[Note: This is the fifty-sixth sample from my rough draft of
a far from finished new book, Wild, Free, & Happy. The Search field on the right side will find
words in the full contents of all rants and reviews. These samples are not freestanding
pieces. They will be easier to
understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed HERE —
if you happen to have some free time. If
you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and recording
my book HERE.
[Continued from Climate Crisis 01 Sample
55]
Super
Seeps
Valeria
Sukhova and Olga Gertcyk wrote an update on sea floor methane seeps. Scientists have been doing research in the Laptev
and East Siberian seas, where there are large deposits of offshore permafrost
and methane hydrates. Numerous seeps are
releasing methane into the atmosphere. In
the air above the water’s surface, methane levels are 16 to 32 ppm (parts per
million). This is 15 times higher than the
average methane content for the world atmosphere.
Over a thousand large seep fields (super seeps) have been
found so far. “They probably are not
having a large impact on atmospheric CO2 or methane yet.” Meanwhile, the Arctic climate is rapidly
warming, the ice continues melting, the water continues warming, and there are
large deposits of seabed hydrates that have not yet thawed.
Methane
Craters
Methane craters are massive holes in the tundra that are caused
by methane explosions. As the climate
warms, thawing permafrost leads to methane releases that can accumulate in
underground pockets. The holes are also
called gas emission craters, blowout craters, funnels, and hydrolaccoliths. Methane craters not the same as thaw slumps
caused by subsidence, when the land surface softens and sinks due to thawing permafrost. Slumps sometimes fill with water, creating
lakes or ponds.
Anna
Liesowska reported that methane craters are a recent surprise, appearing on
the Yamal and Taymyr (Gyden) peninsulas of northern Siberia. The first one was discovered in 2014, by a
plane passing over tundra in the middle of nowhere on the Yamal peninsula. Until this sighting, these craters were
unknown. She mentioned this 2014
discovery in a July 2020 article that announced the discovery of the
seventeenth methane crater. It was about
164 feet (50 m) deep.
Her article included a number of stunning photographs. They included two photos of pingos, large
mounds created by rising pressure. The Pingo article in Wikipedia will
further illuminate your understanding.
Pingos are only found in permafrost regions. There may be 11,000 of them on Earth. One region in Canada has permafrost that’s
more than 50,000 years old.
Richard
Gray created an excellent article for the BBC. It is recent (November 2020), provides a deeper
discussion of methane craters, and includes a number of dramatic
photographs. Satellite images, taken
over multiple years, indicate that the site of the seventeenth crater (2020)
had previously been a pingo that first appeared in the autumn of 2013. In northwest Siberia, the exploding pingos are
apparently created by concentrated pockets of methane, and they develop in a
few years. They are located in regions
located above deep deposits of gas and oil.
The explosions can be very exciting. “Local reindeer herders reported seeing
flames and smoke after one crater explosion in June 2017 along the banks of the
Myudriyakha River. Villagers in nearby Seyakha — a settlement about 20.5 miles
(33 km) south of the crater — claimed the gas kept burning for about 90 minutes
and the flames reached 13 to16 feet (4 to 5 m) high.”
In this region of northern Siberia, satellite images taken
from 1984 to 2007 indicate a five percent change in the landscape, as the
climate warms, and more permafrost thaws.
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, so permafrost
will continue thawing in summer months, and more methane will be released. How many more craters will explode in the
coming years? How much more methane will
be released into the atmosphere? Also
worrisome is that craters are exploding in a region of gas and oil extraction. There are many pipelines running across the
land, and some are close to pingos.
There is potential here for eco-catastrophes.
Portia
Kentish reported on impacts caused by the 2020 heat wave in Siberia, “where
melting permafrost means the ground is no longer able to support structures
built on it. For many, this raises
particular concerns over the oil and gas industry, which is the primary
economic sector in the Arctic Circle. Pipelines,
processing plants and storage tanks on unstable and thawing ground become a
serious threat to the natural environment.”
