The Dreaded Methane Veil

The Arctic is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. This warming has caused a worrying spread of methane across the Northern Hemisphere. Stuart Scott, Deputy Director General of IESCO and founder of the United Planet Faith & Science Initiative, presented a video titled Rethinking Economics in the Age of Climate Change at COP20 in Lima on December 11, 2014. The video, which is 30 minutes long, includes an image of the methane veil at the 14:45 minute mark. Scott’s video highlights the urgent need for action to address the consequences of climate change.A veil of methane originating in the Arctic is slowly spreading across the Northern Hemisphere, a consequence of 2014 being the hottest year on record. This warming of the Arctic has caused a heightened vulnerability to the effects of heat-trapping greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2). As a result, humanity’s biggest nightmare, methane (CH4), is being released into the atmosphere. 

Stuart Scott, Deputy Director General of IESCO and founder of the United Planet Faith & Science Initiative, presented a video titled Rethinking Economics in the Age of Climate Change at COP20 in Lima on December 11, 2014. The video includes an image of the methane veil at the 14:45 minute mark. Pre-industrial methane levels in the atmosphere were 720 ppb (parts per billion). However, on January 19, 2014, CH4 over the Arctic was recorded at 2,362 ppb, a clear indication of the effects of industrialization. 

Scott referred to the release of methane as a “gun going off”, a metaphor perfectly describing the consequences of too much methane entering the atmosphere. The methane veil is a chilling reminder of the challenge to human survival it presents.

The Arctic is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of warming, resulting in the release of methane into the atmosphere. Stuart Scott, Deputy Director General of IESCO and founder of the United Planet Faith & Science Initiative, presented a video, Rethinking Economics in the Age of Climate Change, at COP20 in Lima on December 11, 2014. This video highlighted the dramatic increase in methane levels since pre-industrial times, with levels rising from 720 ppb (parts per billion) to 2,362 ppb in 2014. This rise is closely linked to the era of industrialization and the corresponding increase in global GDP. 

Ira Leifer, Ph.D., atmospheric science at the Marine Sciences Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, has commented that some scientists are suggesting plans to adapt to a 4C hotter world, but this would only be feasible for a few thousand people seeking refuge in the Arctic or Antarctica. Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge, has also observed great plumes of methane bubbling up all over the East Siberian Sea, indicating that the methane complexity is happening now, not in the distant future. This methane veil is a stark reminder of the devastating impacts of climate change and the urgent need for action.

Dr. Natalia Shakhova, who leads the Russia-U.S. Methane Study at the International Arctic Research Center, at the University Alaska Fairbanks and the Pacific Oceanological Institute, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has warned that a tiny proportion of the vast amounts of methane stored in Arctic ice could be enough to double the current atmospheric CH4 levels. Furthermore, she has suggested that an outburst of 50 gigatons of methane could occur at any time. In an interview, Dr. Shakhova expressed her concern, saying, “We do not like what we see… absolutely do not like it.” 

This raises the question: Could civilization survive a 50-gigaton release? Professor Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge has offered a disheartening answer: “No, I don’t think it can.”

According to Professor Wadhams, “If you look at the existing predictions of global warming rates, the ‘business as usual’ projections, even the cautious ones produced by the IPCC, are still giving us about 4C of warming by the end of the century.” With a 2C level beyond which nasty things happen, this would be reached by mid century. 

“4C (7.2F), what that would do to food production – to die off of forest – to acceleration of warming – to various feedbacks that kick in,” is pretty dire. Wadhams says, “The eerie thing is: That’s predicted by the IPCC report… but nowhere do they state that 4C is a ‘catastrophe’…” 

Adding “Arctic methane” to the equation, Wadhams says that “Arctic methane brings forward the date which catastrophic global warming is achieved, it might be another 20 years.”

Indeed, CH4 is the ugly stepsister of CO2. By all accounts, during its initial few years, CH4 is 100 times more powerful per molecule than CO2 at entrapping heat within Earth’s atmosphere.

The methane predicament stems from a rapidly melting Arctic (>50% loss of mass so far), losing its protective icy cover, no longer sealing-in gigatons upon gigatons of trapped methane. The more the Arctic melts, the more methane released. It’s a vicious self-fulfilling tragic storyline.

In like fashion, the more humans drive fossil fuel-cars and produce fossil fuel-electricity, the more CO2 spews into the atmosphere, the more the Arctic heats up, and more ice melts, and more methane erupts. It’s a deathly cycle.

Thus, burning fossil fuels, i.e., oil, gas, and coal, is a double-whammy, e.g., too much CO2 brings on too much CH4. It is much, much, much worse than most people realize, certainly way worse than characterized by the Republican Party “global warming deniers” in Congress who claim “humans aren’t the cause,” or “it’s a hoax.”

Really, a hoax?

Just look at the proof, CH4 increased from 720 ppb to 2,362 ppb, up three-fold since the start of the industrial revolution, powered by fossil fuels. Who uses fossil fuels?

And temperatures, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (“JMA”), the past year 2014 was the “hottest year ever recorded,” similar to CO2 at all-time record levels of 396 ppm in 2014 (new records are part of the current interglacial, the Holocene).

Every year, the (1) Japanese Meteorological Agency, (2) NASA, the (3) Hadley Centre in the UK, and the (4) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. report the prior year’s temperatures for the planet. JMA reports first, which brings to mind: Is record-breaking CO2 combined with record-breaking temperatures merely a hoax?

As in the film Thelma & Louise, driving a 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible over the edge of the Grand Canyon is a senseless way to escape time in jail. Today, society is similarly burning fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – that emit global warming’s key ingredient, carbon dioxide (CO2), which in turn enhances Arctic warmth. This increased warmth releases deadly methane in large quantities, putting us on a collision course with disaster.

Postscript: “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse,” Herman E. Daly, Ph.D., founder of Ecological Economics and a pioneer in the field of life-sustainable economics.

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