Back from Egypt from discussions with government officials about climate change.
It seems that there is a good public awareness also in Egypt about the problem of melting ice in the Arctic which is good thing. The school children are aware of melting ice in Greenland like in Europe and that there is a problem. I had some discussions about the methane and carbon dioxide escapes from the melting permafrost and their implications to carbon-12 and carbon-13 supply for the radioisotopic dating of objects from ice age end with archeological experts of the University of Cairo. The idea being that if we can identify objects that can be historically dated otherwise and we can get deviation to carbon-14 age we might be able to find out amount of extra (geolocical or fossil) carbon in the system at that point of time. Then we might be able to draw parallels to permafrost melting now and how much extra carbon will come out of melting soils and sea bed clathrates. Egypt also had a record heatwave, it was extremely hot for late October. A good time to talk about global warming! +15C higher than usual. Egypt is planning for sort of geoengineering for sea rise by planning for artificial sand banks to keep risin ocean behind it and city of Alexandria is planning to relocate 1 million people towards the desert as sea engulfs the readily sinking coast. Kind reagards, Veli Albert Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:17:17 +0100 From: j...@cloudworld.co.uk To: albert_kal...@hotmail.com CC: dwschn...@gmail.com; andrew.lock...@gmail.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; p...@cam.ac.uk Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Arctic ice free in 10yrs? Hi Albert, As you say, one should be careful not to overstate the case. However, I am always dismayed how easily people are tempted by those preaching complacency. There is an incredible amount of wishful thinking going on. I am particularly suspicious of the watts-up-with-that site, to which David refers and which attempts to ridicule anything showing that there may be danger ahead [1]. The Pen Hadow expedition may have not produced much scientifically, but has created a lot of publicity for the state of the Arctic ocean. Peter Wadhams is saying that most of the ice could be gone (at end summer) within ten years. Ten years is in the BBC headline, and broadcast in the news summary this morning [2]. This makes people sit up and listen! Albert, you argue that we should not worry about the North Pole being ice free, but it marks a very dangerous point in the warming of the Arctic. If we allow warming to reach that point, then the snow covering permafrost will have retreated so far that methane (and CO2) could be released - inexorably - until it has all gone [3]. Even if only a fraction of the total trapped methane were released within a few decades, then there would be significant positive feedback and we could be into thermal runaway - Armageddon indeed. This methane would inevitably be joined by the methane under sea beds off the coast, which you refer to - adding nails to the coffin. But the loss of the sea ice also would have a physical effect by allowing Greenland glaciers to flow unimpeded into the sea. There is already risk of a physical kind of positive feedback: as the glacier discharge raises the sea level, the sea end of the glaciers is lifted, reducing friction, and allowing faster flow, which raises the sea level even faster, and so on. During experiments on Antarctic ice sheet flow, the movement at 40 km from the sea was intimately affected by what was happening at the sea end - with the sheet moving faster at high tide, but in jerks as friction on obstacles was overcome. So the retreat of Arctic sea ice is liable to produce a domino effect [5] - a double wammy of global warming and sea level rise. To disregard either possibility is wishful thinking. But, even if you accept these dangers, it is also wishful thinking that we can sit back comfortably, on the assumption that geoengineering can always be used as a last resort. There is a large albedo flip when ice and snow turn to water and land. With SRM (solar radiation management) one would try to counter that flip by increasing albedo elsewhere - typically in the stratosphere with aerosols or in the troposphere with marine cloud brightening. SRM becomes less and less likely to work as the area of albedo flip increases across the Arctic. The best time to deploy SRM is now, as any delay risks SRM being too late to save the sea ice. This is what really terrifies me. Cheers, John [1] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/15/top-ten-reasons-why-i-think-catlin-arctic-ice-survey-data-cant-be-trusted/ [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm [3] http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/permafrost.jsp but see also: [4] Continental climate in East Siberia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2007.07.004 [5] http://researchpages.net/ESMG/people/tim-lenton/tipping-points/ --- Veli Albert Kallio wrote: David's point is very valid. Also, it is important to point out that the Russian coast melts now every year. The methane is on the coastal shallows, not in the high Arctic Basin which melts away now. Therefore, it is only misleading to say that loss of ice on the North Pole itself means anything as far as methane is concerned. The danger is already: coasts are the region impacted by the possible large scale methane escapes, plus the terrestrial sites. It is unwise to read Harmageddon into loss of ice on the North Pole, but be aware of the risks that the warming climage generally does, not on the high Arctic Basin but on periphery of the Arctic Ocean. I think this emphasis on the loss of ice on the North Pole is similar mis-conception to the snow cap on Mount Kilimanjaro, which is often referred as the sign of warming high altitude climate (as it has lost 90% of its snow). However, as conincidentally being the Patron of University of Arusha (campus laid on the slopes of these mountains), our engineering people looked at production of 40 Megawatts of geothermal electricity from hot gases that leak out of Mount Kilimanjaro and pumping water into mountain to create steam. Obviously, there are heat flucutations therein to produce this energy and so the melting of snows of Kilimanjaro can easily be caused