Discussion on:

Thawing permafrost spells risks for warming planet

No joking here, just an honest question. We find much plant and animal remains in these frozen (permafrost) areas. We know that life on this planet was much more abundant in the past - and that these frozen areas were once vast green grasslands. If life was so much more abundant (in all forms from bacteria through mammoths) what's wrong with global warming? Who are we to be so upset about loosing beach-front property that we're willing to attempt to "mess" with natural cooling/warming cycles?

Who do we think we are?!

Air warms up - seas warm up - ice melts - high volume of fresh water enters the northern oceans - sea levels rise - ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream/Atlantic Conveyor stop delivering their benefits northwards - northern latitudes such as Europe and Western N America cool down, while southern latitudes get drier and hotter, plus many other induced changes to flora and fauna, including our weather systems and our agriculture - on all of which we are dependent. Current civilisation has to adjust to this rapidly or follow the dinosaurs and mammoths into extinction, whilst in the midst of a population explosion demanding more food and water.

Does that equation look comfortable to you, whether you happen to live on a beach front or not?

Anyway, where does it say that life was so much more abundant before? And just when was that? Certainly a good deal has already been killed off directly or indirectly by human activity. But life is not going to exist in either hot or cold deserts in any volume. So where would it find a home if your logic somehow works?

What's wrong? Humans have adjusted quite well to a wide range of climate in the past, in limited numbers. But only with the aid of resources and within limitations. So a diminishing supply of those is not going to support today's 7 Billion+ humans or more in extreme conditions.

Or maybe you have an answer to your own 'honest question'. No joking!

I take you back to the carboniferous era - the time when all our vast coal deposits were laid down. All the 'temperate' regions of the planet were covered in vast forests, of strange primitive trees like monkey-puzzles and cycads, huge ferns. Temperatures were on _average_ 10C (18F) higher, some say, some say more, maybe 15C or more higher than now ON AVERAGE, and that means peaks of temperature 30C higher than now. There was no ice at the poles. The atmosphere was GREAT for plants - it was loaded with carbon dioxide, maybe 3-5% or more. It was not good for large mammals or large animals in general - there were none. There were huge insects, though. If I plunged you into that world you would be dead very soon. For a start, you begin to breathe very quickly in a high-CO2 atmosphere - your breathing rate is regulated by the amount of CO2 in your blood, not the amount of oxygen - and you develop severe acidosis, which would lead to organ failure and kill you quickly if you didn't die of heatstroke first. This is not a world suitable for humans. We don't want to get anywhere near there. But that's where we are going if we just blindly carry on as usual.

Uncertainty is the worry! New understandings may just now be coming from the Japanese IBUKI Satellite (via Google), launched in 2009, with first published data Oct. 29, 2011. The objective is to monitor the "flux" of CO2 and methane around the earth. I believe "flux" means the addition or depletion of GHG at any location and time which changes the concentration in the overlying atmosphere. It is so startling to see the impact of the boreal forest in reducing CO2 during its short growing season. The forested areas reduce CO2 by 10% or about 30 ppm in a few short months. The range is currently 390 ppm down to 360 ppm. On the other hand, tropical areas see little or no impact, as the vigorous plant growth is apparently matched by an equal vegetation rot!
Boreal forests are the land-part of the "lungs of the earth". Perhaps the absorption of the sun's energy by photosynthesis is more effective than the reflection back to space by ice and snow cover? As the permafrost thaws, the boreal forest is expanding north. Which effect will predominate?

(I hope this gets submitted this third time around, as I kept clicking on the giant "Add your opinion" icon and my message just disappeared! Then I found the dinky little "Submit" button!)

... this is an interesting read with many counter points to the delusional global warming rants we so often hear.

http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/

Anyone who references "clamategate" as truth cannot be taken seriously. Especially coming from a former(?) Shell employee. Check your sources.

Besides that it's called permafrost because it's ground that is permanently frozen.

I live in Saskatchewan and it hasn't stayed below freezing for a full week yet and it's been like that for a few years. I can see Global Warming first hand and it's undeniable.

Just ignore those men behind the curtain...

During the mid 1800s the fabled Northwest Passage was nearly crossed by sailing ships. It was that ice free. One such exploring ship, the HMS Investigator, was found in Mercy Bay in 2011.

A place where, until recently, global warming scientists had told us had been a frozen wasteland for centuries. Completely impassable to ships until the recent melting. Obviously they were wrong.

The story of how it got there is most interesting.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2010/07/28/hms-investigator-arctic.html

It's indisputable that there was more vegetation at times in our distant past. Coal is thought to have formed 400 million years ago from vegetation on land, and we're not producing significant amounts now. Oil formed from plant and animal life in the shallow seas of 200 million or so years ago. It's believed that during these times the earth was as much as 7 degF hotter than it is now, which is about double the rise expected this century.

Global warming, whether man-made or not, will not destroy life on this planet. It may even result in more life than we have now. But it will require massive adjustments by humans. However, if you look at the changes in civilization during the past 200 years or so, it's clear we can do it if we need to.

Another real, thinking individual.

A temperature rise on this planet could be really good for life here! Sure we'd have to adjust as people - but we're the best suited to do it - and also dislike it the most.

Sad how so many are so mislead - really.

it'll be final all right. Millions will die. In 2010 thousands died in Russia's heatwave, and that was a result of merely a little bit more heat in summer. Do you eat bread? Watch the price go up. Do you eat meat? What does 'meat' eat? Large parts of the U.S. were on fire last summer, and the parts that weren't, where they'd normaly grow wheat and corn, were too dry to get a decent crop. You are deluded. Wake up.

Being a Canadian you must know how extensive the melting was in the 1850s when difficult to maneuver sailing ships nearly made it through the Northwest Passage? While the sea ice melted, on shore the permafrost was not so permanent then either.

Surely you know that the Canadian military established extreme northern military bases and harbors in the mid 1800s that they are now considering reopening for the first time since WW II.

Let's see...

"During the last ice age..." the earth was much colder than today, and it has been warming ever since.

More lakes... more wetlands... more vegatation that takes in CO2 and produces more oxygen... and yet, somehow, these things are bad.

The end of the last glaciation was 10,000-12,000 years ago. Temperatures hit a maximum during the Holocene Climate Optimum about 8,000 years ago and have been slowly declining since then, until the recent sharp rise that is.

I see a lot of guys glibly assuming the thawing of permafrost will not be a bad thing and that a warming world will be good for us. I see a bunch of anecdotes with little or no scientific backing and that completely ignore the time scale that it will happen on. What I don't see is any scientific basis for your beliefs, just a lot of speculation that it won't be so bad.

I find it confusing that cooling global temperatures brought on by a natural change in solar activity reducing the amount of water evaporation and impacting rain fall is universally accepted as the cause for the sudden expansion of the Sahara Desert over 10,000 years ago, yet when applied to events in other parts of the planet they are shrugged off as non-events.

It is no big deal when geologists say the Sahara has gone through such cycles in the past and will return to a more savanna like environment as the earth naturally warms from the changing solar cycles, yet those same natural temperature changes are blamed on humans when talking about glaciers in Greenland.

It needs to be reminded that Greenland is called such because it was largely green in the early history of man living there. From a planetary history standpoint, being covered in ice is the recent reoccurrence of a long running cycle.