Friday July 3, 2009, 9:18 am
If we think we have issues now... they have only begun... Thanks Cher!

Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground - soil, sediment or rock that remains at or below 0° Celsius for at least two continuous years - makes up about 24 percent of the exposed land mass in the Northern Hemisphere: that’s approximately 22.79 million square kilometers. Permafrost can be thousands of years old, or it can be just beginning. Either way, as permafrost thaws, it jeopardizes both man-made structures and natural features. Thawing permafrost on mountain slopes can lead to landslides.

And it’s melting.

Besides posing threats to structures and landscapes on a local scale, melting permafrost emits carbon dioxide and methane, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), making permafrost a threat on a global scale.

“Massive amounts of carbon stored in frozen soils at high latitudes are increasingly vulnerable to exposure to the atmosphere,” says the Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, Dr. Pep Canadell. “The research shows that the amount of carbon stored in soils surrounding the North Pole has been hugely underestimated.”

In a paper published in the most recent issue of Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Dr. Canadell informs that permafrost has the potential to release vast quantities of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, which would only add to the climate change crisis.

“Warmer temperatures at high latitudes are already resulting in unprecedented permafrost degradation,” he says. “Projections show that almost all near-surface permafrost will disappear by the end of this century exposing large carbon stores to decomposition and release of greenhouse gases.” And as the global temperature increases, an irreversible process of thawing could be initiated.

“A number of feedbacks increase the vulnerability of these soils. For example, heat generated from increased microbial activity could lead to sustained and long-term chronic emissions of carbon dioxide and methane.” As the permafrost thaws and melts, ‘thermokarst lakes’ form. These ‘lakes’ are bodies of freshwater, usually shallow, that are formed in depressions by melt-water from thawing permafrost. The formation of such lakes would draw heat to deeper layers and bring methane to the surface.

An increase in fire frequency could also trigger permafrost melt and thermokarst formation.

“The potential for significant feedbacks from permafrost carbon could be realised with only a small fraction of currently frozen carbon released to the atmosphere,” said Canadell. “For example if only 10 per cent of the permafrost melts, the resultant feedback could result in an additional 80 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent released into the atmosphere, equating to about 0.7°C of global warming.”

As the global temperature rises, permafrost melts. As permafrost melts, carbon dioxide and methane are emitted into the atmosphere, causing increases in the temperature. The temperature increase spurs on permafrost thaw, etc., etc. The cycle is vicious and, as Canadell states, could be irreversible.

Are we past the point of no return? Not yet. But action must be taken now to slow or, if possible, stop the melting of permafrost.

Friday July 3, 2009, 10:32 am
Total unmitigated NONSENSE!

First the permafrost has to melt....right?

Well, how can it melt when it is still cold?

Arctic temp above 80N parallel still below freezing – trend flat
2 07 2009

WUWT readers may recall seeing this article last week:

80_degrees_northArctic temperature is still not above 0°C – the latest date in fifty years of record keeping

In that article, Joe D’Aleo presented a graph from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) that showed that the area above 80 degrees north had still not climbed above freezing point of fresh water. Granted sea water doesn’t freeze until around -4°C, but that not is what was most interesting. It was the flat-top appearance of the graph which when you go back though the years provided on the DMI web page, doesn’t seem to have appeared before.

This is the the DMI graph (annotated by WUWT) from yesterday’s data, July 1st, which appeared today. There is a one day update lag. The original graph is available here at DMI.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/02/arctic-temp-above-80n-parallel-still-below-freezing-trend-flat/


I am so tired of the lies and the people who spread them.

You are helping to perpetrate a CRIMINAL FRAUD.

Friday July 3, 2009, 1:36 pm
Thank You Cher

Saturday July 4, 2009, 10:07 pm
Judy says:
{{{Total unmitigated NONSENSE!

First the permafrost has to melt....right?

Well, how can it melt when it is still cold?

{Copy and paste denialist propaganda}

I am so tired of the lies and the people who spread them.

You are helping to perpetrate a CRIMINAL FRAUD.}}}

The problem, Judy, is that you make a choice to grant automatic credibility to certain sources because they support your preconceptions, and deny without question those sources that contradict your preconceptions, regardless of what the actual evidence may or may not be. You are not capable of being objective, therefore, you have NO credibility.

Seriously, how can we be sure that the sources YOU use are not the liars? The frauds and criminals?

Saturday July 4, 2009, 10:29 pm
QUITE SIMPLY BECAUSE UNLIKE THE PERPETRATORS OF THE FRAUD, THEY DO NOT PROFIT FROM IT
Al Gore, Maurice Strong, Obama’s involvement in Chicago Climate Exchange--the rest of the story

By Judi McLeod March 25, 2009 Canada Free Press

Good news to know that the truth will always out--even when you’re Barack Obama.

“Obama Years Ago Helped Fund Carbon Program He Is Now Pushing Through Congress” is a FOXNews story by Ed Barnes. In short, “While on the board of a Chicago-based charity, Barack Obama helped fund a carbon trading exchange that will likely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he is now trying to push through Congress as president.”

The charity was the Joyce Foundation on whose board of directors Obama served and which gave nearly $1.1 million in two separate grants that were “instrumental in developing and launching the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange, which now calls itself “North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.”

And that’s only the beginning of this tawdry tale, Mr. Barnes.

The “privately-owned” Chicago Climate Exchange is heavily influenced by Obama cohorts Al Gore and Maurice Strong.

For years now Strong and Gore have been cashing in on that lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as “the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.”

Gore, self-proclaimed Patron Saint of the Environment, buys his carbon off-sets from himself--the Generation Investment Management LLP, “an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C., of which he is both chairman and founding partner. The Generation Investment Management business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist, including the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Strong, the silent partner, is a man whose name often draws a blank on the Washington cocktail circuit. Even though a former Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the much hyped Rio Earth Summit) and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations in the days of an Oil-for-Food beleaguered Kofi Annan, the Canadian born Strong is little known in the United States. That’s because he spends most of his time in China where he he has been working to make the communist country the world’s next superpower. The nondescript Strong, nonetheless is the big cheese in the underworld of climate change and is one of the main architects of the failing Kyoto Protocol.