Carbon Feedback Loops in Permafrost

[tldpdb1 + 24]

According to this Research, The Predicted Carbon Feedback Loop of a Warmer Arctic Climate Releasing Stored Carbon in the Permafrost leading to a Warmer Arctic and more releasing of Stored Carbon has begun. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/its-already-begun-feedback-loops-will-make-climate-change-even-worse-scientists-say-090000011.html

Edited April 29, 2019 by tldpdb1

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

“A molecule of carbon dioxide, on average, lasts about 100 years in the atmosphere. So, we haven’t yet felt the impacts of the carbon dioxide that we’ve already put in the atmosphere. Even not thinking about feedbacks, we’re already got a lot more climate change built into the system just because it takes awhile for the climate system to adjust itself to this new level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. All the feedback that [happens is] just making that response even bigger than it would be otherwise.”

 

[tldpdb1 + 24]

On 4/29/2019 at 5:16 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

“A molecule of carbon dioxide, on average, lasts about 100 years in the atmosphere. So, we haven’t yet felt the impacts of the carbon dioxide that we’ve already put in the atmosphere. Even not thinking about feedbacks, we’re already got a lot more climate change built into the system just because it takes awhile for the climate system to adjust itself to this new level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. All the feedback that [happens is] just making that response even bigger than it would be otherwise.”

 



 That Must be a Selfie Tom of the Inner you...a Dumb Dog.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, tldpdb1 said:

 That Must be a Selfie Tom of the Inner you...a Dumb Dog.

No worries, I'm easily amused : )

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

7 hours ago, tldpdb1 said:

 That Must be a Selfie Tom of the Inner you...a Dumb Dog.

It is a bit silly of Tom to constantly be posting his memes on the Oilprice commentary. Personally, I don't think this one much advances the conversation. It does not strike me as very intellectual. 

Getting past that, there is an interesting question raised as to a "positive-feedback loop."  While I don't think much of Yahoo News as a reliable or intellectually deep source of scientific knowledge, the underlying theme, that surface temperature changes will end up creating a thawing result and thus a release of whatever is frozen into the surface layer, which if it includes methane could or would result in even more thawing, is intriguing.  The real question is: to what extent?  The referenced article suggests it is a weak feedback loop.  There is no foundation offered for being either a weak loop or a strong loop; only that it would be yet another factor in an oscillation.  

Based on that, I would suggest that, for those obsessed with the idea that "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas,"  then the logical path forward would be to organize society to go plant trees. For those in the USA, I remind you that the Western "cut line" once extended well into the area of the Plains, apparently half way across Iowa.  If you want to absorb carbon naturally through trees, then buy up land in Ohio and re-plant their forest cover.  Iceland right now is doing a massive re-plant, but for other reasons, so it can certainly be done, even in most challenging terrain.  Further, the planting of trees, as is being done in China right now to stall the Gobi from swallowing up Beijing, is an effective mechanism to change the continuing desertification of vast swathes of the planet, an approach which makes a lot of sense and which I enthusiastically and heartily endorse. 

The Chinese have developed an impermeable sand which aids re-forestation.  They dig a little pit for the tree sapling, line that pit with the special sand, plant the tree and back-fill, then water the tree with small amounts of water from a system of hoses and valves.  The trapped water at the roots, which cannot drain away due to the impermeable layer, results in rapid tree growth with a 90% water-requirement reduction.  So that has huge promise. 

I would suggest that re-forestation is the single best idea that has come along in the last century at least.  Plus, lots of new wood out there can later be harvested selectively as a material for society's use, in a sustainable way.  Everybody wins with re-forestation. 

And incidentally, burning oil has a lot less impact than burning coal, which the Chinese do in an effort to supply manufactured goods to the West.  If that burning (of coal) offends you, then do your part by declining to purchase Chinese goods at retail.  But I don't see much of that happening, so the whole carbon-dioxide thing does ring hollow.  Wal-Mart alone imports over $60 billion of goods from China, and that place is constantly packed. 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[tldpdb1 + 24]

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

On 5/1/2019 at 6:10 AM, Jan van Eck said:

It is a bit silly of Tom to constantly be posting his memes on the Oilprice commentary. Personally, I don't think this one much advances the conversation. It does not strike me as very intellectual. 

