Siberian Methane: The Latest Eco-boogeyman

FROM-New American

For those who have tracked the development of the theory of manmade climate change in recent years, it seems as if its adherents thrive on a succession of purported crises. It is as if every study which is debunked, every scandal which discredits the prophets of doom, and every economic failure associated with the climate change theory has sparked two more crises to take their place.

Now, climate hypochondriacs have found something new to worry about: methane frozen in the Siberian permafrost. An Associated Press article (“Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue”) announced the doom which awaits us all:

Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — at a perilous rate.

Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.

Presumably readers are not to take notice of the fact that these 1.5 trillion tons of carbon were drawn out of the atmosphere in the first place, most likely during a pesky ice age which has still not freed Siberia from its chilly grasp. Even if the gas reserves are as large as purported, their release would simply be part of a natural cycle.

But the “news” about Siberian methane is not really all that new to the scientific community. Nature published an abstract (“Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming”) in July 2006 which noted:

Large uncertainties in the budget of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas, limit the accuracy of climate change projections. Thaw lakes in North Siberia are known to emit methane, but the magnitude of these emissions remains uncertain because most methane is released through ebullition (bubbling), which is spatially and temporally variable.

If the issue of Siberian methane has been known to the climate science community for years, why the sudden media interest? In the words of the AP article:

Climate change moves back to center-stage on Nov. 29 when governments meet in Cancun, Mexico, to try again to thrash out a course of counteractions. But U.N. officials hold out no hope the two weeks of talks will lead to a legally binding accord governing carbon emissions, seen as the key to averting what is feared might be a dramatic change in climate this century.

Most climate scientists, with a few dissenters, say human activities — the stuff of daily life like driving cars, producing electricity or raising cattle — is overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that trap heat, causing a warming effect.

It is quite telling that the "demons" enumerated by the environmentalist fringe now include the most basic elements of the agricultural — let alone the industrial — age: Not only “driving cars” but also “producing electricity” and “raising cattle” are threatening the planet? Are we actually to believe that "saving the Earth" implies a return to a hunter-gatherer society?

Apparently so, for we are also told by the AP:

Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.

"In my view, methane is a serious sleeper out there that can pull us over the hump," said Robert Corell, an eminent U.S. climate change researcher and Arctic specialist.

Independent reviewers have used words other than “seminal” to describe the IPCC’s 2007 report, and when grading that report, they awarded it an “F” for its stunning lack of peer-reviewed studies to back up its claims. However, given the precipitous decline in the credibility of the entire field of anthropogenic climate change since the Climategate revelations, let alone the credibility problems which have confronted the IPCC in particular in the past year, the notion that the 2007 report is now to be seen as "too conservative" strains credulity.

After the debacle of last year’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, conference organizers are, no doubt, facing a tremendous credibility deficit as they prepare for next week’s conference in Cancun, Mexico. At the very least, delegates should find it somewhat easier to push their agenda in this year’s comparatively balmy surroundings than they did during the cold and snow they confronted last year. Given the fact that the UN’s agenda concentrates more on economic redistribution than the environment, means that climate change theorists have not yet begun to restore their credibility.

A 21st Century Energy Source?

The answer to this is obvious. Put all the cows in rooms and collect their discharged methane to be burned off to create a new renewable energy source! Anyone know a good patent attorney?

Cows wear a nozzle that collects methane and other gases discharged near the nose to be measured.

WILLEM DE ROOIJ/BUREAU TYPOGRAFIA BV 

FROM-Toronto Star

A new beef with role of cows in global warming

Alex Horkay

Statistics have been giving us a bum steer when they state how much cattle methane emissions contribute to global warming, a new study shows.

That's because mathematical equations used to predict cows' methane emissions are inaccurate and don't take into account factors such as dietary changes, said Jennifer Ellis, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the University of Guelph.

When cattle burp up their cud, they discharge methane with it, due to microbial fermentation occurring in their complex stomachs.

“Diet can change CH4 (methane) emissions quite a lot. For example, between two and 12 per cent of the energy a cow consumes will be lost as CH4,” she said.

“As a crude comparison, a typical dairy cow will produce as much in (carbon dioxide) equivalents per month as a mid-size car does travelling 800 kilometres per month. Changes (of) two to 12 per cent of the energy intake can be the difference between that cow being a compact car and an SUV or truck,” she added.

Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide among gases implicated in global warming.


When an equation calculates the quantity of methane emissions on one farm, it can't be used to accurately determine how much greenhouse gas is created worldwide because there is so much difference in cattle diet around the world and from farm to farm.

“CH4 is actually the biggest on-farm contributor to the greenhouse gas effect, so it is very important to get right,” Ellis said.

The study did not determine whether cattle produce more or less methane than had been believed previously.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates cattle are responsible for 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.Two methods are used to measure cattle methane production, 98 per cent of which is belched up.

In the most reliable method, “essentially you put the cow in a small room-size chamber and measure the exchange of gases in and out of the chamber for a period of 24 hours,” Ellis said.

