaving no room for maneuver at all. IEA WEO 2011 report does not consider the "methane clathrate gun effect."  

As the IEA report notes, “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”  Right now, hitting that 450-ppm [CO2eq] target will require a clean-energy investment of about 1.1 percent of GDP per year, says the IEA (that is not a pure “cost,” since there are many efficiency savings).  However, the longer we delay, the more expensive it gets.  Delays can quadruple the cost.

Granted, if Europe vaporizes in the next few months and the global economy plunges into yet another depression, this could temporarily alter the rate of global warming change.  Energy use will drop, emissions will sag, and we will get a little more space to act.  Maybe the point of no return moves out to 2020 or 2022.  However, as we saw after the last downturn, the world does not tend to take advantage of these reprieves.  When the economy is bad, few countries want to bother with installing energy technologies or figuring out how to curb oil use, and when things recover, the world roars back closer and closer to the 2oC warming mark.

Despite the talk and political stress all around the world for low carbon economy, carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 jumped by 5.3 percent to a record 30.4 gigatons, which is “almost unprecedented annual growth rate.” Global demand for energy is set to increase 40 percent by 2035, the Paris-based IEA agency said in its annual WEO 2011 report.  Consumption will rise 1.3 percent a year to 16.96 billion metric tons of oil equivalent in 2035, spurred by China and other emerging economies.  

Investment in clean energy infrastructure of $1.5 trillion a year will meet projected demand through 2035, and even then, the cost of energy will increase.  To retain their carbon economies (coal, oil, natural gas), U.S. and German politicians have made a costly shutdown of their nation's nuclear energy sector.  It appears that German and U.S. politicians remain unresponsive to saving the human races from global warming destruction.

The political and physical choices of global warming are clear!  

Now (PRIOR TO NOVEMBER 2012) shift global economies either to greenhouse gas emission-free nuclear power and hydroelectric power, or this century face extermination of human life.  Reductions of human and natural methane/carbon dioxide emissions may depend upon limiting coal, oil, and natural gas electrical plants to 20-years, not current 50-year-plus life projections.  Effective replacement for human carbon energy sources is almost exclusively limited to increasing nuclear energy and hydrologic energy.  The sooner a global warming temperature reduction plan is in place and acted upon globally, the greater the probability that human races survive past 2099.   

Considering all global warming causes, the point of no return is around 2017 Christian Era (CE) to peak carbon dioxide is at 450-ppm carbon dioxide equivalent [CO2eq] of human and natural greenhouse gases.  Unless there is soon stopping the trigger of the methane clathrate gun, there is no saving of human races 2050-2099 CE.  Until global politicians very-soon accept the fact that global warming is their responsibility, there is no saving of human races 2050-2099 CE.   

Delaying global warming temperature increase response are recalcitrant politicians and a lack of identified reliable public source of dependable global warming information.  Up until now the only “official” source global warming information has been the UNFCCC and UN IPCC reporting.  UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reporting has not changed since 1990s dropping methane reporting and adopting IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of the Third Assessment Report (TAR 2001).       
  
Political Delays of Global Warming Response  

To minimize the political importance of “climate change” and maximize funding of renewable energy while promoting transfer of wealth  though carbon trades, increase government corruption and purchase special interest support, and the funding of Copenhagen 2009 COP15 wealth transfers - “climate change” became “lets build lots of renewable energy” that does not work.

IPCC First Assessment Report (1990) and Second Assessment Report (SAR 1995) reported methane activity.  Later, as a cover and diversion to not properly representing the roll of global warming greenhouse gases, leading world leaders published a new set of political scenarios in 2000 reports.  IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR 2001) and IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4 2007) hardly mention the powerful global warming methane gas.  Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) scenarios became global warming mitigation foundations within the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (AR3, 2001) and within the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007).
  
IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5, which is to be released) "will put greater emphasis on assessing the socio-economic aspects [i.e., SRES] of climate change and implications for sustainable development, risk management and the framing of a response through both adaptation and mitigation."

There is no IPCC AR5 acknowledgment of the role of methane within global temperature cycle.  There is no IPCC AR5 mention of reducing global warming temperatures.  The intended purpose of IPCC’s AR3, AR4, and AR5 covertly continues world leaders’ carbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas.

The IPCC’s shift from global warming science to the political diversion of SRES social issues occurred during the 1990s with the development of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol (adopted 11 December 1997).  U.S. President Clinton’s administration suppressed the world’s efforts to reduce global warming temperature increase.  During the same 1990s, methane dropped from global warming consideration.  The result is that the methane clathrate gun effect is rapidly accelerating due to human carbon dioxide emissions and natural methane emissions.  Unless there is soon stopping the trigger of the methane clathrate gun, there is no saving of human races 2050-2099.

The 20-years and failed seventeen talks held since the ‘Earth Summit of 1992’ under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are the most important negotiations ever undertaken in the history of humankind. Thanks to the abysmal and unforgivable failure of the world’s leadership, 17 rounds of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) "climate change" negotiations have failed to give full effect and deliver a fair, ambitious, and binding GLOBAL WARMING deal that stabilizes the climate.  Climate science is unequivocal that the opportunity to limit warming to safe levels will close in this very 2010-2020 decade.  In fact, carbon-intensive infrastructure, including power stations, buildings, and factories, planned over the next five years will lock the world into a high-emissions trajectory.  Emissions are to plateau by 2020 and rapidly reduce thereafter or the 2 degree C target will slip out of reach.

Coincident with the 1990s development of the Kyoto Protocol (ie, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change signed at the Conference of Parties III (COP3), 1997, Kyoto Japan); there is a major redirection of IPCC reporting the global warming event.  Within the 1990s, IPCC reporting-shift started promoting the unmonitored “renewable alternative energy” sector and carbon-cap-and-trade.  “Business as usual” is a standard scenario evaluation technique that (in the case of global warming) identifies “no response” to reduction of global warming greenhouse gases and no response to curbing global temperature increase.  Within all forms of major social-planning “business as usual” scenario forms is from which other case studies are developed.  Business as usual is a scenario first established to provide planning baseline comparisons.  To avoid change, world leaders shifted reporting business as usual carbon economies to IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES).  Business as usual scenario was not in IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR 2001), and in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4 2007).  World leaders went about “business as usual” by doing nothing about global warming temperature increase.  When it comes to completing important changes, world leaders suffer from Greek King Sisyphus syndrome.  In the UK, Europe, and the US, there are multiple plans for new fossil-fueled power stations that would contribute significantly to global emissions over the coming decades.  To the world leaders, it is still “business as usual.”  The 1990s to date world leaders removing IPCC business as usual scenarios, and removing methane clathrate reporting from IPCC reporting, are political acts by world leaders against human race survival.  

