Discovery Waters Down Fears of Fast-Melting Ice

[Liquidtruth]

Originally Posted by Globe And Mail.com

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...y/Environment#
Ancient wedges in permafrost appear to have 'stubbornness' to survive hotter periods - providing hope for a slower release of carbon

ANNE MCILROY

SCIENCE REPORTER

September 19, 2008

A team of Canadian researchers has unearthed the most ancient ice ever found in North America - 700,000-year-old wedges that didn't melt when the Earth was much balmier than it is today.

The scientists say their discovery means the permafrost that covers a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere may not release its vast stores of carbon as quickly as some experts fear.

That's not to say one of the most catastrophic global-warming scenarios isn't going to happen, said Duane Froese, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at the University of Alberta and lead author of a paper that will appear in today's edition of the journal Science. It will just happen more slowly, he said.

"There is a certain stubbornness to permafrost," he said.
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Dr. Froese first found the cone-shaped wedges about seven years ago only a few metres beneath the surface, not far from Dawson City, Yukon. It formed in cracks in the permafrost, or frozen soil.

Normally, ice is difficult to date beyond 50,000 years. But in this case, the wedges were under volcanic ash that the team, including researchers at the University of Toronto and the Geological Survey of Canada, determined was roughly 700,000 years old.

This means the ice didn't melt during two periods when many scientists believe the planet was warmer than it is today. In the most recent of those periods, 120,000 years ago, temperatures were likely several degrees higher than now. There was probably far less sea ice in the Arctic back then, and global sea levels were up to eight metres higher than today, Dr. Froese said.

It may have been even steamier 400,000 years ago.

In theory, the permafrost in the interior of Yukon and Alaska should have melted during these balmy periods, Dr. Froese said. Unlike the permafrost farther north, it is not continuous at those latitudes, and is found only in some parts of the landscape, depending on exposure and vegetation coverage. This means it is more vulnerable to higher temperatures.

"Even in those areas, permafrost has existed over 700,000 years," Dr. Froese said.

He and his colleagues insist their discovery is not an invitation to ignore the potentially serious impact of global warming, especially in the North, where temperatures are rising faster than anywhere on Earth and the sea ice is vanishing at a rate that has stunned the scientists who study it.

By some estimates, permafrost holds twice as much carbon as is in the atmosphere. So its fate in a warmer North is a critical question to scientists trying to predict the course and potential impact of climate change.

Several climate models predict significant melting of permafrost in the coming decades, or by the end of the century. Dr. Froese said the pace of the thaw could be slower.

"It may happen at time scales slower than those models are predicting," he said.

How fast the permafrost thaws will greatly affect people who live in the North. When it melts, forests and houses tilt and sinkholes open.

"Permafrost is like a glue that holds the Arctic together," said Alberto Reyes, a graduate student at the University of Alberta.

U.S. researcher Ted Schuur, an expert on the carbon contained in permafrost, says there is no scientific consensus on how fast it could melt as temperatures rise.

"We don't have a great understanding of how fast the permafrost thawing will be," said Dr. Schuur, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Florida.

He says the discovery of the ancient ice is intriguing, but more research is required to assess whether it is a widespread phenomenon and not the result of conditions that are unique to this particular part of Yukon.

"How do we know it isn't a local effect?" he asked.

Still, he says, it is intriguing to learn that permafrost ice has lasted 700,000 years. "It is really cool research," he said.

The Canadian ice is relatively modern compared with the oldest ice in the world, an eight-million-year-old fragment found in Antarctica. Scientists were also able to date it because they found it under ash from a volcanic eruption.

ICE WEDGE FROM THE DISTANT PAST

Permafrost contains roots and other organic matter that decompose extremely slowly. When it thaws, carbon is broken down more quickly and released into the atmosphere. Widespread thawing of the permafrost could have a huge impact on global warming. The discovery of 700,000-year-old ice in Yukon suggests permafrost may be able to withstand warmer temperatures than scientists previously believed.

1. Permafrost

Ground that stays below 0°C for two or more years

Ice wedge

Extreme cold causes ground to crack, allowing snowmelt to seep into cracks and freeze again

2. Climate change

Thousands of years pass and the climate in the area changes

Sediment

The ice wedge is gradually covered by sediment, burying it a few metres or more

Dating

Volcanic ash (dated to be about 700,000 years old) is found above the ice, meaning the ice is at least that old

Expansion

The ice wedge grows over many years and is exposed only by erosion

NINIAN CARTER/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...y/Environment#

I take this as good news. What do you all think?

