Arctic Methane on Tenterhooks?

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition March 14-16, 2014
News Media, Wake Up!

Arctic Methane on Tenterhooks?

by ROBERT HUNZIKER

Recent developments up North are cause for concern. The Arctic “sea ice area” registered a record low on March 9, 2014 at 12.88 million square kilometers. (Source: Has the Descent Begun? Sam Carana, Arctic News, March 12, 2014.)

Further confirmation, according to reports from NSIDC (National Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder) and Cryosphere Today (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University or Illinois), Arctic sea ice area dropped to a record low of 12.95 million square kilometers on March 10 of 2014. It is a measure smaller than that seen during the late 1970s and breaking the previous record low, set just three years ago, by 150,000 square kilometers. Sea ice extent, meanwhile, fell to 14.5 million square kilometers, a measure roughly tied with the previous record low set in 2011 and also below area values seen during the late 1970s.

Forebodingly, the abrupt ice loss may set the stage for new record lows of sea ice area, extent, and volume for the upcoming summer of 2014 (Arctic News.)

According to interpretation by Climate Change Institute (University of Maine), on March 10th, 2014, this “record low sea ice cover occurs at a time that typically features sea ice maximum.”

At the same time, the implicit danger of Arctic sea ice loss triggering subsequent methane release has been compounded by the recent occurrence (March 6th, 2014) of an earthquake, magnitude 4.5, at Gakkel Ridge, which fault line crosses over the Arctic, resulting in a massive spike up of methane in the atmosphere to 2,395 ppb. This reported by Arctic News on March 6th: “The situation is dire, given that methane concentrations have risen strongly following an earthquake that hit the Gakkel Ridge.”

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/14/arctic-methane-on-tenterhooks/

[daleanime]

1. Kick....

[Control-Z]

2. Damn.

When I see a subject title like yours, I hesitate to even open it knowing I will only find bad news. Damn.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. When I say "So what?" I don't mean to minimalize the horrific possibilities...

but rather that the die may be cast and there is nothing we can do in the near future. We like to think we can act in the face of danger, but often we cannot.

Yellowstone could blow before the methane release anyway.

It is unfortunate that this tiny blue dot in a tiny corner of the cosmos took a few billion years to get to this point and we just blow it up; probably without anyone else even noticing.

But, so it goes. Billions of other tiny blue dots out there, and maybe one of them will get it right.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. However, there has been a late season increase since that was written

Extent:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Area: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html up to 13.44 on Day 73 (March 14th). Which makes it better than 2011, and a little better than 2006 and 2007.

[hatrack]

6. Yeah I noticed that - "false spring"?

On edit: maybe "false peak" would be better.

[NickB79]

5. More info on the Gakkel Ridge earthquake

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/03/m45-earthquake-hits-gakkel-ridge.html

All that yellow shown is a metric shitload of methane venting from the permafrost

[Nihil]

7. "Oops?"

As in "That's a seriously f*cking huge Oops on the horizon isn't it?".