I'd rather pick up a bottle of this:
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas!
Posted on 12/26/2005 6:53:57 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - 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 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 Dec. 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.
The permafrost is expanding here in New Hampshire. This global warming $uck$. It's not warm.
Trees are not good for the Eskimos who depend on whale hunting for their existence. The trees give the whales a place to hide.
Then again the permafrost could be freezing...we may never know...lol
We usually see 5-6 weeks of minus 50 F starting nx month. The change and extremes in temps is hard on everything.
Greenhouse gases = plant food.
No, that's not what they are saying. They are saying it COULD be falling.
I guess they don't really know for sure.
Just like everybody else. Only, we don't have a press release to say so.
I'd rather pick up a bottle of this:
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas!
If you think they're hot now, wait'll Stoudemire comes off his injury!
...hope it wasn't the beer, I had Alaska Smoked Porter tonight, in a new pewter goblet.
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas, me. :-)
You don't have to go back further than one thousand years when the Vikings were able to colonize Greenland...because parts of it were actually green. That means that the earth's climate must have been appreciably warmer than it is now because the warming lasted for four hundred years. If coastal cities or settlements in Europe were flooded, wouldn't there be stories about the flooding?
HELLO?!! What a worthless study!
Actually, the computer model works perfectly. It gives them the exact result they want every time.
Trees are not good for the Eskimos who depend on whale hunting for their existence. The trees give the whales a place to hide.
+
+
+
+
Not to mention the seals who will hide in the branches and starve the polar bears.
On the bright side, the days are getting longer ;~)
Seems it would make it easier to drill for oil.
I am appalled at your butchering of the facts and your reckless disregard for even the most basic tenets of scientific method.
It's "hippopotami"
re: Not to mention the seals who will hide in the branches and starve the polar bears.
Excellent point! I fear the situation is much worse than the writer of the article feared.
I was wondering about the effect that thawing of permafrost would have on buildings, etc. I would think that this could be serious in places like Anchorage [not sure how deep the permafrost is there] or Fairbanks. This would affect not only foundations but sewer systems, water mains and other underground utilities, oil pipelines, etc.
Precisely.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.