In the other method a nozzle is placed right beside the animal's nostril and mouth that sucks up the gases discharged.

The amount of food eaten, the amount of forage relative to grain and the fat content of the diet are all factors in cattle methane production. More hay and grass tends to increase emissions while some dietary supplements and high-fat diets tend to reduce it.

As for the math, more complex equations with a better description of the animal and diet would help, she said.

The study was co-authored by livestock researchers at the University of Manitoba and in the Netherlands. It appears in the December issue of the journal Global Change Biology

Methane Madness

FROM- American Thinker

By Jeffrey Folks

The environmentalist assault on economic growth resembles the old shell game practiced by con artists for centuries. Just when you're sure the pea will appear at the right, it shows up in the middle. Place your bet on the middle, and the pea appears somewhere else.

For decades now, alarmists have claimed that CO2 emissions are warming the earth past the "tipping point" and that only extreme reductions in the use of fossil fuels can avert catastrophe. Yet the earth today is less warm than it was in the middle ages, a period in which it cannot be claimed that human activity was contributing much, if anything, to global warming. Global temperatures in 2010 are colder than they were in 2000, despite a tripling of CO2 emissions in the last decade largely attributable to the mushrooming economies of developing nations such as China and India. Alarmists have been predicting catastrophe for over thirty years, yet the earth continues in natural cycles of warming and cooling, just as it has for eons.

Even before the exposure of factual errors and potential misconduct at the IPCC, the East Anglia Climate Centre, and other organizations, the public in America and elsewhere (Australia, New Zealand, and even Britain) had begun to doubt the claims of climate scientists. Now, with these disturbing revelations concerning the way climate science actually works, the public has become even more skeptical. Maybe that's why climate science has shifted its attention to methane.
On Jan. 14, 2010, the British newspaper the Guardian reported dramatic news of a major increase in the amount of methane leaking through arctic permafrost. Between 2003 and 2007, according to a study in Science cited by the newspaper account, there had been a 31% increase (or one ton per year, for a total of five tons) of methane released. Paul Palmer, the British scientist who reported these figures, stated that his study was based on satellite readings of groundwater depths, not on actual measurements of permafrost emissions.

The Guardian was quick to report that some in the scientific community believe that the earth has reached a "tipping point" from which temperatures will rise exponentially. Increased temperatures will then trigger rising oceans, raging storms, devastating floods (or droughts), and the end of civilization as we know it.

There are problems, however, with the "tipping point" theory. Even with the reported increase in arctic methane, the global buildup of methane has flattened out over the past decade. From 1983 to the present, methane levels have fluctuated from year to year, with an actual decline reported in the period between 2004 and 2006. NOAA scientists confess that they have yet to come up with an explanation for the discrepancy between an arctic tipping point theory and reported levels of methane.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the actual recorded level of methane in the atmosphere does not match the predictions of climate researchers aggregated by the IPCC. As of 2009, the atmospheric methane concentration was 1800 ppb, while the IPCC predicted a range averaging over 1850 ppb -- a significant difference. Extrapolating ten years into the future from IPCC projections and recently reported figures, the discrepancy in the model and actual readings would amount to 125 ppb.

The odd thing about the latest shift in environmental scare tactics is that it contradicts nearly everything we have been told about CO2 emissions. Just two years ago, at a time when most of the public actually believed that the use of fossil fuels was responsible for global warming, we were told that fossil fuels must go. Power plants must stop burning coal; oil and natural gas must be replaced with solar and wind; industries must be shuttered; agricultural practices must be radically altered; land use must be restricted. But now that that concern has lessened, the shell game is up and running again. Fossil fuels alone, we are told, may not alter temperatures all that much. The danger is that the use of fossil fuels will warm the planet just enough to reach the "tipping point," and that at that point, billions of tons of methane will come gushing out of the arctic permafrost. Then, much to the delight of the alarmists, the much-heralded catastrophe will actually arrive, but it will be too late to do anything about it.

Unfortunately for the alarmists, this argument has all the marks of desperation. Even climate scientists, whose lucrative salaries and grant monies depend on promotion of the theory of global warming, note that arctic sources constitute only two percent of methane emissions.

Those same scientists admit that five years of data are not indicative of a long-term trend. Even if a trend is underway, a five-year increase of 31% in permafrost release amounts to an increase of less than two-thirds of one percent in global methane emissions. That is not enough to flood the 25% of the Netherlands that lies beneath sea-level, especially since methane is cleansed from the atmosphere by reaction with the hydroxyl free radical (OH).

Global temperatures are now trending downward, so it is reasonable to conclude that the short-term trend in permafrost melting will be reversed. There is also another huge problem with the new methane alarmism: even if CO2 and methane emissions continue to rise (most of them from natural sources), there is no conclusive evidence that these emissions are significantly altering the earth's climate. It is possible, in other words, but not proven that man-made global warming is real. It is possible but not proven that human activity may be a significant factor in global warming. It possible but not proven that global warming will increase arctic methane emissions. Even though these emissions constitute a small percentage of global methane, it is possible but not proven that they will bring about a global catastrophe. It is also possible, and far more likely, that variations in the climate are largely the result of natural forces.