Getting past that, there is an interesting question raised as to a "positive-feedback loop."  While I don't think much of Yahoo News as a reliable or intellectually deep source of scientific knowledge, the underlying theme, that surface temperature changes will end up creating a thawing result and thus a release of whatever is frozen into the surface layer, which if it includes methane could or would result in even more thawing, is intriguing.  The real question is: to what extent?  The referenced article suggests it is a weak feedback loop.  There is no foundation offered for being either a weak loop or a strong loop; only that it would be yet another factor in an oscillation.  

Based on that, I would suggest that, for those obsessed with the idea that "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas,"  then the logical path forward would be to organize society to go plant trees. For those in the USA, I remind you that the Western "cut line" once extended well into the area of the Plains, apparently half way across Iowa.  If you want to absorb carbon naturally through trees, then buy up land in Ohio and re-plant their forest cover.  Iceland right now is doing a massive re-plant, but for other reasons, so it can certainly be done, even in most challenging terrain.  Further, the planting of trees, as is being done in China right now to stall the Gobi from swallowing up Beijing, is an effective mechanism to change the continuing desertification of vast swathes of the planet, an approach which makes a lot of sense and which I enthusiastically and heartily endorse. 

The Chinese have developed an impermeable sand which aids re-forestation.  They dig a little pit for the tree sapling, line that pit with the special sand, plant the tree and back-fill, then water the tree with small amounts of water from a system of hoses and valves.  The trapped water at the roots, which cannot drain away due to the impermeable layer, results in rapid tree growth with a 90% water-requirement reduction.  So that has huge promise. 

I would suggest that re-forestation is the single best idea that has come along in the last century at least.  Plus, lots of new wood out there can later be harvested selectively as a material for society's use, in a sustainable way.  Everybody wins with re-forestation. 

And incidentally, burning oil has a lot less impact than burning coal, which the Chinese do in an effort to supply manufactured goods to the West.  If that burning (of coal) offends you, then do your part by declining to purchase Chinese goods at retail.  But I don't see much of that happening, so the whole carbon-dioxide thing does ring hollow.  Wal-Mart alone imports over $60 billion of goods from China, and that place is constantly packed. 

Read this Book and you will understand why people continue to shop at Walmart and not Regrow the ancient Forests we used to have.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised-ebook/dp/B004H0M8EA/ref=sr_1_6?ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-a0049-win10-other-nomod-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&keywords=collapse+book+amazon&qid=1557072598&s=gateway&sr=8-6

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

tidpdp1 suggests I (we) read a selected book, written by Jared Diamond  (who wrote the great book titled Guns, Germs and Steel).   Yet the descriptives in the Jared book do not seem to touch on the WalMart Chinese goods phenomenon.  If dissuading folks from shopping for Chinese goods were found in the public interest, the easy way for the Administration to do that would be to levy a general import duty on Chinese goods of 30%.  That would stop the China-WalMart trade cold. And in all candor, that is probably in the national interest.  It would lead to the re-start of lots of abandoned US factories, for openers.  It would also pump money into rural America, where those plants were once located, places like Janesville, Wisconsin or Wichita, Kansas. As far as re-growing forests goes, that can be accomplished by individual States, by the US Forest Service, or by some Foundation putting up the cash and volunteers going out there with shovels and seedlings and doing the re-planting.  It is hardly a difficult task to organize, particularly for Americans to organize. You can start with Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and work your way West.  For a society that put a man on the moon in eight years flat, please don't tell me that something so mundane as planting tree seedlings is beyond the managerial competence of the US Forest Service or any of the State Departments of Agriculture.  Besides, re-planting means you have this nice wood crop in thirty or forty years, always nice for the following generations. 

Equally, the other nations that have suffered deforestation can get off their duff and hatch seedlings and organize re-plantings.  Target nations include Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, even France, certainly Belgium and Nederland, and parts of East Germany. 

Fixing these problems is strictly low-hanging fruit.  Technically a lot easier to manage than say the grounding of the Exxon Valdez.  Or the blowout of that BP well.  Let's get real here, folks. 

[tldpdb1 + 24]

Watch this Jan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI