Growing Impact: Investigating thawing permafrost
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- Once a frozen haven, climate-driven rising temperatures are rapidly thawing the Arctic permafrost, posing a major threat to communities and infrastructure. Researchers are investigating how these changes will transform rivers, with potential consequences for erosion, sediment transport, and the entire Arctic landscape. Additionally, their project incorporates art to communicate these critical findings in an engaging way.
Growing Impact is a podcast by the Institute of Energy and the Environment at Penn State. Each episode explores cutting-edge projects of researchers and scientists who are solving some of the world's most challenging energy and environmental issues.
For more information about this and other projects, along with transcripts and much more, please visit: iee.psu.edu/podcast - Наука та технологія
I live in a cold region hemiboreal on an end moraine near limestone and dolomite bedrock. I love my fen, marshes, swamp, bog, and beaver ponds. They are one of the largest carbon sinks on land. Warmer waters are a concern here in the Great Lakes. Here we worry about rivers running too fast. Slow moving waters allow it to soak in and don't move as much material. Shading the water helps cut down on evaporation. I like all the ox bows on our local rivers. Manistique just had to dredge their harbor. Which lead to heavy metal concerns with removing the silts. They put cement blocks in river to direct waters north of the dam. Think there is a sentiment catch by the dam too. It was Michigan trout unlimited videos that got me interested in river and forest health. We are trying to get our small culverts changed on private drive to cattle guard type bridges. To allow waters to flow more naturally and not wash out the drive. Build aquifers not reservoirs. Release the beavers. I am interested in how that thawing effects fish habitat.
Please extend your report a little further south, to cover Ecuador. Many thanks
Greenhouse Gas, it's in the ice... there, nice and simple.
1. erosion is not the issue, as water level continue to drop due to lack of sufficient precipitation and snow loss of glacial fed streams. Example: Mackenzie River has experianced an all time low affecting remote communities, never mind all the other animals that live and feed off that system.
2 Coastal streams are mostly glacial fed- Example: Yukon River, but this is happening all over world - Amazon R., Rhine R. etc, etc. which are not glacial fed
3. the input keeping water flowing in many of the northern rivers IS now, melting permafrost
Roberto, it cannot be "fixed"; and Talley mentions "solutions" ????
Engineering is HOW we got here, and your podcast is full of engineers. I remeber back in college some 45 years ago, my prof saying engineers can answer the "how?" but can't even get close to "why?" ~ perhaps start there, and reverse engineer the answer..... from someone who has lived and worked in the boreal forest, arctic tundra, Mackenzie delta as fish, wilflife, forestry and water technician for couple decades. Saw this happening over 30 years ago in the Arctic. The Planet will survive modern humans. We may not. What should be most alarming, to the serious observers, is the "rate of change".
Until there is a total collapse after we pass numerous tipping points and millions start to die from heat, flooding, storms and starvation - then it will be the time for survivors to rise up and deamnd a complete overhaul of the way humans live- starting with misnamed "Capitalism"
I'm not going to be around much longer, but I still worry for my children. Good luck - you will need it
"evulsion",...i lern'd a new word !
Well, as long as the richest 10% emit 50% of the climate related gases, and there is no way to make them change their behavior in a capitalist world, any discussion can only be about slowing down climate warming, stopping it is simply not possible with our current global system.
If we got rid of the richest ten percent, there would still be a richest ten percent.
@@phil20_20 well, in this case we don’t need a way to get rid of the richest ten percent, we just need something to force the richest ten percent to reduce their emissions?
I mean, if we don’t manage to do that, then the attempt to stop climate warming becomes pointless?
Permafrost is such a short term event given geological epochs.
More interesting are the things found in the permafrost when the Earth was warmer.
You'll see.
Everyone will....
Thumbed up for your name😊
a short term event that is Epoch's long?
Methane is an extremely dangerous gas for our atmosphere. Earth is in trouble.
The question never addressed: Even if you truly believe that a trace gas, just 42 thousandths of 1% of the atmosphere is the control knob of the climate, how much of it is due to human activity? The answer is easily found using google. This from MIT:
"The Earth’s natural carbon cycle moves a staggering amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) around our planet, says Daniel Rothman, MIT professor of geophysics. Some parts of the planet, such as the oceans and forests, absorb carbon dioxide and store it for hundreds or thousands of years. These are called natural carbon sinks. Meanwhile, natural sources of CO2 such as undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents release carbon. Altogether the planet absorbs and emits around 100 billion metric tons of carbon through this natural cycle every year, Rothman says.
That’s equivalent to over 350 billion tons of CO2. (Scientists often measure the carbon cycle in terms of the weight of carbon atoms, not whole molecules of carbon dioxide, because the carbon has the same weight no matter what form it takes as it moves between plants, ocean, atmosphere, and other parts of the natural world.)