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
released a report. It found that “45 per
cent of oil and natural gas production fields in the Russian Arctic are located
in the most hazardous and at-risk region. Moreover, areas of discontinuous permafrost
could see a 50-75 per cent drop in load bearing capacity over the period from
2015-25 in comparison to 1975-85.” Stuff
like roads, bridges, power grids, and towns are vulnerable.
Undersea
Craters
Nancy
Bazilchuk reported on research in the Barents Sea, which is a region of the
Arctic Ocean located between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters. In the 1990s, scientists discovered craters
that blew out of the seafloor 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. Recent research has discovered hundreds more
ancient craters. Some are 300 to 1,000
meters (328 to 1093 yards) in diameter, and blasted out of solid bedrock.
Karin Andreassen
and team have been doing this undersea research, and they published a very
detailed paper. Over the eons, there
have been numerous glaciations (ice ages).
When regions freeze, methane is trapped beneath ice sheets, and
solidifies into methane hydrates. When
warm periods return, some of the frozen methane can thaw and be released. Releases can be gradual, in streams of
bubbles, or they can be abrupt, with crater-making explosions.
The incredible genius of humankind now allows us to cleverly
disrupt the climate in a remarkable number of ways. Andreassen assures us that there are still
enormous amounts of methane stored in sea beds and terrestrial permafrost. “It is apparent that extensive sub-glacial
hydrate accumulations exist beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
today.” She expects more methane craters
will explode.
Life as we know it is moving into the rear view mirror. The Hot Age just got out of bed, yawning,
making coffee. Nobody knows how hot it
will get, how long it will last, and what it will remain when it’s over.
Ocean
Heating
Cheryl Katz discussed how oceans have
been softening climate impacts by soaking up excess heat that has been trapped
in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.
By keeping the atmosphere a bit cooler for a while, this has delayed our
inevitable head-on collision with reality.
Currently, up to half of our CO2 emissions are absorbed into
seawater. Also, heating up the oceans
has accelerated acidification and deoxygenation (more on these below).
Experts
are learning that the surface waters are now warming faster and deeper than
ever. The situation was worse than they
thought. Heat gain had been
underestimated by as much as half — too little attention had been devoted to
the Southern Hemisphere, where 60 percent of ocean water resides. Most of the heat gain was happening well
south of the equator. At the same time,
the Arctic Ocean is heating especially fast, as its ice cover melts and
shrinks.
When water gets warmer, it expands. So, warmer oceans contribute to higher sea
levels, as does the huge volume of water flowing out of melting glaciers and
icepacks. The art of accurately
predicting upcoming sea level changes has yet to be perfected. The world is far more complex and capricious
than the programmers of computer models can imagine. There are limits to how much heat oceans can
store. As their ability to absorb heat
maxes out, they may stop absorbing heat, and begin releasing stored heat into
the atmosphere.
Paul
Ehrlich and John Harte noted that in a warming climate, higher ocean
temperatures can power more intense storm events, and the warmer atmosphere has
the capacity to store more water, so rainstorms are more intense.
Tierney
Smith notes that oceans absorb between 35 and 42 percent of CO2
emissions. They also absorb around 90
percent of the excess heat energy that results from the warming climate. This elevates surface temperatures, and a
warmer surface will absorb less of our CO2 emissions. So, more carbon will continue to accumulate
in the atmosphere, further warming the planet.
Timothy
Lenton wrote, “Ocean heatwaves have led to mass coral bleaching and to the
loss of half of the shallow-water corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A staggering 99% of tropical corals are
projected to be lost if global average temperature rises by 2°C, owing to
interactions between warming, ocean acidification, and pollution. This would represent a profound loss of
marine biodiversity and human livelihoods.”
Todd
Woody reported on the findings of the IPCC’s 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and
Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.
It noted that the rate of ocean warming has doubled since 1993. Extreme flooding of coastal areas will likely
occur at least yearly by 2050. Fish
populations face collapse thanks to a combination of ocean acidification, loss
of oxygen, and warming of the ocean’s surface, which blocks the flow of
nutrients to and from the deep sea.
