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Methane

Rag Radio Podcast, Melton Interview on Covid-19 and Permafrost Collapse

By Abrupt changes, Alaska, Arctic Flip, Arctic warming, climate emergency, Earth systems, Emissions flip, feedback, frozen ground, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Methane, Permafrost, Permafrost melt, Podcasts, The Unexpected

Rag Radio Podcast July 3, 2020 Environmental Researcher & Activist Bruce Melton On Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer, Syndicated on Pacifica Melton talks with Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer about ongoing massive permafrost collapse and the science showing the Covid-19 origina debate is ongoing, with compelling findings on pathogen reanimation from permafrost and long-held hypotheses…

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COVID-19: The tale of two graphs – Be careful what you see and believe.

By Arctic Flip, Arctic warming, Emissions flip, feedback, Methane, Permafrost, Permafrost melt, The Unexpected

COVID-19: The tale of two graphs – Be careful what you see and believe. by Bruce Melton First Published on the Rag Blog, April 20, 2020 In my work as a professional engineer, as an environmental researcher, and now as the director of the oldest independent climate science education organization in the world, I understand…

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IPCC Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere, The Important Bits

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Arctic Sea Ice, Beaches coastal, Glaciers, ice sheet, ice sheets, Impacts, Methane, modeling, Oceans, Permafrost, sea ice, Sea Level Rise, West Antarctic Ice Sheet

  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, September 24, 2019 The Ocean and Cryosphere (the icy part of our planet) in a Changing Climate A Summary of Important Findings Overall of course, climate change is astonishingly worse with every new report. This one is no exception. Polar and mountain ice are melting faster, the…

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Permafrost Melt Photo Tour 2018

By Abrupt changes, feedback, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Methane, Permafrost

Permafrost Melt Photo Tour Climate Change Across America 2018 Field Work Already, Alaska has flipped from a carbon sink to a carbon source from permafrost melt and methane emissions. (Commane 2017, science interpreted) Alaska — the entire state, and likely the rest of the north across the entire world —  is now emitting greenhouse gases…

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Alaska Flips From Greenhouse Gas Sink to Source Because of Permafrost Melt

By Abrupt changes, Methane, Permafrost

Alaskan Permafrost Flipped from Carbon Sink to Carbon Source Because of Permafrost Melt Climate Change is here. Alaskan permafrost is now emitting more greenhouse gases than it is storing according to work from Harvard, the Dublin Institute of Technology, Universities of Alaska, Colorado at Boulder, California at Irvine, NOAA and others in this powerhouse paper….

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Sing Delay, Delay, Delay: 0.5 C Limit to Dangerous Climate Change

By Abrupt changes, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, Emissions, Gulf Stream, ice sheet, Impacts, Legacy Policy, Methane, modeling, sea ice, Strategy, West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Sing Delay, Delay, Delay When serious discussions about global warming gases and fossil fuels began in the 1980s, all that was needed to prevent what would become labeled as dangerous climate change was a reduction of the emissions of global warming gases. Since that time, we have emitted as much CO2 as we emitted in…

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Why Swapping Coal for Gas is Really Bad Policy

By Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Methane, Scenarios, Solutions

Coal definitely creates less net warming in the short-term because of aerosols. Aerosols pollution emitted from coal is basically smog. The sulfates in smog rom burning fossil fuels are global cooling pollutants. Coal has far more sulfate pollution than oil and oil has far more sulfates than natural gas. Though natural gas emits less CO2…

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Methane Eruption Craters: Lots of Them

By Methane, Permafrost

Last summer the first of these appeared in the “formerly” frozen tundra of Siberia. When permafrost melts, methane can build up beneath impermeable soils and suddenly erupt. These holes are up to 100 feet wide and seven of them have been identified with many more smaller ones. Four of them have been located and three…

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With This Decade’s Climate Policy, Expect More Warming Than if Nothing Was Done at All, by Bruce Melton

By Abrupt changes, Climate Policy, climate pollutants short-lived, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, in-depth and Popular Press, Methane, Temperature, Truthout.org

First Published on Truthout, August 27, 2014 (link) The fundamental climate change policy question today is not how much we should reduce carbon dioxide emissions by when, but what will currently proposed carbon dioxide emissions reductions do to our climate in the near-term? In addition, what are the ramifications of short-lived climate pollutants that are…

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Emissions Timing: The New Direction of Climate Pollution Policy

By Climate Policy, Emissions, Methane

For a generation we have proposed climate pollution control policy based on the 100-year time frame and simple “test tube” lab evaluation of the warming potential of individual greenhouse gases (also called “global warming potential” or GWP). This was once enough to prevent dangerous climate change, but the times have changed. Not only do we…

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US Falling Emissions a Mirage: Offshoring and Fracking by Bruce Melton

By Emissions, Methane, Truthout.org

(First published on Truthout April 2, 2014) America’s emissions are not falling, as suggested by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The two main reasons are offshored goods and services and fracked natural gas. The EIA does two things that obscure reality when evaluating emissions. One is that it counts only emissions made in the…

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One Hundred Times Faster than Anything in 65 Million Years: The Speed of Climate Change

By clathrates, Climate Catastrophes, Methane, Oceans, Shifting Ecology, Temperature, Uncategorized

Climate change projected by the IPCC 2013 report under the business as usual scenario (RCP8.5) projects climate change in the next 100 years to be as big as the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction event 56 million years ago. Changes today however are happening 100 times faster than the PETM. The PETM was likely a methane…

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Optimal Path for Avoiding Dangerous Change and Short-lived Greenhouse Gases

By Abrupt changes, Methane, Uncategorized

Methane (and natural gas), and black carbon (soot) are short-lived greenhouse gases relative to carbon dioxide, N20 (nitrous oxide) and CFC (chlorofluorocarbons). Limiting these short-lived greenhouse gases have obvious benefits in reducing warming. Focusing emissions reductions on these gasses also gives the benefit of delaying warming in the short-term, but really only in a world…

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A Fracking Mess It Is

By Methane

International Energy Agency (IEA) Says Oil Shall Fracking May Kill Alternatives: The Bad News Is That Natural Gas Production Produces Greater Warming than Coal The International Energy Association (IEA) in their new report “Golden Rules for the Golden Age of Gas” says cheap natural gas from fracking oil shale may kill the budding alternative energy…

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Methane time bomb

By Methane, Permafrost

Dr. Katey Walter, from the University of Fairbanks, sees methane like many climate scientists these days. The warming across the planet is concentrated at the poles because of what is called polar amplification. This means that the Arctic is warming even more than the rest of the Earth. In many places the Arctic has already…

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Methane Levels Increasing Dramatically Methane levels in the atmosphere are increasing again after 9 years of

By Methane

Methane levels in the atmosphere are increasing again after 9 years of no increase. Decreasing agricultural methane releases over the last decade have resulted in flat methane concentrations in the atmosphere.  But it is suspected that increasing industrialization in Asia and recent melting of permafrost releasing frozen methane has caused these emissions to begin rising…

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