https://truthout.org/articles/release-o ... udy-warns/Shakhova warned that a 50-gigaton — that is, 50-billion-ton — “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the ESAS is “highly possible at any time.”
This, Shakhova said, means that methane releases from decaying frozen hydrates could result in emission rates that “could change in order of magnitude in a matter of minutes,” and that there would be nothing “smooth, gradual or controlled” about it. She described it as a “kind of a release [that] is like the unsealing of an over-pressurized pipeline.”
In other words, we could be looking at non-linear releases of methane in amounts that are difficult to fathom.
A study published in the prestigious journal Nature in July 2013 confirmed what Shakhova had been warning us about for years: A 50-gigaton “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea is highly possible.
Such a “burp” would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide. (For perspective, humans have released approximately 1,475 gigatons in total carbon dioxide since the year 1850.)
The UK’s Met Office considers the 50-gigaton release “plausible,” and in a paper on the subject added, “That may cause ∼12-times increase of modern atmospheric methane burden, with consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/22/weat ... index.htmlA Siberian town that endures the world's widest temperature range has recorded a new high due to a heat wave that is contributing to severe forest fires.
(CNN)An unprecedented heatwave in one of the coldest places on Earth just reached a distressing milestone.
Temperatures in the small Siberian town of Verkhoyansk hit 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, according to public-facing weather data. It's a record-high temperature in one of the fastest-warming places in the world.
No proof or anything yet, but the insane temp. increase of the Taiga, forest between Norway and Alaska, could be methane related.
Or a step up passing the two degrees marker after corona madness, decline of our dirty shield, a half degree average temp increase.
If it is just the clean air effect, we humans can fix that by a return to normal asap.
If it is the start of the 50 Gton burb, complex life will be on the edge of everything we know by reason.
All those feedbacks will accelerate, huge Noctular Clouds……
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/ ... acific-nw/Sunday night featured sublime weather in London. The air was dry, temperatures fell into the 60s, and high pressure brought a pleasant evening. But shortly after sunset, the sky lit up with shimmering, electric-blue curtains. Then the same thing happened early this week over Canada and the Pacific Northwest, including Portland, Ore.
The culprit? Noctilucent clouds, unpredictable yet spectacular apparitions perched on the edge of space. Seeded by meteor smoke, they form mostly at high latitudes near the north and south pole. But emerging research suggests they may be venturing closer to the equator, a potential byproduct of climate change as changes unfold in the upper atmosphere.
In addition to the more widely-discussed carbon dioxide, human activity releases methane into the atmosphere. If it makes it high enough into the atmosphere, it can become oxidized — and, through a complex series of reactions, create water vapor. That extra water vapor then becomes available to create noctilucent clouds.
A couple of years to global food problems, speed up to one degree a year.
38 degrees C above the arctic circle, a full 8 degrees above previous record high's……
A ten degree average anomaly over a huge part of the 3 giant delta's, the rivers running into the arctic ocean.
The rebuilding of sea ice will be very slow.
And we still have sea ice to cool things down up North, imagine a blue ocean….a new world with new horrors for life in store.
Anyway, the location of the heat bubble makes the methane option more likely.
Sam C. on the issue:
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/Large abrupt methane releases will quickly deplete the oxygen in shallow waters, making it harder for microbes to break down the methane, while methane rising through waters that are shallow can enter the atmosphere very quickly.
The situation is extremely dangerous, given the vast amounts of methane present in sediments in the ESAS, given the high global warming potential (GWP) of methane following release and given that over the Arctic there is very little hydroxyl in the air to break down the methane.
High Ocean Temperatures
The heatwave is heating up the sea surface of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), as illustrated by above image. The ESAS is quite shallow, making that heat can quickly reach the seafloor.
Additionally, the heatwave is heating up rivers that carry large amounts of hot water into the Arctic Ocean.
The image on the right shows sea surface temperatures in the Bering Strait as high as 18.9°C or 66.02°F on June 22, 2020.
The nullschool.net website shows that sea surface temperatures in the Bering Strait were as high as 16.1°C or 60.9°F on June 20, 2020, in the Bering Strait (in Norton Sound, Alaska), i.e. 15.1°C or 27.2°F hotter than 1981-2011.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloudNoctilucent clouds can form only under very restricted conditions during local summer; their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere. They are a relatively recent classification. The occurrence of noctilucent clouds appears to be increasing in frequency, brightness and extent.
Data from the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere satellite suggests that noctilucent clouds require water vapour, dust, and very cold temperatures to form.[8] The sources of both the dust and the water vapour in the upper atmosphere are not known with certainty. The dust is believed to come from micrometeors, although particulates from volcanoes and dust from the troposphere are also possibilities. The moisture could be lifted through gaps in the tropopause, as well as forming from the reaction of methane with hydroxyl radicals in the stratosphere.[9]
Noctilucent clouds may be seen by observers at a latitude of 50° to 65°.[45] They seldom occur at lower latitudes (although there have been sightings as far south as Paris, Utah, Italy, Turkey and Spain),[39][46][47][48] and closer to the poles it does not get dark enough for the clouds to become visible.[49] They occur during summer, from mid-May to mid-August in the northern hemisphere and between mid-November and mid-February in the southern hemisphere.[39] They are very faint and tenuous, and may be observed only in twilight around sunrise and sunset when the clouds of the lower atmosphere are in shadow, but the noctilucent cloud is illuminated by the Sun.[49] They are best seen when the Sun is between 6° and 16° below the horizon.[50] Although noctilucent clouds occur in both hemispheres, they have been observed thousands of times in the northern hemisphere, but fewer than 100 times in the southern. Southern hemisphere noctilucent clouds are fainter and occur less frequently; additionally the southern hemisphere has a lower population and less land area from which to make observations.[14][51]