Ocean
Deoxygenation
Karin
Limburg reported that oxygen levels in the oceans have been declining for
about 70 years. This is gradually
suffocating saltwater ecosystems (“oceans are losing their breath”). Low oxygen conditions exist in a number of
coastal sites, semi-enclosed seas, and the open ocean. At the extreme, the Baltic Sea has regions of
water with too little oxygen to measure (anoxic).
More than 700 coastal sites are experiencing low oxygen
conditions (hypoxic). They are
overloaded with nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, runoff from fertilizer
and sewage. We call them dead zones, but
they aren’t completely dead. They are
home to large mobs of wee microbes that thrive in nutrient rich water. Algae (phytoplankton) are wee aquatic plants
that feast on the nutrients, explode in number, and create algal blooms. In the process, they emit lots of oxygen. When the nutrients run low, the algae die and
decompose. Then, blooms are often
followed by a surge of wee aquatic animals (zooplankton) that feast on the rich
stew of dead algae and absorb the abundant oxygen. Depleted oxygen = dead zone.
Polluted water is not caused by climate change, it’s the
result large swarms of untidy primates that dump staggering amounts of crud
into waterways. Skanky water is one
cause of deoxygenation. Another cause is
climate change, which is affecting open waters that are not nutrient rich.
Rising temperatures make water close to the surface warmer
and lighter, which intensifies thermal stratification. This reduces the mixing of warmer surface
water with deeper water that is denser and colder. Colder water is able to absorb more oxygen, but
the warmer water above inhibits its exposure to airborne oxygen. Also, climate change is melting more and more
ice, sending lots of freshwater into the salty sea. Freshwater is less dense than salt water, so
it stratifies above colder, deeper water — another obstacle.
So, compared to earlier times, less oxygen is now available
in deeper waters. Some sea animals are
able to survive in zones of minimal oxygen, others are forced to move. Animals having a high metabolism, like tuna
or sharks, move to shallower depths, where they are more likely to be
caught. Migration introduces some chaos
into traditional food webs, as more species become crowded together.
Ocean
Acidification
Cody
Sullivan and Rebecca Lindsey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Association (NOAA) wrote about how oceans are being affected by human-produced CO2. Oceans are the only long-term sink for
manmade CO2 emissions. Colder
waters tend to absorb CO2, while warmer waters tend to release it
back into the atmosphere. Since 2000,
the overall net increase in CO2 absorption has been trending upward
at a robust rate. Unfortunately, the
higher uptake of carbon also encourages ocean acidification.
Cheryl
Katz studies ocean acidification (“global warming’s evil twin”). In the Arctic, and in the Southern Ocean
surrounding Antarctica, lots of ice is busy melting away, exposing the water
below. In cold polar waters, CO2
is more soluble, so more of it can be absorbed. Some of it reacts with the water to form
carbonic acid. Consequently, the frigid
waters near both poles are becoming highly acidified. Conditions in the polar regions are getting
close to a tipping point into extreme acidification.
The area of increasingly corrosive water is expected to
expand into the North Atlantic and North Pacific, impact the ocean food web,
and threaten important fisheries.
Already, oysters are dying off in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Shell-building organisms need carbonate
minerals. In the past, carbonate ions in
the water provided a buffer against the acids.
As these ions are depleted, acidity is able to rise. Creatures with shells are having a harder
time building and maintaining shells, because they corrode.
Increasing ocean acidification is a severe threat to the
planet. It is expected to have a big
impact on fisheries in Alaska and throughout the Arctic. As waters warm, species like Atlantic cod are
migrating toward the cooler Arctic, where acidification is high. Fish populations are likely to decline,
impacting the global food supply for humans.
Stephanie
Dutkiewicz and team studied the impact of acidification on phytoplankton
(algae), the tiny plants that are the foundation of the marine food web. They absorb CO2 and emit the
life-giving oxygen that’s necessary for the existence of animal life. Oceans absorb about 30 percent of manmade
carbon emissions, and this intensifies acidification. Their analysis concluded, “At the level of
ecological function of the phytoplankton community, acidification had a greater
impact than warming or reduced nutrient supply.”
Dahr
Jamail noted that “phytoplankton photosynthesis produces half the total
oxygen supply for the planet.” Growing
acidification will eliminate some species, and disturb vital ecological
balances.