Methane - the NOBLE global warming gas

Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic Region averages is about 1,850 parts per BILLION (ppb), the highest methane has been in 55.8 million years.  This high level of methane brings into doubt the 2050-2099 survivability of Earth’s 9 to 10 billion people.

There are four methane factors associated with the methane force that need to be understood in order to help determine global warming temperature changes:  

➲  Natural Methane – Natural methane has produced almost all methane global warming gas. Methane clathrate (or methane hydrates) results from millions of years of methane deposits aided by aerobic degradation of organic compounds (mainly deposits of coal, oil, natural gas, and surface organics) in low oxygen environments under reduced temperature and increased pressure.  Methane clathrate can initiate a positive carbon/methane feedback cycle and resulting methane clathrate gun effect.  The clathrate gun is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabed and permafrost.  Because methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas (with an official 20-year GWP of 53-75), methane leads to further regional and global temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization (aka, “positive-feedback”).  In effect initiating a methane clathrate runaway process is irreversible once started, as is the firing of a gun.  

➲  High Latitude Land Permafrost - Soil carbon are estimated to be stored in soils and permafrost of high latitude ecosystems which is twice as much carbon as is currently contained in the atmosphere.  In the warmer world, land permafrost thawing and decomposition of previously frozen organic carbon is one of the more likely “positive-feedback” from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere.  Although ground temperature increases in permafrost regions are well documented there is a knowledge gap in the response of permafrost carbon to climate change. The only control mechanism for land permafrost methane gas is regulation of Arctic air temperatures and stop producing carbon particulates deposits.

➲  High Latitude Ocean Permafrost - Ocean-bottom permafrost contains vast amounts of carbon. Experts are concerned that ocean methane clathrate release as methane gas would lead to warmer atmospheric temperatures, thus creating a “positive-feedback” loop that would lead to more methane escaping from the permafrost and more global warming. Ocean-bottom permafrost contains vast amounts of carbon, and its release as methane gas would lead to warmer atmospheric and water temperatures, thus creating a positive-feedback loop that would lead to more methane escaping from the ocean/land permafrost and more global warming.  More than 80 percent of Arctic deep water and more than half of surface water had methane levels around eight times higher than found in normal seawater, according to the study published in the journal Science. With a normal ~100,000-year interglacial cycle, seawater-methane and atmospheric-methane concentrations are maintained by surface interactions such as chemical and regional sea/air temperature and wave motion. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf, in addition to holding large stores of frozen methane, is more of a concern because it is so shallow. In deep water, methane gas oxidizes into carbon dioxide before it reaches the surface. In the shallows of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, methane simply does not have enough time to oxidize, which means more of it escapes into the atmosphere. That, combined with the sheer amount of methane in the region, could add a previously non-calculated variable of methane warming to global warming models.  The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane clathrate-rich area that encompasses more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean.  More than 80 percent of the deep water and more than half of surface water have methane levels around eight times higher than found in normal seawater. The Arctic Shelf is more than three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetlands. It is unknown how much total methane Canada and Alaska land/ocean permafrost contributes to global warming temperature increase.  However, patrolling the Arctic Ocean and oil drilling companies have available significant relief-map information that could aid in global warming estimates.  The only control mechanism for clathrates methane gas is regulation of current Arctic Ocean temperatures.  Arctic Ocean is 542,705 sq mi (14,056,000 sq km).

➲  Methane Global Warming Potential (GWP) - The effects of a critical greenhouse gas on global warming have been significantly underestimated, according to MOST RECENT research suggesting that emissions controls and climate models may need to be revised.  Earth's heat exchange rate between carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is generally calculated according to global warming potential (GWP), which measures the effects of one tonne of a gas on warming over 20, 100, and 500 years in comparison to one tonne of carbon dioxide.  Global Warming Potentials (GWP) for methane includes indirect effects of tropospheric ozone production and stratospheric water vapor production for 20 years is 53.  However, methane GWP 53 interaction with carbon monoxide, oxidants, sulphates aerosols molecules and other chemical reactions are complicated.  Dependent upon chemical composition of the atmosphere, GWP of methane is 53 to 75 (or GWP 105 taking all into consideration). Recalculated GWP of methane that is 53 to 75 times that of carbon dioxide is a very significant global warming factor increase.  

Methane (CH4) may account for up to a third of the global warming from greenhouse gases between 1750 and 2050.  The sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits (likely resulting from the “clathrate gun methane release”) is a cause of past and future geologic global warming climate changes.  Events possibly linked in this way are the Permian-Triassic extinction event (251.4 Ma (million years ago)) and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (55.8 Ma).  Resulting from 1750 to 2011 human global warming activity, current global warming rate of natural and human induced global temperature change is ten times faster than that of the PETM event with current temperature change increasingly impacting Earth’s support of more than 9 billion people.  

Gas composition, physical properties, and quantities determine rate of Earth’s global warming properties.  Natural volcanic gases and natural ocean methane clathrates release dominate End-Permian Period while human carbon energy use (coal, oil, natural gas) and natural ocean methane clathrates release dominate change rate of Modern Global Warming.

End-Permian mass extinction 252.28 Ma

At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still at the grip of an Ice Age from the Carboniferous. Glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continent's interiors. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles.

The end-Permian mass extinction, which a study calls the “most severe biodiversity crisis in earth history,” wiped out 95% of marine life and 70% of life on land about 252.28 million years ago (Ma).  Only 5 per cent of species survived the catastrophe.  Scientists identify excessive levels of carbon dioxide and methane as the "trigger."  Scientists suggest that the massive release of these two warming gases came from volcanic lava flows called Siberian traps now found in northern Russia.  The flood basalts triggered carbon dioxide - and methane - induced global warming and caused ocean acidification, a drier climate, more forest fires, and soil erosion.

Near the end of the Permian period, each region of the world had its own fauna and flora.  Afterwards, the survivors became cosmopolitan.  It took 20 or 30 million years for coral reefs to re-establish themselves, and for the forests to re-grow.  In some settings, it took 50 million years or more for full ecosystem complexity to recover.  Geologists and paleontologists are only just beginning to get to grips with this most profound of crises.

The Permian period was between 290 Ma and 252 Ma.  What exactly happened 252.28 million years ago?  Unfortunately, the Modern Global Warming Era is emulating the End-Permian mass extinction.  Since 1750 human use of global warming greenhouse gases carbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) and resulted in releases of methane gas from Arctic Ocean deposits of methane clathrates (aka, methane hydrates), if left unchecked, will in 2050-2099 result in global warming temperature of 6 °C above 1750 preindustrial level.  

In 1866, the Modern Global Warming Era started its temperature increase similar to the Permian crisis.  Since pre industrial times, the concentrations of greenhouse gases has increased significantly.  By 2010, greenhouse gas increased above interglacial concentration of carbon dioxide is increased ~39% and methane concentration is increased ~164%.  The 1750 CE greenhouse concentrations levels were historic interglacial carbon dioxide peak levels of ~280 ppm and interglacial methane peak levels of ~700 ppb.  Present concentrations levels are carbon dioxide (~390 ppm) and methane (~1,850 ppb).

Fortunately, Meishan-Permian rock section (aka, PermianTriassic boundary section) and other sections elsewhere, contain a record of environmental changes through the end-Permian crisis, in the form of isotopes of oxygen and carbon.  Both elements have two stable, naturally occurring isotopes whose ratios fluctuate depending on environmental conditions.  Skeletons of organisms during their lifetimes contain locked isotope ratios.  Careful recordings from the shells of bivalves or foraminiferans, for example, can give a detailed picture of atmospheric and oceanic conditions through time.

Oxygen isotopes are palaeothermometers.  Oxygen occurs in two forms, oxygen-16, and oxygen-18.  Oxygen isotopes incorporate into the calcite skeletons of marine creatures at different rates depending on the water temperature, more oxygen-18 at low temperatures, and more oxygen-16 at high.  At the base of bed 25, the main mass extinction level, there was a sudden shift in the oxygen isotope ratios indicating a worldwide rise in temperature of 6 °C.  This may not sound much, but it would have a profound effect on the world's ecology.  Climatologists have been getting very excited recently about a 0.8 °C rise in global temperatures.  

The carbon isotopes suggest what might have caused the temperature increase.  They show a massive shift towards the light isotope, carbon-12, exactly at the time of the big extinction.  Pulses of carbon-12 in the geological record are usually indicative of a volcanic eruption or a large die-off (plants, animals and bacteria concentrate carbon-12 in their bodies and release it when they die).  Both certainly happened at the end of the Permian.  However, the carbon-12 pulse is far too big for the organic large die off mechanisms alone.  Calculations of global carbon budgets have suggested that, even if every plant, animal, and microbe died, altogether they would only account for about one-fifth of the observed carbon shift.  The Siberian Traps would have added another fifth.  Where did the remaining three-fifths of global carbon budget come from?

The extra carbon-12 came from frozen deep under the oceans in the form of methane clathrates (aka, gas hydrates), extraordinary accumulations of carbon-12-rich methane locked up in cages of methane clathrates.  Ocean methane clathrates occur at lower temperatures and higher pressure.  If the atmosphere and oceans warm up sufficiently, these gas reserves, can suddenly melt and release their contents in a catastrophic way (i.e., “clathrate gun effect”).  The explosion of gas through the surface of the oceans has been termed a "methane burp.”  A very large methane burp at the end of the Permian could have produced enough carbon-12 to make up the deficit.  

The cause of the burp was probably global warming triggered by huge releases of natural carbon dioxide from the Siberian Traps.  In the Modern Global Warming, human use of hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) is the “trigger” for the Arctic natural "methane burp."  Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas too, so a big burp raises global temperatures even further.  Normally, long-term natural interglacial global processes act to bring greenhouse gas levels down.  This kind of normal interglacial negative feedback keeps the Earth in equilibrium.  However, what happens if the release of methane is so huge and fast that normal feedback processes are overwhelmed?  Then you have a positive feedback "runaway greenhouse" cascade failure event.  That is, a positive feedback system creates excess carbon in the atmosphere causes warming, the warming triggers the release of more methane from gas clathrates, this in turn causes yet more warming, which leads to the release of more methane and so on.  As temperatures rise, species start to go extinct.  Plants and plankton die off and oxygen levels plummet.  This is what seems to have happened 252 million years ago and is starting to happen now. rate of modern Earth’s temperature change is at least 10 times greater that of End-Permian mass extinction temperature rate of change.
  
Modern Global Warming   

Due to the positive feedback effect of melting ice-reducing albedo, End-Permian temperature increases would have been greatest at the poles, which reached an average annual temperature of at least 10 to 20 °C (50 to 68 °F).  The surface waters of the northernmost Arctic Ocean warmed, seasonally at least, enough to support tropical life forms requiring surface temperatures of over 22°C (71.6 °F).  Under such conditions, there would have been great venting over time of potent global warming methane from Arctic Ocean methane clathrate dissociation.  Warming accompanying a south-to-north switch in deep water would produce sufficient warming to destabilize seafloor gas hydrates over most of the world ocean to a water depth of at least 1,900 meter.  Modern Global Warming destabilization could result in the release of more than 2,000 gigatons of methane carbon from clathrate zone of the ocean floor.  Temperature increase greatly exceeds 6 oC.         
 
Modern Global Warming global average temperatures is to rise at least 5°C (9°F) prior to 2099. The temperature will continue to rise.  The resulting impact on Earth's climate will be so severe that a new geological era is born.  Because the warming was gradual, Earth's ecosystems were able to adapt to the End-Permian.  However, Modern Global warming is about 10 times faster the End-Permian.  This time around, Mother Nature will not be able to keep up with the global warming climate change.  