by fluctuations in the heat output of the mountain. If the mountain were to erupt, surely, all the snow would melt away and all environmentalists referring to this melting event would get only embarrased and ridiculed. Melting North Pole is not Harmageddon, but it is the warming of the soils and the sea in the longer run, not instantaneously but in time. If too much emphasis is put on immediate catastrophy, "end of the world and geoengineering" by methane blasts, similar disappointment and ridicule will only follow, so detrimental to our all common causes. Let's still keep things in perspective just like David suggest. I will not support people who will make mockery after the Arctic Ocean is ice-free as I am 100% convinced nothing will happen immediately. But without ice the warming of the sea escalates and winter seasons shorten and in a few years' time natural GHG emissions could become a big problem that would have to be accommodated into international emissions regime by more severe cuts. Kind regards, Albert Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:17:57 -0400 Subject: [geo] Re: Arctic ice free in 10yrs? From: dwschn...@gmail.com To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com CC: geoengineering@googlegroups.com The Catlin "survey" is a farce. Take a look at Anthony Watt's blog to understand why. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/15/top-ten-reasons-why-i-think-catlin-arctic-ice-survey-data-cant-be-trusted/ Bottomline, if you want to make a cogent statement about Arctic ice thickness, use the data from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research towed radar array survey. It is far more comprehensive, more accurate and is the data serious scientists are using. Competent arctic scientists have refused to use the Catlin data due to the multiple failures in their experimental methods and the self-admitted and dreadful lack of representative samples. Will the Arctic be ice free in 2010 (or 2016)? Actually no one knows. The past predictions have failed miserably. Might be, might not. Because of the "might be", I continue to support full scale testing of geoengineering techniques, especially in the northern latitudes. dschnare On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:57 AM, Andrew Lockley <andrew.lock...@gmail.com> wrote: I'm still very keen to see calculations which clarify whether such a changes can be reversed (as opposed to prevented) by aerosol geoengineering. My fear is that even geoengineering cannot save us when the ice is lost, and we will simply have to wait until the methane pulse kills us all. (or at least leaves the survivors scrabbling around in a 'Mad-Max style post-apocalyptic wasteland). A http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years' time, a top polar specialist has said. "It's like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge. Professor Wadhams has been studying the Arctic ice since the 1960s. He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year. Led by explorer Pen Hadow, the team's measurements found that the ice-floes were on average 1.8m thick - typical of so-called "first year" ice formed during the past winter and most vulnerable to melting. You'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer Peter Wadhams, University of Cambridge The survey route - to the north of Canada - had been expected to cross areas of older "multi-year" ice which is thicker and more resilient. When the ridges of ice between floes are included, the expedition found an average thickness of 4.8m. Professor Wadhams said: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view - based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition - that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years. "That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean." According to Professor Wadhams, faster shipping and easier access to oil and gas reserves were among short-term benefits of the melting. But in the longer-term, losing a permanent feature of the planet risked accelerated warming, changing patterns of circulation in the oceans and atmosphere, and having unknown effects on ecosystems through the acidification of waters. Pen Hadow and his companions Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley endured ferocious weather - including a wind chill of minus 70 - delayed resupply flights and starvation rations during the expedition from 1 March to 7 May. When I met them on the ice, as part of a BBC team that joined the pick-up flight, all three had lost weight and were evidently tired from the ordeal. The expedition had been blighted by equipment failures. A pioneering radar system, designed to measure the ice while being dragged over the ice, broke down within days. Another device to measure the water beneath the ice never functioned at all. Incremental step The technical breakdowns forced the team to rely on hand-drilling through the ice which slowed progress and meant the team's planned destination of the North Pole had to be abandoned. Pen Hadow admitted that the expedition had not led to "a giant leap forward in understanding" but had been useful as an incremental step in the science of answering the key questions about the Arctic. Dogs can swim but they can't tow a sled through water which is what's needed now Pen Hadow His view was backed by Professor Wadhams who said the expedition had provided information about the ice that was not available from satellites and that no submarines had been available to science at that time either. Pen Hadow said he was shocked by the image of how "in my lifetime we're looking at changing how the planet looks from space." He also described how polar explorers were having to change their methods from the days when sledges could be pulled by dogs over the ice. "Dogs can swim but they can't tow a sledge through water which is what's needed now." "Now we have to wear immersion suits and swim and we need sledges that can float. I can foresee needing sledges that are more like canoes that you also pull over the ice." -- David W. Schnare Center for Environmental Stewardship _________________________________________________________________ Chat to your friends for free on selected mobiles http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/174426567/direct/01/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---