[blknazn]

i think we live in a huge snowglobe-like planet and haarp and the whole govt and world elite controll da weather

[CannaBiscuit]

This article I don't find to be good news or bad news. Procesess such as the possible thawing of permafrost would be a natural occurence that may contribute to global warming which will happen regardless of human interaction.
Today some live in fear that the climate is dramatically getting warmer due to pollution cause by humans rather than the enviroment itself. The fact of the matter is the climate change we face is accelerated by man but mostly contributed to nature. When a valcano erupts it puts roughly half of the pollutants and gases caused by the industrial revolution into the atmoshpere showing the earth does a hell of job polluting itself.
The release of carbon from the thawing of ice is really irrelavent to the issue of global warming because climate shift is a natural trend that is repeated throught the history of the biosphere (earth).
You could also look at this in a positive way for the reason that thawing of ice is never usually a good thing because of the world we live in. People seemed to have ingored the scientific evidence that sea levels can rise, continents shift and coastlines can become eroded. Therefore we tend to build extravagent homes close to the water without realizing years from now the location of the house can be underwater. In this case homes built on trunda like biomes could become damaged from the soil shifting, and sinkholes caused by melting ice.

[Yero]

Originally Posted by CannaBiscuit

This article I don't find to be good news or bad news. Procesess such as the possible thawing of permafrost would be a natural occurence that may contribute to global warming which will happen regardless of human interaction.
Today some live in fear that the climate is dramatically getting warmer due to pollution cause by humans rather than the enviroment itself. The fact of the matter is the climate change we face is accelerated by man but mostly contributed to nature. When a valcano erupts it puts roughly half of the pollutants and gases caused by the industrial revolution into the atmoshpere showing the earth does a hell of job polluting itself.
The release of carbon from the thawing of ice is really irrelavent to the issue of global warming because climate shift is a natural trend that is repeated throught the history of the biosphere (earth).
You could also look at this in a positive way for the reason that thawing of ice is never usually a good thing because of the world we live in. People seemed to have ingored the scientific evidence that sea levels can rise, continents shift and coastlines can become eroded. Therefore we tend to build extravagent homes close to the water without realizing years from now the location of the house can be underwater. In this case homes built on trunda like biomes could become damaged from the soil shifting, and sinkholes caused by melting ice.

I totally agree with this post, nice man. all i would say is we are not helping the global client change tho, all the co2, pollution, greenhouse gases (one being water vapor, which is produced during combustion of any hydrocarbon fuel) decreasing oxygen, I dont think anyone can deny scientifically we are having no contribution to this.

[aaronman]

What about all the discoveries that show CO2 is not a pollutant, nor a significant contribution to heat-trapping greenhouse gases?

[g0pher]

Interesting article, no doubt. Imagine years from now when civilization is reduced to less than a million (or in the thousands) due to a huge natural catastrophe like the ice age, all our exquisite buildings, technology destroyed, 100% of the entire world's books gone, no libraries, no cars, no internet, nothing. at the end of the new ice age... funny thought really bcoz those surviving generations will unearth remnants of scraps and garbage from the age before (us) and wont really know what to do with the technology for a while, they'll just scratch their heads in confusion... i mean the technology to make nuclear reactors and complex sources of energy etc will be destroyed, the internet will be gone, books, tv, cellphones, cars etc. the dawn of a new kind of humans, starting the life process again. i just wonder how it will all turn out, considering as it's inevitable that some day this shit is bound to happen again on the planet.

Ponder

[Stangfriik]

Originally Posted by CannaBiscuit

This article I don't find to be good news or bad news. Procesess such as the possible thawing of permafrost would be a natural occurence that may contribute to global warming which will happen regardless of human interaction.
Today some live in fear that the climate is dramatically getting warmer due to pollution cause by humans rather than the enviroment itself. The fact of the matter is the climate change we face is accelerated by man but mostly contributed to nature. When a valcano erupts it puts roughly half of the pollutants and gases caused by the industrial revolution into the atmoshpere showing the earth does a hell of job polluting itself.
The release of carbon from the thawing of ice is really irrelavent to the issue of global warming because climate shift is a natural trend that is repeated throught the history of the biosphere (earth).
You could also look at this in a positive way for the reason that thawing of ice is never usually a good thing because of the world we live in. People seemed to have ingored the scientific evidence that sea levels can rise, continents shift and coastlines can become eroded. Therefore we tend to build extravagent homes close to the water without realizing years from now the location of the house can be underwater. In this case homes built on trunda like biomes could become damaged from the soil shifting, and sinkholes caused by melting ice.

Not only volcano's that most think of either.

I remember my biology professor stating that the amount of pollutants that sub terrestrial volcano's release is much more than all man made pollutants combined. He also stated that if you ask any "real" scientist as in without an agenda, they will tell you that global warming as it is now believed is completely false.