Climate study predicts big thaw

[Boffa Jones Veteran]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Climate change could thaw the top 11 feet of permafrost in most areas of the Northern Hemisphere by 2100, altering ecosystems across Alaska, Canada and Russia, according to a federal study.

Using supercomputers in the United States and Japan, the study calculated how frozen soil would interact with air temperatures, snow, sea ice changes and other processes.

The most extreme scenario involved the melting of the top 11 feet (3.35 meters) of permafrost, or earth that remains frozen year-round.

"If that much near-surface permafrost thaws, it could release considerable amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and that could amplify global warming," said lead author David Lawrence, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "We could be underestimating the rate of global temperature increase."

The study was published December 17 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and presented earlier in the month at a science conference in San Francisco.

A permafrost researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, however, disagrees that the thaw could be so large. Alaska's permafrost won't melt that fast or deep, said Vladimir Romanovsky, who monitors a network of permafrost observatories for the Geophysical Institute.

If air temperatures increase 2 to 4 degrees over the next century, permafrost would begin thawing south of the Brooks Range and start degrading in some places on Alaska's Arctic slope, he said.

But a prediction that melting will reach deeply over the entire region goes too far, he said.

The computer climate model didn't consider some natural factors that tend to keep the permafrost cold, Romanovsky said. For example, deeper permafrost, largely untouched by recent warming at the surface, would have an influence.

Lawrence said he hopes to collaborate with Romanovsky to fine-tune future studies to deal with those deeper layers.

SOURCE

Thought this was interesting. It is hard to say the exact thing that will happen. Hopefully we dont completely screw ourselves and more importantly the costal cities where large amounts of our economy and population live.

[Beastage]

I don't see this ending well... we gonna get screwed and we gonna get screwed hard.

Maybe this race deserves it

[runningking7]

Here are some pictures provided by a top climatologist (one of the best in the world) I met in the summer:

Here's the last. As you can see, the ice is melting.

[zhangm Supervisor]

A permafrost researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, however, disagrees that the thaw could be so large. Alaska's permafrost won't melt that fast or deep, said Vladimir Romanovsky, who monitors a network of permafrost observatories for the Geophysical Institute.

I can see the building where this guy works, from where I live (nice place, been there lots of times). If he spends any appreciable time up here during the winters, then it is impossible to ignore the change in weather trends that we've seen in the last 4 years. Back when I was in elementary school, snow used to always arrive around mid September. They wouldn't let us go outside for recess if it were colder than -20F.

Things are different now. Two years ago, snow didn't arrive till the end of October. Now they shut down the roads and close schools due to freezing rain in January and February. RAIN. When it used to be perfectly normal to get anything between -40 to -60F here in winter. And he sits there in office at the GI and writes about how "climate change" is getting blown out of proportion!

Things are changing, and they are changing quickly. And from where I am, I see that we've sat around on our collective asses too long, wondering if we *should* do anything. The longer we wait, the more the question changes from if we should do something, to if we can do something.