It appears that environmental activists have once again shifted the pea around, hoping that no one will notice.

Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe, America, and Japan. He has published many books and articles on American culture and politics.
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The old Chicken or Egg

One thing I noticed while reading this was that as with historical records of CO2, this study proved that increased temperatures were responsible for the increased methane, not the other way around. I might also point out that the rapid sudden rise of this far more potent greenhouse gas "And 12,000 years ago, methane levels went up 50 percent in less than 200 years " it is highly doubtful that either humans or cows had much to do with it but rather the growth of plant life caused by natural warming.

FROM- Climate Fraud

Study rules out ancient bursts of seafloor methane emissions

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Measurements made from the largest Greenland ice sample ever analyzed have confirmed that an unusual rise in atmospheric methane levels about 12,000 years ago was not the result of a catastrophic release of seafloor "hydrate deposits," as some scientists had feared.

The findings, to be published Friday in the journal Science, are good news for those who have worried that this unusual mechanism of releasing methane into the atmosphere might provide a serious reinforcement to global warming at some point in the future.

The five-year project was funded by the National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society and other agencies.

It now appears almost certain that the major methane increases that occurred near the end of the last Ice Age were due to the growth of wetlands and the methane releases associated with that, which occurred shortly after some significant warming in the Northern Hemisphere. They did not come from sudden bursts of methane trapped in deep seafloor deposits.

The newest conclusions were made possible by identification of some ancient ice exposed at the edge of a Greenland ice sheet, and samples of it cut with chain saws that totaled thousands of pounds.

"To get enough air trapped in ice to do the types of measurements we needed, it took some of the largest ice samples ever worked on," said Edward Brook, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and international expert on using ice samples to explore ancient climate.

"The test results were unequivocal, but it was a lot of heavy lifting," Brook said. "It was like working in a quarry. We could have used some help from the OSU football team."
Methane, and the possible sources of it, is a significant concern to scientists because it is a potent greenhouse gas. It has natural sources in places like wetlands and permafrost, and its concentration has more than doubled since the Industrial Revolution from human activities such as natural gas exploration, landfills and agriculture. Natural gas used for home heating is composed mostly of methane.

But more hidden, and potentially of much greater concern, are massive deposits of methane buried beneath the sea in solid hydrate deposits, where cold temperatures and pressure supposedly keep it stable and unable to enter the atmosphere in large amounts. There have been concerns that this methane might be released suddenly by warming of ocean waters or other causes. These huge deposits of methane hold more carbon in them than all the known oil and gas fields on Earth.

If only 10 percent of that seafloor methane were to be released in a few years, it could be the equivalent of a 10-fold increase in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the researchers said in their report. And 12,000 years ago, methane levels went up 50 percent in less than 200 years, according to studies by Brook and others. Researchers wanted to know why.

"There are hundreds to thousands of times more methane trapped in seafloor deposits than there is in the atmosphere, and it's important that we know whether it's stable and is going to stay there or not," Brook said. "That's a pretty serious issue."

To test whether the seafloor deposits had been the source of the large methane increase thousands of years ago researchers measured levels of carbon 14, an isotope of carbon, from the Greenland ice samples. The seafloor deposits are old and have very little carbon 14 in them. Based on the results of those measurements, the scientists were able to determine whether the methane increases 12,000 years ago were linked to seafloor deposits or not.

"The data made it pretty clear that seafloor methane hydrates had little to do with the increase in methane thousands of years ago," Brook said. "This largely rules out these deposits either as a cause of the warming then or a feedback mechanism to it, and it indicates the deposits were stable at that point in time. The increased methane must have come from larger or more productive wetlands that occurred when the climate warmed."

Researchers now hope to do similar experiments in Antarctica to verify the results of this study, Brook said.

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Why not both?

The 2% solution to climate change: Hold the windmills and get me a cow
from National Post

A study in Ireland has discovered that feeding fish oil to cows reduces their flatulence problem and significantly reduces the amount of methane gas they release into the atmosphere.

This is a big deal because, as CNN reports: "More than a third of all methane emissions, around 900 billion tonnes every year, are produced by methanogen bacteria that live in the digestive systems of cattle, sheep and goats.By volume, methane is 20 times more powerful at trapping solar energy than carbon dioxide making it a potent greenhouse gas."

A researcher from University College Dublin in Ireland found that by adding 2% fish oil to a cow's feed, methane emissions were reduced 21%. It also helps the cow's heart and circulatory system, and makes the meat better.

Of course, feeding fish oil to cows is not nearly as much fun as restructuring the world's auto industry, closing down oilsands operations and coal-fired plants, building thousands of windmills and stringing transmission wires across continents to carry the higher-priced power, or inventing new taxes to alter the consumption habits of a few billion people. So you probably won't see any Al Gore films about fish oil in the near future.