Major reasons for the Arctic Ocean temperature increase include the level of Sun’s radiative forcing, ocean current temperature, ocean saline levels, and atmospheric levels of methane/carbon dioxide, aerosol levels, ice level, and a other factors.  However, the current primary Polar Region heating forcing results from regional atmospheric methane content, temperatures, and positive feedback loops.  Ocean temperatures and currents control the release of methane from large deposits of sea methane clathrates.

Carbon and methane flows between reservoirs in an exchange called the Carbon Cycle, which has slow and fast components.  Any change in the cycle shifts carbon out of one reservoir puts more carbon and methane in the other reservoirs.  Changes that put carbon and methane gases into the atmosphere result in warmer temperatures on Earth.  The fast carbon-methane cycle moves carbon-methane between land, atmosphere, and oceans.

Sudden Polar Methane Release

Once Polar Arctic land glacial-ice becomes unstable, it begins releasing methane from underlying land and lake permafrost.  In addition and more importantly, with warming the Polar arctic methane clathrates degas methane.  Releases of reservoirs of methane clathrate that is stored in permafrost are huge (7.5 - 400 gigatons).  Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1750, humans have pumped about 500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere.  

By some estimates, the global warming potential (GWP) of methane locked up in methane hydrate deposits in the sea and land permafrost is more than 70 times the potential global reserves of all conventional gas, oil, and coal deposits combined.  NOTE: When comparing tonnage of global warming gases remember to factor in GWP.  One methane tonne of can equal 75 tonnes or more of carbon dioxide.  

Natural historical Earth interglacial temperature cycles result from carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) levels are determined by changes of the sun’s global warming strength (described by the Milankovitch Cycle).  Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958) Earth Orbital Variation “...orbital variations remain the most thoroughly examined mechanism of climatic change of tens of thousands of years and are by far the clearest case of a direct effect of changing insulation on the lower atmosphere of Earth”  --National Research Council, 1982  

Recent “natural” Milankovitch Cycle earth temperature ~100,000-year interglacial periods are no longer occurring.  Resulting from human activity since 1750, global warming greenhouse gases have increased very-dramatically.  The curve of global warming gas increase is a “hockey stick curve.”  Current ice-core methane content is well above the normal Milankovitch Earth orbital variation interglacial temperature cycle.  Since pre industrial times, the concentrations of greenhouse gases has increased significantly.  The greenhouse gas increased above natural global warming concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is increased ~39% and methane (CH4) concentration is increased ~164%.  The 1750 CE greenhouse concentrations levels were historic interglacial carbon dioxide peak levels of ~280 ppm and interglacial methane peak levels of ~700 ppb.  Present concentrations levels are carbon dioxide (~390 ppm) and methane (~1,850 ppb).  

Methane clathrate (or methane hydrates) results from millions of years of natural leaking oil and natural gas deposits and aerobic degradation of organic compounds in low oxygen environments under reduced temperature and increased pressure.  Methane clathrate can initiate a positive carbon/methane feedback cycle and resulting methane clathrate gun effect.  The clathrate gun is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabed and permafrost.  Because methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas (with a 20-year GWP 75), methane leads to further regional and global temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization.  In effect initiating a runaway process is irreversible once started, as is the firing of a gun.  When the methane clathrate gun triggers, Earth’s temperature quickly rises tens of degrees.  The Arctic/Antarctic methane clathrate gun is one of several MAJOR global warming “trip points.”  

Earth today is undergoing a catastrophic global change, warming rapidly from a Polar very cold, seemingly stable climate state to a very warm stable climate state.  There is no pause or slow temperature rise.  Evolutionary transition does not occur for more than 9 million people.  If humans want to regulate Earth’s temperature, it is necessary for humans to control methane clathrates release of methane by controlling ocean temperatures.  

A nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006 the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average.  That is enough to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) a year.  The pace at which the polar ice sheets are losing mass is accelerating rapidly.

The Polar Arctic has been losing about 10% of its permanent ice layer every ten years since 1980.  Melting of Arctic sea ice has also reached record heights: in mid-September 2007, at the point when sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent, perennial ice covered an area of 4.14 million km² (1.60 million mile²).  This record low level reached again in September 2011 with 4.34 million km² (1.68 million mile²).  The rate of Arctic sea ice loss is accelerating due to regional heating and accelerating global temperature increase.  There are vast (or huge) stores of methane in the oceans and North/South Polar Regions that are part of global interglacial carbon-cycle sinks and sources.  

With decrease in sea- and land-ice, there comes increased regional Polar Arctic and Arctic Ocean warming, increased release of methane, and resulting global warming temperature increase.  Loss of Polar permafrost and ice is an example of a temperature feedback loop.  It takes 1,000,000s of years for this modern global temperature increases to return to “normal” interglacial cycles.

It is a major concern that only a little global warming over a short period of 100 years can unleash trapped methane.  A large degassing of the methane reservoir could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees, and the mechanism could be geologically very rapid.  Such a violent PETM zipper-like opening of the clathrates would have triggered a catastrophic climate and biogeochemical reorganization of the ocean and atmosphere around 55.8 million years ago.  A new PETM methane zipper-like opening would create a modern catastrophic climate change.   

Understanding of Methane Clathrate as a Major Positive Global Warming Temperature Feedback - 1989 to President Obama

Discovered were methane clathrates (or hydrates) in 1810.  In the 1930s, clathrate formation turned out to be a major problem, clogging pipelines during transportation of gas under cold conditions.  Gas clathrates, also called hydrates, are crystalline solids, which look like ice, and occur when water molecules form a cage-like structure around smaller 'guest molecules'.  The most common guest molecules are methane, ethane, propane, isobutene, normal butane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, of which methane occurs most abundantly in natural clathrates.

Ocean current and changes to ocean current temperatures are important heat exchanges within Earth’s temperature regulation cycle.  Oceans play a very important part in the Carbon Cycle.  An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis Effect, temperature, and salinity differences.  Ocean forces create depth contours; shoreline configurations and interaction with other currents influence direction and strength.