Thermohaline
Circulation
Ocean current circulation is a very big deal. It has a major impact on regional climates,
because it moves heat. In plain English,
it’s called the global conveyor belt. In
science speak, it’s called the thermohaline circulation (THC). The THC moves heat around the world via a
long and winding pathway. Wikipedia
provides a nice plain English description of the THC [HERE].
The flow of the current is driven by seawater density, which
is determined by variations of surface temperature and salt content
(salinity). Warm water is less dense
than cold, so it rises to the top. Freshwater
is lighter, less dense, so it stays close to the surface. Salt water is denser and heavier.
Today, melting ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice are pouring
huge amounts of cold freshwater into the ocean, which throws a monkey wrench
into the traditional operation of the current.
Global warming will increasingly have an impact on ocean circulation. These changes are expected to eventually alter
the traditional patterns of the THC as we know it. Some experts are contemplating the
possibility of a slowdown or shutdown of the THC. Wikipedia discusses the possibilities [HERE].
Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
One segment of the global thermohaline circulation is the Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
As the name implies, this involves the currents moving north and then
south in the Atlantic Ocean. The AMOC is
fed by warm and salty water flowing past the cape of Africa, heading northwest
to the Caribbean, then up the coast of North America, then northeast to Iceland
and Scandinavia. In the far north, the
current loses much heat, and sends cool water back down toward the South Pole.
The segment of the AMOC that moves warm water from the Gulf
of Mexico toward the Arctic is called the Gulf Stream. It keeps the climate of the eastern U.S. and
northern Europe warmer than is typical at such a high latitude. This allows modern agriculture in these
regions. Some worry that the melting
arctic will increase the frigid freshwater flowing into the AMOC, and this
could lead to a slowdown or shutdown of the current, and possibly a chillier
future for the eastern U.S. and western Europe.
Some have presented evidence that the AMOC is slowing
down. Others don’t find this evidence to
be compelling, and they don’t expect a slowdown in the near term future. Much is not known about ocean currents, and
controversies abound. Scientists are far
from full agreement on what is happening, and what might happen in the future.
Nicola
Jones wrote an easy to understand description of current AMOC research and
debates. Undersea instruments that
measure the current’s flow are indicating a significant slowdown. Experts aren’t sure if this is worrisome
evidence of climate change, or simply reflects normal variations.
“Should the AMOC shut down, models show that changes in rainfall
patterns would dry up Europe’s rivers, and North America’s entire Eastern Seaboard
could see an additional 30 inches (76 cm) of sea level rise as the backed-up
currents pile water up on East Coast shores.”
This hasn’t happened yet. For
now, data collection continues, and the debates rumble on.
Overheating
David
Wallace-Wells wrote that the five warmest summers in Europe since 1500 have
all occurred since 2002. Rising heat
will have the most dramatic impacts in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, where record
temperatures have soared to frightening heights. In 2015, temps as high as 163°F (73°C) were
recorded.
Matthew
Lewis described how rising numbers of people are dying because extreme heat
events are becoming more common. “Deadly
heat is cooking us alive.” When our
bodies get too warm, we sweat, which helps us shed excess heat as it
evaporates. If you’re lucky, this keeps your
body temperature in the normal range.
We evolved our ability to sweat on African savannahs, where
the humidity is typically low (“dry heat”).
So, we can survive for a few hours of 120°F (49°C) in Death Valley,
California. It’s a different story in
super-humid Florida, where “a single day of 120-degree temperatures in Palm
Beach would be a mass casualty event.
Dead bodies would pile up in the morgues, victims of hyperthermia, or
heatstroke — cooked, alive, in their own bodies.” Alas, the cooling powers of sweating have
limits.
Tara
Santora explored the maximum amount of heat that the human body can
endure. Air temperature is the scale of
heat that a thermometer displays. Wet
bulb temperature is produced by a thermometer covered in a water-soaked
cloth. It takes into account both air
temperature and the humidity level. She
reported that the limit we humans can endure is a wet bulb temperature of 95°F
(35°C). You probably wouldn’t last three
hours.
When the air temperature is 115°F (46.1°C) and humidity is
30%, the wet bulb temperature is 87°F (30.5°C).
