Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
A McGill-led study published recently in Environmental Research Letters presents close to 30 years of aerial surveys and extensive ground mapping of the Eureka Sound Lowlands area of Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands located at approximately 80 °N. The research focuses on a particular landform (known as a retrogressive thaw slump) that develops as the ice within the permafrost melts and the land slips down in a horseshoe-shaped feature. The presence of these landforms is well documented in the low Arctic.
... "Our study suggests that the warming climate in the high Arctic, and more specifically the increases in summer air temperatures that we have seen in recent years, are initiating widespread changes in the landscape," says Melissa Ward Jones, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in McGill's Department of Geography.
onlooker wrote:Unexpected surge in global methane levels
dissident wrote:Still no evidence of any substantial releases one would expect from collapsing seabed permafrost containment.
For now it looks like the CH4 release from deep soil and seabed reservoirs will be slow. But at some stage there will be catastrophic degassing. Just like with land ice sheet retreat. Both Greenland and Antarctica will experience surges of ice loss associated with rapid sea level rise.
Too bad some of this is not happening now. It would help wake up the BAU drones. The current slow transition is lulling the masses into a false sense of security.
An unexpected surge in global atmospheric methane is threatening to erase the anticipated gains of the Paris Climate Agreement. This past April NOAA posted preliminary data documenting an historic leap in the global level of atmospheric methane in 2018,[1] underscoring a recent wave of science and data reporting that previously stable global methane levels have unexpectedly surged in recent years.
The scientific community recently responded to the surge into two high profile publications by calling for a reduction in methane emissions from the natural gas system, framing it as the most practical response to the global increase.[2]
Last year global methane reached a new historic high, marking the second highest year-over-year jump recorded over the last 20 years. More importantly, the jump in 2018 extended an unanticipated multi-year resurgence of growth in global methane levels that has generated enormous concern in the science community. Scientists report that the new and unexpected methane math threatens to eliminate the anticipated gains of the Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement built upon models that assumed stable methane.[3]
The “why” behind this resurgence is hotly debated and not well understood. That said, most experts in the field suspect that all traditional sources (natural and anthropogenic) are contributing at least in small part to the surge, and that the biggest contributor might be wetlands responding to climate change (though there is some dissent on this point).[4]
Interestingly, the answer to the question about which emissions source is driving the methane surge is very different from the answer to the question about which emission source is best targeted in order to address the surge. It is extremely challenging to control how wetlands respond to climate change (assuming that is the driver).
While the resumption of growth in global methane is now well documented, the drivers are less well understood and hotly debated. Present global environmental monitoring networks only provide sparse information about methane concentrations, making it challenging and complex to distinguish between the myriad individual sources of methane from the fossil fuel industries, and dispersed sources like wetlands and agriculture. Gaps in monitoring also make it impossible to rule out a decrease in the efficacy of natural mechanisms that sweep methane from the atmosphere (aka “sinks”).
Potential drivers in the category of increased emissions include emissions from intensive agricultural practices, emissions from oil and gas operations, and increased emissions from wetlands responding to global warming. [This last potential driver is particularly worrisome as it implies the engagement of a global warming feedback loop.] A number of studies have assigned and evaluated the role of each of these drivers, with different studies assigning greater weight to different drivers; all are generally considered to play at least a minor role.[20]
In this context the 23 authors of Nisbet et al wrote: “We may not be able to influence the factors driving the new rise in methane, especially if it is a climate change feedback, but by monitoring, quantifying and reducing the very large anthropogenic inputs, especially from the gas, coal and cattle industries, and perhaps by direct removal, we may be able to cut the total methane burden to be compliant with the Paris goal
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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