Begun December 1989, the talks held since the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) (aka, ‘Earth Summit’) of 1992 formed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), global warming talks are the most important negotiations ever undertaken in the history of humankind.
 
One geologist wrote in a 1989 paper identified that "any slight warming of the Arctic water will release hydrate from the sea floor almost immediately.  A temperature change of a few degrees will liberate methane from the uppermost sea-floor sediments at this depth within a few years.”  The worst-case analysis is grim indeed: "the danger of a thermal runaway caused by methane release from [sea and land] permafrost is minor, but real ...even if there is only a 1 per cent chance that such events will occur, the social implications are profound."

Millions of years of natural leaking oil and natural gas deposits form the sea methane clathrates and deposits of organic matter produce methane.  Over millenniums, aerobic degradation of organic compounds in low oxygen environments produces global warming methane gas clathrates and other carbon gas forms.  The greenhouse gases escape from the sediments into the water column. Sulfides produce a global dimming effect for use in Geoengineering projects to limit the impact of global warming due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.

There are huge deposits of methane clathrates whose stability is cold temperature and increased pressure sensitive.  As the water temperature increases (or pressure decreases), methane is released to the water column.  Clathrates occur wherever the conditions within the sediments are in the methane-clathrate stability field, and where methane and water are available.  Methane clathrates degas as determined by temperature and pressure of the clathrate.  Gas clathrates are more stable at low temperatures and/or under pressures.  
 
A positive global warming heating results from clathrate releases of methane.  The methane release will lead to a catastrophic global warming heating event prior to 2099 where Earth’s average temperature exceeds tens of degrees above preindustrial 1750 temperatures.   

Unfortunately, "the danger of a thermal runaway caused by methane release from [sea and land] permafrost” is now a real ongoing event that the EU-US Neo-Communist political movement has been vigorously attempting to conceal.

If the public became better informed about decades of global warming neo-communist politics, the neo-communists would lose control over the energy sector that U.S. left Democrats have been cultivating since President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and left Democrat Congress passage of the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 1992.

Since the late 1990s, anti nuclear neo communists have been undermining the knowledge of the importance of methane in global warming temperature increase.  Many of President Obama’s government department websites present false and misleading information. The political intent has been to obscure the structure of global warming temperature increase in order to promote transfer of wealth and transfer of income schemes while promoting “renewable” energy.  IPCC documents contain fraudulent assessments created by untoward political committee members (and not by any of the 10 IPCC staff members).  U.S. government websites and some university websites contain levels of false information.  Identifying reliable sources of global warming information and data can be tricky.        

Global Warming

At this stage of the new global warming cycle, and considering Polar Region sea and land permafrost melt, it is approaching certainty that a global warming event is likely to occur.  Because we have 7 billion people on earth who lack adult leadership, the new global warming event is a new geologic event.  With more than 9 billion people resident before 2050 and the global temperature exceeding +2oC, conditions are becoming worse.   

More than 60 million years of interglacial cycle periods (now at 100,000-year intervals), the Sun’s positions determined limits of Earth warming and cooling.  Over time, Sun warming of greenhouse-gas methane and carbon dioxide resulted in “more warming” or “less warming.”  

Direct chemical analysis of the bubbles trapped within ice-cores identifies levels of concentration of methane, carbon dioxide, and temperatures.  Deuterium (Greek symbol D) readings are temperature proxies from the same bubbles containing methane and carbon dioxide.  The correlation between the ice-core deuterium kinetic isotope (i.e., temperature proxy) at formation and methane/carbon dioxide and is nearly perfect.  Deuterium is a stable, naturally occurring hydrogen isotope.  Deuterium (D) kinetic isotope effect is temperature sensitive and is an excellent temperature proxy.

Ice-core samples contain several interglacial cycles.  Each interglacial cycle is about 100,000-years.  Although the third and fourth climate cycles are of shorter duration than the first two cycles in the Antarctic research Vostok Station record, the four previous climate cycles show a similar sequence of a warm interglacial, followed by colder glacial events, and ending with a rapid return to a long stable interglacial period. Minimum temperatures are within 1°C for the four climate cycles. The overall amplitude of the glacial-interglacial temperature change is ~8°C for the temperature above the inversion level and ~12°C for surface temperatures. Climate cycles deduced from the Vostok ice core appear to have greater uniformity than those records of deep-sea cores. In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property.  

Current Earth life forms have evolved over the last 650,000 years of interglacial cycles.  A graph of the current atmospheric global warming gas levels are well above 650,000 years of interglacial cycles highs.  Carbon dioxide is now 390 parts per million (ppm) with a preindustrial level of 280 ppm.  Methane is now about 1870 parts per billion (ppb) when previously the pre-1750 AD tropospheric concentration was 700 ppb.  

For more than 60 million years the most important warming and cooling force has been the warming of the Sun relative to the position of earth.  Calculating Sun Radiative Forcing energy at any given time is an orbital mechanics problem.  Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch developed the mathematical formulas upon which orbital variations identify climate changes. He hypothesized that when some parts of the cyclic variations combine and occur at the same time, they are responsible for major changes to the Earth's interglacial climate (even ice ages). Milankovitch estimated climatic fluctuations over the last 450,000 years and described cold and warm periods.  He did his work in the first half of the 20th century.  A 1976 study, published in the journal Science examined deep-sea sediment cores and found that Earth orbit variations corresponded to periods of climate change.  

Current anthropogenic, geologically very sudden increase in greenhouse gases is primarily caused by burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), which yearly inject a massive bolus tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Post 1750 release of human carbon dioxide initiated a slight temperature increase that released a large amount of natural methane clathrate gases and increased positive global warming feedbacks.

“Normal” interglacial global warming is self-rectifying by slow chemical weathering processes responsible for mineral sequestration of carbon or by gradual return of Earth’s orbital parameters to a cooling cycle, thereby significantly reducing the amount of solar radiant heating reaching the Earth’s surface.  After 500 to 1,000 years, atmospheric methane no longer is a global warming gas.  It takes many 1,000s of years for atmospheric carbon to reduce its global warming potential.  The result is cooling oceans are able to gradually absorb and lower atmospheric methane/carbon dioxide, enabling restoration of albedo at higher latitude/altitude, producing further slow global cooling.