This natural movement of carbon dwarfs humanity’s contribution: it amounts to ten times as much CO2 as humans produce through activities such as burning fossil fuels."
Our annual emissions equate to no more than a couple of extra CO2 molecules per tree leaf on the planet, let alone every other type of plant, and phytoplankton covering the oceans all absorbing CO2 from the air. Then consider that all the fauna on the land, in the sea and in the air is composed of carbon compounds that were once in the air as CO2. The claim that it is only our "emissions" that remain in the air and accumulate year on year, nature cannot cope with our contribution or that the carbon cycle was somehow magically in perfect equilibrium before we started to burn coal and oil is a complete fairy tale designed to fool the gullible. And here you are. Oh, and methane? The infra red response spectrum of methane is entirely covered by that of water vapour, which is variable, but usually in the range of 2-4% of the atmosphere (or 20,000-40,000 parts per million to put it in "climate speak"). Methane is just 1.9 ppm.
And yet direct measurement via satellite shows that the atmospheric energy imbalance is increasing. Only half the energy entering the atmosphere is leaving, the rest stays. The amount retained doubled in the 18 years measured. The rate of retention accelerated throughout that period. The amount of methane now in the atmosphere and rate of increase correlates to past tropical Earth episodes. Go figure.
Ok, gas situation. But mostly and definitely, if Solar excess to Earth does not reduce. We loss all ice and rivers, mountains collapse by rain erosion . Mud slides of gigantic proportions. Contamination of normally clean melt water supply. Softened Earths crust allows more weak and rebounding after loss of ice weight surface structures . Weight becomes undermined. All underground man made and natural cavities and tunnels, in danger . Surface water, eventually evaporation and condensation cycle becomes unmanageable to be habitation. Just a few minutes think. Individual experts need universally known facets . We live on the surface we need what heat from beneath the crust reduced. Free heat from Solar but excess Solar ,. .? ! Camp fire, near methane seepage waters? Forrest fire ,,not careless cigarette butt. Cook permafrost from below get release many unknowns and untouchable , unrepairable conditions , by our ability as Humans and our obsessions with money . Our imagined hypothetical greed collector.😊
@@wmanad8479 None of which is true. Where did you read that, in the guardian? The IR response of methane is entirely covered by that of water vapour which is variable, but usually in the range of 2-4% of the atmosphere. (or 20,000-40,000 ppm to put it in "climate speak"). Methane is just 1.9 ppm and NOT increasing. Methane has ZERO effect on temperatures.
@@jerrypalmer1786 Where? From Dr. James Hansen, former lead climate scientist at NASA
@@wmanad8479 This James Hansen?
Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2018
On June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where he expressed his “high degree of confidence” in “a cause-and-effect relationship between the claimed CO2 induced “greenhouse effect and observed warming.”
Hansens’s 1988 testimony - the birth of global warming as a political issue
The 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have turned out.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal today, climatologist Dr Patrick Michaels and meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue compare Hansen’s predictions to actual reality over the past 30 years. Instead of the gloom and doom we heard in 1988, we have an earth that is only moderately warmer, and closer to Hansen’s “scenario C”, the bottom graph below, which is overlaid with actual global temperature data in red. (see original article for graph)
Here’s some excerpts from the article by climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels and meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue:
“Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios-enough to determine which was closest to reality. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16. Assessed by Mr. Hansen’s model, surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago…”
“Several more of Mr. Hansen’s predictions can now be judged by history. Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted in a 2016 study? No. Satellite data from 1970 onward shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature. Have storms caused increasing amounts of damage in the U.S.? Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no such increase in damage, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product. How about stronger tornadoes? The opposite may be true, as NOAA data offers some evidence of a decline. The list of what didn’t happen is long and tedious.”
It turns out that global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16.
And it isn’t just Hansen who got it wrong, models devised by the IPCC have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.
What about Hansen’s other claims? He claimed that the late ’80s and ’90s would see “greater than average warming in the southeast U.S. and the Midwest.” No such spike has been measured in these regions.
In 2007, Hansen stated that most of Greenland’s ice would soon melt, raising sea levels 23 feet over the next 100 years. Subsequent research published in Nature magazine demonstrated this to be impossible.
Several more of Mr. Hansen’s predictions fizzled. Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted? No.
Satellite data shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature.
Have storms caused increasing damage in the U.S.?
No. Data from NOAA show no such increase.
How about stronger tornadoes?
No. In fact, the opposite may be true, as NOAA data offers some evidence of a decline.
“The list of what didn’t happen is long and tedious,” say Michaels and Maue.
“On the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s galvanizing testimony, it’s time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn’t happening.”
Oh, and by the way, none of his "predictions" have manifested since this article appeared either.