When the air temperature is 102°F (38.9°C) and humidity is 77%, the wet
bulb temperature is 95°F (35°C). When the
wet bulb temperature is close to your normal body temperature, you still sweat,
but this doesn’t cool you. You can also
overheat at lower temperatures if you are exercising and/or exposed to direct
sunlight. As the climate warms, the
risks of overheating increase.
Janet Larsen
noted that a warming climate is expected to increase the number and intensity
of heat waves in the coming years. In
2003, a blast furnace heat wave caused the deaths of more than 52,000 people
across Europe. It was the hottest
weather in at least 500 years.
Temperatures were over 104°F (40°C) for up to two weeks. Fatalities rose to 2,000 per day in
France. The higher the humidity, the
higher the death rate. City folks were
most at risk, because urban areas are heat islands. Jean-Marie Robine and team
did additional research and estimated that the actual mortality in 2003 was
more than 70,000.
John
Gowdy added, “During the record heat in Europe in Summer 2003, maize
production fell by 30% in France and 36% in Italy. A 2008 study found that southern Africa could
lose 30% of its maize crop by 2030 due to the negative effects of climate
change. Losses of maize and rice crops
in South Asia could also be significant.”
Extreme heat dries out the land, making it more
flammable. Wikipedia noted that the
2003 European heat wave corresponded with a series of fires in Portugal that
destroyed 1,160 square miles (3010 km2) of forest, and 170 square
miles (440 km2) of agricultural land. In southern Portugal, the temperatures
reached as high as 117°F (47°C).
Deepa
Shivaram reported on a heat wave that hit British Columbia in July
2021. Along the coastline of Vancouver,
on one beach alone, the rocky shore was covered with hundreds of thousands of
dead mussels. It also killed barnacles,
clams, crabs, sea stars, and intertidal anemones. Overall, an estimated one billion sea
creatures died from the heat. Other animals
that depend on sea life for food were also affected. During the same heat wave, 180 wildfires
ignited.
[Continued in Climate Crisis 03, Sample 57]
6 comments:
Have you noticed all the recent global seismic and volcanic activity? Ice and water are very heavy. Pressures on tectonic plates are being significantly altered and displaced by warming--fewer ice masses on land plus more water in the oceans. More frequent outbreaks of quakes and eruptions likely in our near future.
Hi Thom! Yes, I've heard about that. Haiti just got a big one.
I'm in the process of reading Truganini, Journey through the apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus. Not sure if you can get a copy in your neck of the woods but you might enjoy reading it. Cassandra has done a wonderful job of bringing the story of Truganini to life.
Hi Perran! Bezos is willing to send me a Kindle copy. It sounds like an interesting story. Right now, I've got to devote the next several months to finishing my book. Take care!
That reminded me of another book. I took ten pages of notes on it, but I don't have your email.
Morgan, John, The Life and Adventures of William Buckley, 1852, Reprint, William Heinemann Ltd, Melbourne, 1967.
Introduction. William Buckley was a bricklayer, soldier, convict, and “wild white man” who had lived 32 years with the aborigines. Near the end of his life, Morgan wrote his story. Buckley was living on a tiny pension from Tasmania. He died from injuries after falling from a cart. The first effort to get Buckley’s story was in 1835. He was pardoned and became a free man. At that time, his memories of the aborigines were still fresh, but the writing project aborted. Buckley had served as a guide and intermediary with the abos. He was an irritable man.
In 1837, a missionary wrote down a version of his story. It was not good. Buckley had forgotten much of his mother tongue. He was a man of little intelligence. His story was choppy, because he had lost all reckoning of time. Many hoped he would serve as interpreter, conciliator, and constable, but his employment with them was brief. Buckley could not read or write. The Morgan version was published in 1852.
Yes I've read that. I have a feeling I might have been the person who recommended it to you. I remember reading your review of it anyway.
About a month ago I watched "Contact". It's about an uncontacted tribe that was found and removed from their lands so the British could test rockets in the area they lived. I'm not sure if you've seen it but I found it to be a sad but beautiful movie/doco.
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