This explains why global warming is fast to rise and post-maximum temperatures are slow to fall.

As part of the Carbon Cycle, during the base 60 million years, surface wave action of oceans absorbs and expels large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide.  Methane and carbon dioxide are principal effects in Earth’s temperature change.  After 1750, anthropocentric (human) carbon dioxide from burning forest, coal, oil, and natural gas increased atmospheric and ocean current temperatures.  Natural ocean methane releases increased.  Increased temperatures produced positive temperature feedback loops of ocean methane clathrate deposits degassed.  

Earth’s temperature “rapidly” increases until there is a stabilization point reached between Sun relative position to earth and the atmospheric methane/carbon dioxide levels.  A realistic temperature limit for human race survival would be +1.5 oC.     

Unless there is a radical energy policy change that now reduces global warming greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide, 2050 to 2099 Earth’s excessive temperatures are too high for human races continued existence.  New energy policies must peak human and natural global warming gases 2015-2020 and the global warming gases are to decline thereafter.  

Globally we put about 90 million tons of human and natural global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours.  If there is no U.S. Energy Policy and German in 2012 that supports global warming temperature reduction, than Earth’s humans no longer exist 2050-2099.

Reduction of Modern Global Warming temperature increase requires reduction of human energy use of coal, oil, and natural gas necessary to reduce warming.  By stopping human greenhouse gas emissions, over time temperature stabilization occurs when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations match systems of natural methane/carbon dioxide feedback.

World Leaders must establish the intent to save human races 2050-2099.  This identification of intent is a Modern Global Warming temperature reduction goal.  A greenhouse gas-reduction statement must contain identified results over time, carbon dioxide and methane atmospheric levels, units of measurements, Earth temperatures, consider all global warming forces, probabilities of achieving events, stated starting levels, and goals.  The goal’s starting level for greenhouse natural and human gas reduction is 1750 CE historic carbon dioxide peak levels (~280 ppm) and methane peak levels (~700 ppb).  The goal is to achieve human survival well past 2100 CE.  

Go to Blogger METHANE 4/4

Methane and Politics of Human Races End

By David G. Eselius

It is northern and southern Polar Region methane escapes into the atmosphere that determines if human races will be able to continue their existence.

Arctic research observations in 2003-2008 showed that the permafrost submerged on the Arctic shelf is perforated and leaking large amounts of carbon (CH4/CO2) into the atmosphere.  Earlier Arctic studies in Siberia had focused on methane escaping from thawing permafrost on land.

Within Antarctica, southern Polar Region there is less methane research done than in northern Arctic Polar Region.  However, the Palmer Deep located near the West Antarctic Peninsula, is an area experiencing ocean warming.  Below 800 meter (2,625 feet) in the Palmer Deep, temperatures have been increasing at a rate of about 0.01°C (0.018°F) per year for almost 30 years.

There is no research regarding middle latitudes ocean water methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) releases.  Because carbon dioxide has a lesser global heating potential than methane, there is lesser concern for increasing carbon dioxide levels from sea-bed/land permafrost.

Long-term records of near-surface permafrost temperature, obtained from different parts of the permafrost zone in northern regions, show a significant warming trend during the last 30 years.

Permafrost-ground is permanently frozen.  For example, in Fairbanks, Alaska, the frozen soil is just some 30 to 40 centimeters below the surface.  In fact, the frozen ground has been that way since before the start of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).  

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) refers to a period between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, marking the peak of the last glacial period.  During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe, and Asia.  These ice sheets profoundly impacted Earth's climate, causing drought, desertification, and a dramatic drop in sea levels.   

● Reference: The Interglacial 1-1.5 °C zone of “Atmospheric CO2 with glaciers cycles.gif” LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_CO2_with_glaciers_cycles.gif    
● Reference: The Interglacial 1-1.5 °C zone of “650,000 year CO2, NH4, and Temperature” graph LINK: http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg%20%20

When the carbon dioxide (CO2) is below 230-ppm within an interglacial cycle, the cooling cycle is defined.  Below CO2, 230-ppm ice sheets expand causing ocean surface levels to fall.  When the CO2 level is above 230-ppm, the sea level rises.  Over 60 million years of approximate 100,000-year interglacial cycles, the amount of sea level rise and fall is net zero.

Massive ice sheets covered parts of North America, northern Europe, and several other regions during the last ice age.  The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 before present (BP).

This huge volume of ice lowered global sea level by around 120 meters (393 feet) as compared to today.  After the ice, sheets began to melt and retreat, sea level rose rapidly, with several periods of four fast spurts over the last 19,000 years.  These sea level rises are termed "meltwater pulses" (MWP).  The first MWP-1Ao started about 19,000 years BP.  A more clearly defined accelerated phase of sea level rise occurred 14,600 to 13,500 BP (or MWP-1A), to be succeeded by another surge (MWP-1B), 11,500-11,000 BP, when sea level may have jumped by 28 meters (92 feet).  A fourth interval of rapid sea level rise 8200-7600 BP was first identified by a hiatus in coral growth in the Caribbean to be about 7600 BP (MWP-1C).  By the mid-Holocene period, 6000-5000 BP, glacial melting had essentially ceased, while ongoing adjustments of Earth's lithosphere due to removal of the ice sheets gradually decreased over time.  Similar MWPs have occurred cyclically for more than 60 million years within an average temperature-variance zone of 1-1.5°C (1.8-2.7°F).  Earth is +08°C above the more than 60 million year high temperatures.  Over the last 30 years, ice sheet melting has again accelerated.  Reference: “Sea Level Rise, After the Ice Melted and Today” LINK: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/

Over the last 160,000 years human civilization developed.  Ice melt and meltwater pulses were part of that history.  LINK: Bradshaw Foundation “Journey of Mankind” http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/

Only the upper 30 to 100 cm of permafrost soil (called the active layer) thaws every summer and then completely refreezes during the winter.  Typical thickness of permafrost around Fairbanks is about 50 meters, but varies between a few meters, 150 meters, and more.  Permafrost gets colder and thicker northward.  On the Alaskan Arctic Plain, permafrost could be as cold as -9 to -11°C cold and up to 650 meters thick.  Reference: “Arctic Change Land-Permafrost” LINK: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/land-permafrost.shtml  

When permafrost degrades (melts), there are impacts on drainage, ground water, river runoffs, ecological systems (such as plants and ponds), and release of sequestered carbon (CO2/CH4) in the frozen soil, and infrastructure (such as houses, roads, airports, pipelines, and other facilities based on permafrost).

