In connection with this paper plese consult Interior Alaska and Siberia Permafrost Thawing Together. Alaska Science Forum January 3, 2001 Article #1523 by Ned Rozell
What is permafrost?
The active surface layer of permafrost is a thin top slice of tundra vegetation that thaws every summer and freezes arctic hard in winter. Each year it locks into the permafrost another layer of vegetable material and methane gas from the rotting vegetable material and reacts with water to form methane hydrate. You get a frozen lattice like substance called methane hydrate, huge amounts of which underlies our oceans and Polar Regions.
Permafrost has acted as a carbon sink, locking away carbon and other greenhouse gases for 10's thousands of years.
Permafrost underlies an estimated 20%-25% of the world's land surface; it occurs in more than 50% of Russia and Canada, 80% of Alaska, 20% of China, and probably all of Antarctica. Permafrost in northern Siberia is 1,600 meters, (5,250 feet) thick and it is 650 meters (2,100 feet) thick in northern Alaska. Permafrost lies beneath about 80 percent of Alaska, and a higher percentage of Siberia.
Current changes in world ambient temperatures, provided an understanding of the complex interactions of human-induced global warming, ice melting, and potential sea level changes are become increasingly evident and computer models become more accurate as to predictive ability to future trends.
The permanently frozen ground, which covers most of Alaska, is thawing for the first time for 125,000 years. Much of Alaska's frosty earth is now only one or two degrees below freezing. Scientists are surprised to find permafrost at -2 degrees C. in areas of Alaska, which have historically featured much colder permafrost. The temperature there should be about minus 5".
In many areas of both interior Alaska and Siberia, permafrost has warmed to within one degree Celsius of thawing. Scientists have unveiled a permafrost record of Siberia along a 1,200-mile transect and compared it to a network in Alaska. Permafrost warming in the two areas was quite similar.
Looking at computer models that predict at least a +2.5-degree C increases in average air temperature during the next 50 years.
Using a computer model to see how permafrost might react based on past and present changes, Scientists predicted that permafrost in the Interior of Alaska will probably begin to thaw over vast areas as early as 2015. Major thawing will most likely occur by 2040
The worldwide amounts of carbon bound in methane hydrates are conservatively estimated to total twice the amount of carbon to be found in all known fossil fuels on Earth. The energy locked up in methane hydrate deposits is more than twice the global reserves of all conventional gas, oil, and coal deposits combined.
"The amount of methane contained in the world's gas hydrate (i.e. methane hydrate) accumulations is enormous, but estimates of the amounts are speculative and range over three orders-of-magnitude from about 100,000 to 270,000,000 trillion cubic feet of gas."1
Hydrates store immense amounts of methane, with major implications for global climate in which changes over a ten-year period could release vast amount of it, making human life untenable. However the natural controls on hydrates and their impacts on the environment are very poorly understood. But a key factor is temperature and if large amounts are just below only one or two degrees below freezing its only a question of time before methane gas is released into the atmosphere in one trillion cubic amounts. Here again computers can calculate the amount of methane needed to make us die out.
At some point in time a trigger temperature will release growing amounts of methane gas 1 litre of solid methane hydrate releases 160 litres of methane gas.2 Methane, a "greenhouse" gas, is 10 times more effective than carbon dioxide in causing climate warming. Because methane is also a greenhouse gas, release of even a small percentage of total deposits could have human terminal problems effect on us. It takes about 10 years for the methane to break down and leave behind carbon dioxide, both will interact with racing temperatures catastrophically for our children.
"Gas hydrates associated with permafrost have been documented on the North Slope of Alaska and Canada and in northern Russia. Direct evidence for gas hydrates on the North Slope of Alaska comes from cores and petroleum industry well logs which suggest the presence of numerous gas hydrate layers in the area of the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River oil fields. Combined information from Arctic gas-hydrate studies shows that, in permafrost regions, gas hydrates may exist at subsurface depths ranging from about 130 to 2,000 meters."3
The recession of glaciers, the disappearance of sea ice, the thawing of the permafrost, they all indicate major impacts.
A U.N. scientist reports that rising Arctic temperatures are melting the solid structure of frozen soil known as permafrost and releasing heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had added new urgency. The IPCC's scientists now estimate that temperatures this century may rise by up to 5.8 degrees C.
GRID Arendal in Norway have produced interactive maps, illustrating the current extent of permafrost in blue, which will act as a baseline from which scientists and policy makers can track the melting and shrinking of the Arctic's frozen soils. "I do not think it is radical to say that the map will become progressively less blue in the coming years," said Dr Tveitdal.
Some of the things that most concern me are lag times of greenhouse gases already emitted, and the potential for runaway positive feedback effects from things like the release of methane from continuously thawing permafrost.
Combined with what we are learning about the speed with which climate change appears to be occurring. Now a very solid case for extreme concern and a much more concerted call from the scientific community to take political actions against Dodo dinosaur politicians like Bush I & II. Bush one was an Ostrich; Bush II is out to prove that the emergence of Homo Scientificus does not take place. A determined scientific Dien Bien Phu has to take place against him to remove him from office.
By building space factories to provide first the energy by the Sun to produce goods in space, energy consumption will be reduced on earth. This construction means a vast area of solar panels are unfolded in space and by orientation to Earth means they act as Venetian blinds stopping most of the incoming solar energy reaching the polar regions. Which is of the utmost concern to scientists and through this process freeze this vast area again to a safe level.
Solar furnaces in space and/or on the Moon will provide the building materials needed to fabricate the structures needed to save our home Earth. Bush II does not need to be saved from his loss of office, but our children need to be saved from his actions now that they will make us extinct unless he is stopped.
Endnotes
1. Statement of William P. Dillon, Research Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Before the, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Hearing on S. 1418, the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 1998
2. see http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/geology/8307/enres4/tsld005.htm.
3. Statement of William P. Dillon, Research Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Before the, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Hearing on S. 1418, the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 1998.
4. Svein Tveitdal, managing director of GRID Arendal in Norway, a UNEP environmental information centre monitoring the melting of the permafrost.