Arctic Ocean: A New Ice Pack

Just a quick first review of PIOMAS data from 1978 to 2021. The results of this preliminary data-dive are what I had expected, which is not good.

Mid Monthly Miscellenea: October.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things...

Lake El'gygytgyn and Arctic Warming.

The post on which this is based has been in abeyance since before my recent illness, and resultant blogging hiatus. Due to questions asked in the comments of my previous post I've expanded it and am posting it as an answer to a question about how warm the Arctic has been in the past, and whether this throws light upon the claimed likelihood of an imminent and catastrophic methane blow out.

Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Probably the best analogue for the current Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). How good an analogue is it, and are we really at risk of re-running it? I think we are going to re-run the PETM, not in the sense that we are likely to achieve the same absolute temperatures, although that may be possible, but in the sense that a temperature increase of at least 3degC is achievable from our fossil fuel emissions alone and this will be amplified by methane and carbon dioxide emissions from the Arctic region causing a d13C drop as seen in the PETM. Talk of lowering to 350pm or keeping temperature below 2degC is idle fantasy.

Mid March Miscellanea.

This is a filler post with a couple of items mainly because I'm too whacked to write much due to work pressures.

AIRS Videos Updates.

I have updated the January and December AIRS videos. From now on the series will be updated regularly, I'll aim to do it each month around the time of release of the latest image, which should be sometime in the second week of the month.

Arctic Methane: A Cause for Concern.

In the previous two posts I've outlined why I don't see observed methane release from the East Siberian Shelf (ESAS) to be the start of a fast process of catastrophic release. This is not to say I don't think this is a danger, however I see the danger as being more nuanced than some commentators and bloggers are claiming. Methane emissions from the Arctic region and ESAS may have the power to take our initial perturbation of CO2 emissions (being the largest single anthropogenic forcing, and the anthropogenic forcing with the greatest potential for future increase), amplify that perturbation, and perhaps even take AGW substantially out of our control. While we may not have enough fossil fuel to take us into the high-end IPCC scenarios, methane from the Arctic and the ESAS may just be able to take up the slack as our emissions fall this century due to geological constraints on fossil fuel production.

Arctic Methane: The paleo-perspective.

I've previously gone over some problems I have with the idea that we're on the verge of catastrophic climate change as a result of methane emissions in the Arctic, specifically from the East Siberian Shelf. A further problem I have with the idea of an imminent catastrophic release of CH4 from marine hydrates (or indeed from the Arctic tundra) is the lack of such events during recent paleo-climatic history. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is generally cited as the best example of what may happen with regards Arctic methane hydrates and global warming. The parallels are strong, current emissions are occurring at a faster rate than during the PETM (Skeptical Science), and we know that there is a substantial issue regarding methane hydrates in the Arctic Ocean, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf being the largest concentrated store of these.

Arctic Methane: Imminent, Abrupt and Massive Release?

In April 2008 Natalia Shakhova and colleagues (Shakhova et al 2008) presented data to the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna about the threat posed by methane clathrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). Their abstract read:

...we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time. That may cause ~12-times increase of modern atmospheric methane burden with consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming.

Source.

When I first read that, the impact was the same as it would be for any reasonable person reading such a statement, coming as it did from people who are acknowledged experts in their field. It was only years later that I finally downloaded and read a copy of David Archer's "Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change." (Archer 2007) Having just finished reading a stack of papers on Arctic methane I'm still of the opinion that Archer's paper is required reading for anyone interested in this matter, and certainly should be read before people call 'apocalpyse' over Arctic methane. Archer 2007 is a summary paper that concludes that the release of methane is more likely to be a chronic release rather than a catastrophic one.

Arctic Methane: What can AIRS tell us. Part 2.

This post won't really make much sense unless you've read the original post. It would also help to check out the videos of AIRS methane retrievals that I've previously posted.

Dr Yuragonov was good enough to point to some significant problems with a conclusion I drew in my previous post. In the meantime something else has occurred to me. So this post in essence is intended to add some major caveats to my claimed observations of apparent recurrent small scale anomalies in the AIRS images. The thrust of this will be towards the Laptev Sea anomaly because of it's possible linkage to Semiletov and Shakhova's work in that area. However these caveats also apply to the areas of the Lena River and the Yukon.

Mid January Miscellanea.

Arctic Methane: What can AIRS tell us?

In the last few days I've posted a set of polar view videos of AIRS retrievals of methane. I've been seeing what I can discern from these, so here are a few observations based on them. This isn't the whole story, others might see details I've missed, or be able to correct me. As usual feel free to post comments, I'd also be interested in any links to discussions elsewhere.

Arctic Methane: AIRS videos.

NOTE - the source images for these videos have been changed with effect from October 2012. This means I will need to recompile and update all of the videos from scratch. I aim to do this by the end of the month but am unwell at present - so can't do right now.


There's been a flurry of activity on the 'net about methane and the Arctic recently. This seems to be related to the AGU poster by Semilitov & Shakhova and new research from them due for publication this year. The ever-excellent Realclimate have posted two articles by Dr David Archer, here and here. Neven's Sea-Ice blog (also excellent) addresses the issue here.