Average temperature during the year is the most important factor for permafrost existence.  Permafrost temperatures at 1 meter (3.2 feet) below ground in central Alaska have been warming since the 1960s.  Alaska permafrost reaching near to the melting point occurred in the mid-1990s.  The rate of release of sequestered carbon (CO2/CH4) has increased.

Some 2009 estimates indicate that by 2100 thawing sea-bed/land permafrost could boost emissions of the potent greenhouse gases 20 to 40+ percent beyond all natural and human sources.

The only realistic way to slow the ocean/land permafrost thaw is for humankind to limit global warming by reducing human carbon dioxide emissions.  The only timely way to reduce human carbon dioxide emissions is expand rapidly global nuclear energy facilities, thus reducing human use of carbon coal, oil, and natural gas.

Previously Northern Hemisphere wetlands considered as large carbon (CO2/CH4) sources were Siberian, Canada, and Alaska.  It is unknown how much methane Arctic Polar Region land/ocean permafrost contributes to global warming temperature increase, but it is significant.

The Arctic Ocean is 14,056,000 sq-km (542,705 sq-miles).  Arctic Polar Region of land permafrost area is huge, but it is contracting due to global warming.  As a reference, the area of contiguous United States 48 U.S. states is 8,080,464 sq-km (3,119,885 sq-miles).

The Arctic Ocean East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area that encompasses more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean.  It is more than three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetlands.

Positive-Feedback Loop - Ocean-bottom permafrost contains vast amounts of carbon (CO2/CH4), and experts are concerned that its release as clathrates methane gas would lead to warmer atmospheric and water temperatures, thus creating a positive-feedback loop that leads to more methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) escaping from the ocean/land permafrost and more global warming.  Reference: National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) “Feedback Loops” LINK: http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/patterns/feedback_loops.html  

In 2008, more than 80 percent of Arctic deep water and more than half of surface water had methane levels around eight times higher than found in normal seawater, according to the study published in the journal Science.  Warmer atmospheric and water temperatures create greater methane releases.

Global Warming Models - The East Siberian Arctic Shelf, in addition to holding large stores of frozen methane, is a greater concern because the shelf is so shallow.  In deep water, methane (CH4) gas oxidizes into carbon dioxide (CO2) before it reaches the surface and the atmosphere.  In the shallows of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, the greater warming potential methane (CH4) simply does not have enough time to oxidize into lesser warming potential carbon dioxide (CO2), which means more methane (CH4) escapes into the atmosphere.  That, combined with the sheer amount of methane clathrate in the region, would add a previously non-calculated variable of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) warming to existing global warming models.

Increased ocean methane releases result in methane becoming the driving force for global warming temperature increase.

Geological interglacial records of more than 60 million years indicate that atmospheric methane concentrations have varied between about 300 to 400 parts per BILLION (ppb) during cold periods, and varied to 600 to 700 ppb during warm periods.  Existing global methane average of 1,850 ppb is unprecedented.  In fact, methane levels this high never before have occurred during the history of multi-cell organic life on Earth.

GWP - The global warming potential (GWP) is a standard statement that considers the global warming effects over defined times.  Carbon GWP is one.  Global Warming Potential (Time Horizon) for Methane (CH4): For 20 years, GWP is 56, for 100 years GWP is 21, and for 500 years GWP is 6.5.  However, recent evidence identifies methane GWP for 20 years as 72 (i.e. methane has a greater Earth warming potential than previously thought).  Stated GWP Data Source: IPCC Climate Change 1995, “The Science of Climate Change: Summary for Policymakers” and “Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report,” page 22.

Currently, GWP for methane includes indirect effects of tropospheric ozone production and stratospheric water vapor production for 1995.  New stratosphere greenhouse data indicates a need for recalculation of methane GWP properties.  

Methane clathrate stability-state decrease is primarily a function of temperature-increase and/or pressure-decrease.  Within the Arctic Ocean (and all oceans), methane clathrate stability is mostly temperature sensitive.  In order to alter clathrate stability-state, it is necessary to reduce ocean and atmosphere temperatures.

Researchers warn that the release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the Arctic shelf could trigger abrupt and rapid global warming.  When methane clathrate further destabilizes, the methane emissions would be significantly larger, resulting in increased significant north-south polar positive feedback loop warming and significant increased global warming temperature increase.

The frozen methane clathrate cap trapping billions of tonnes of methane under the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean is leaking and venting the powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 2003-2008 researchers Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov identified.

This report states, “Global feedbacks already arising from arctic climate change suggest that anything but the most ambitious constraints on greenhouse gas concentrations may not be sufficient to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system."  

Subsea methane emissions are not new but have been underway for some time.  Shakhova's estimate of eight million tonnes of methane emissions needs verification because it is a very important set of data.  Arctic subsea methane studies are in the March 5, 2010 edition of the journal Science.

Methane concentrations measured over the oceans are currently about 0.6 to 0.7 parts per MILLION (ppm), but they are now 1.85 in the Arctic Ocean generally, and between 2.6 and 8.2 ppm in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, an area roughly two million square kilometers in size.  (Remember, "Geological interglacial records of more than 60 million years indicate that atmospheric methane concentrations have varied between about 300 to 400 parts per BILLION (ppb) during cold periods, and varied to 600 to 700 ppb during warm periods.")

In the last few years, researchers have been shocked to see Arctic Ocean in places "methane boil" as gases from deep below come bubbling to the surface.  Large parts of the Arctic Ocean floor along coastal areas is actually permafrost that was flooded thousands of years ago after the big melt from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ice age have begun to warm above the interglacial 1-1.5°C zone.  For the past 30 years, methane not previously released for millions of years, is now "methane boiling."   

Surface temperatures over much of the Arctic landscape and the Siberian landscape, particularly in summer; have jumped 6°C to 10°C above normal in recent years.  That has lead to a massive increase in the flows of the many rivers that terminate in the Arctic Ocean.  Antarctica surface temperatures are also many degrees C above normal in recent years.   

Natalia Shakhova and colleagues believe this substantial increase of warmer water into the shallow East Siberian Shelf has accelerated the melting of the subsea permafrost, in effect fracturing the frozen cap and allowing methane to escape into the atmosphere.  "Our concern is that the subsea permafrost has been showing signs of destabilization already," she said in a release.

"If it further destabilizes, the methane emissions may not be teragrammes, it would be significantly larger," she said.  (A teragramme is a trillion grams, or one million tonnes.)

Methane (CH4) as frozen in permafrost or under the sea are commonly called methane clathrates (hydrates), which is approximately 25 times more potent than greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).  Total ocean methane clathrate volumes are unknown.

"The release to the atmosphere of only one percent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to three to four times," Shakhova said in a release.

"The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict," she said.

Natalia Shakhova's study is just one of at least a dozen others that clearly show the Arctic region is not only melting but also emitting more carbon and methane.

Other than a perceived political need of remaining dependent upon carbon economies, it is difficult to understand why the dammed world leaders intentionally ignore the world peril of increased greenhouse gases and global temperature increase.  Without their cooperation, there is no hope of stopping global warming temperature increase.

Average temperature increase above preindustrial times (pre-1750 AD) is currently only +0.8°C (1.4°F) above high interglacial zone temperature of 1-1.5°C (1.8-2.7°F).  Additional increased temperature change of a few tenths of a degree will increase enormous challenges and costs for societies worldwide.

Resulting from political delays, the speed of the rapid increased methane and carbon dioxide concentration increase within the atmosphere brings the conclusion that global warming goals such as the +2°C goal (or +1.5°C goal) have now become a very, very ambitious goal to achieve, but are not impossible.

For +2°C goal considerations see EU’s "The 2°C target" LINK: NOTE: Due to ongoing untoward world leader suppression of critical global warming information, the link to EU’s paper on "The 2°C target" is no longer available.

Falsifying UN and government department global warming public information by untoward world leaders and political Czars remain standard practice since the 1990s.  With U.S. President Obama in office, control of media reporting of global warming is mandatory.  The problem of information manipulation has gotten bigger with the internet.  Many with an ax to grind do internet hacking of websites.  Before, within the 1990s, untoward world leaders settled for manipulation official UN IPCC reporting.

In 1996, EU Governments established the +2°C limit.  The Environment Council 2003, and European Council, 2005, 2007, reaffirmed the limit since then.  The paper also identifies how through global action this +2°C limit target is achievable.  United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and many nations have often endorsed the 2°C limit.

Subsequent to the rise of world leaders support of the Euro-U.S. Green Neo Communist movement, world leaders have been able to internet suppress much important global warming information.  Such politicians and supporters are evil.

For now, Docs Google still provides a quick view of EU Climate Change Expert Group 'EG Science' international reference document "The 2°C target."    

CONCLUSION

Polar Regions are warming.  Scientists are concerned that land and undersea Polar Region permafrost "has been showing signs of destabilization already.”  A 2008 East Siberian Arctic Shelf discovery report reveals large but overlooked sources of methane gas escaping from permafrost underwater.  

The warming of air and ocean has a positive-feedback effect on atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide in that the ocean's extensive methane clathrates (hydrate) ice in the sediments amplify global warming temperature increase.  The methane ice melts, methane boil off occurs, resulting in a positive feedback and a global temperature increase.  This places considerable additional upward pressure on the sudden temperature rise.  Present day methane deposits contain more energy than all other global fossil fuels of wood, oil, coal, and natural gas combined.  Release of methane gases above interglacial “normal” can be very catastrophic.  

Without the help of world leaders who rapidly provide adequate global warming mitigation response, global temperature exceeds +2°C in 2030 AD - 2040 AD.  Prior to 2099 AD global temperatures, exceeds life terminated +6°C.   

When the Vietnam Era neo communists joined with environmental green movement, overt and covert political pressure developed opposing enacting global warming mitigation.  The 1990s to current management of global warming responses was under the control of world leaders who want to remain dependent upon carbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas.  Untoward political forces of immediate needs replaced the 1990’s human races right to continued existence.   

Neo communists and anti nuclear politics joined to oppose nuclear energy.  Increased was UN and national transfer of wealth frauds involving “green energy,” “renewable energy,” carbon tax corruption, and dividing the world into countries of wealth vs. countries of need.  Support from world leaders and socialists who desire to retain carbon economies allowed the neo communist green political movement growth.

During Senator Obama’s 2007-2008 election campaign tours of Europe, the U.S. and European Euro-U.S. Green Neo Communist movement unified and organized.  Pro carbon economies world leaders and Euro-U.S. Green Neo Communist movement now control the fate of human races.  

The 2009 primary mission of UN global warming mitigation transformed and became “renewable energy,” carbon credit corruption, and projects for transfer of wealth from countries of wealth to countries of need.  Open politicalization (i.e., to influence by politicians and use of governmental agencies) of national and UN global warming wealth-transfer schemes signaled the start of ongoing suppression of objective global warming media reporting.

Political movements to terminate human races 2050-2099 are now established, and unlikely to change in time to prevent foreseeable catastrophic events.

There is much to learn about global warming, and so little time and few resources devoted by politicians to saving human races.  There is a growing problem of global warming temperature increase and resulting massive environmental devastation.  Global warming is real and politicians are killing our planet a little more every day.

The world is a very small place and we have not been good stewards.  Global warming is a symptom of this poor stewardship.  Consequently, unless there are changes soon and if you are under thirty years of age, global warming temperature increase 2050-2099 will terminate you.  Mother Nature has been telling us for more than 100 years, "You make a serious effort to stop global warming or you will all die.  There really isn't much else to say."