Permafrost not so permanent anymore

[Old Rocks]

Aurora | Permafrost isn't permanent anymore

Permafrost isn't permanent anymore
Jones and Abbott are just beginning to analyze the measurements from their summer of fieldwork, so they won't know for a few months yet what NE-14 and the other thermokarsts have to tell. The next two summers the pair will return to the area around Toolik Field Station and will also study sites in the Noatak National Preserve. For thousands of years dead plants and animals, and the carbon contained within them, have accumulated and been kept frozen in permafrost. Unfortunately, permafrost isn't so permanent anymore. Understanding the consequences, such as thermokarsts, could help predict the future of the Arctic and the global climate.

 

[FactFinder]

Good riddance!

 

[Flopper]

Apparent if the permafrost goes, it will release a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.

 

[Mr. H.]

The only thing permanent is change.

Nickles, dimes, pennies...

 

[FactFinder]

Apparent if the permafrost goes, it will release a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Oh my God! Will the end be near?

 

[whitehall]

Let China worry about it while we put the economy together. We surrendered space exploration to Russia, let them worry about it while we drill for oil and make cheap energy one of the factors for puting Americans back to work.

 

[FactFinder]

Let China worry about it while we put the economy together. We surrendered space exploration to Russia, let them worry about it while we drill for oil and make cheap energy one of the factors for puting Americans back to work.

Hey hey, I'm all about cheap energy. You do know we are currently being flamboozled by our own kind now, don't ya? I'm just about totally weaned off oil. Just need an electric car to finalize some years of moving off the oppression.

 

[percysunshine]

"Jones and Abbott ..."

What? No Costello?

So they have not analyzed the data, but speculation rules the roost.

 

[FactFinder]

"Jones and Abbott ..."

What? No Costello?

So they have not analyzed the data, but speculation rules the roost.

A man educated!

 

[RetiredGySgt]

"Jones and Abbott ..."

What? No Costello?

So they have not analyzed the data, but speculation rules the roost.

A man educated!

The new Global warming standard for Science, announce your findings BEFORE reviewing your data. No bias now on what the data might say or not say.

 

[westwall]

Oh please. Most of the permafrost that is extent is younger then 15,000 years. The oldest is around 500,000 years old in the deepest polar regions. I thinks 35,000 years is the record for Alaska though that may have changed in the last 20 years or so. Regardless, for most of Earths history there was no permafrost.

Yet more attempts to frighten the savages. So sad for you the savages no longer believe your BS.

 

[Chris]

Apparent if the permafrost goes, it will release a huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Actually the melting permafrost will release a huge amount of methane into the atmosphere.

And methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.

 

[Old Rocks]

Oh please. Most of the permafrost that is extent is younger then 15,000 years. The oldest is around 500,000 years old in the deepest polar regions. I thinks 35,000 years is the record for Alaska though that may have changed in the last 20 years or so. Regardless, for most of Earths history there was no permafrost.

Yet more attempts to frighten the savages. So sad for you the savages no longer believe your BS.

Oh please, yourself, faux geologist.

http://www.ice.tsu.ru/files/paul/Wetterich2011.pdf

Introduction
Permafrost is increasingly employed as an archive that
preserves records of Beringian environmental conditions (e.g. Sher
et al., 2005; Froese et al., 2008; Andreev et al., in press; Berman
et al., in press; Kanevskiy et al., in press). During the late Pliocene
and Pleistocene vast areas of the Arctic lowlands between the
Eurasian Ice Sheet to the west and the Laurentide and Cordilleran
ice sheets to the east remained non-glaciated. Mountain glaciations
of different timing and extent are known from East Siberia (Stauch
and Gualtieri, 2008), but never reached the Arctic lowlands.
Permafrost formation took place since the late Pliocene (first
permafrost evidence in NE Siberia from 2.4 to 1.9 Ma ago;
Arkhangelov et al., 1996), and persisted over the entire Pleistocene,
although permafrost strongly degraded during warm periods (e.g.
during the last Interglacial ca 130 to 115 ka ago; e.g. Kaplina, 2011;
Kienast et al., in press). During glacial periods fine-grained
permafrost deposits accumulated under continental, cold climate
conditions in the polygon tundra environments of the Arctic
lowlands. Characteristic for such deposits are high ice contents in
the frozen ground and the occurrence of synsedimentary (syngenetic)
ice wedges. This late Pleistocene permafrost type is named
’Ice Complex’ (in Russian: ledovyi kompleks, Solov’ev, 1959) or
‘Yedoma’ (Sher, 1997) in the western part of Beringia, i.e. in East
Siberia. Vegetation and faunal reconstructions from this exceptional
palaeoenvironmental archive indicate that the sediments
largely aggraded in a cryoxeric environment with tundra-steppe
vegetation characterised by grass- and herb-rich communities
which supported the grazing mammal population of the so-called
‘Mammoth fauna’ (e.g. Andreev et al., in press).

 

[Old Rocks]

Recent changes in shelf hydrography in the Siberian Arctic: Potential for subsea permafrost instability

Recent changes in shelf hydrography in the Siberian Arctic: Potential for subsea permafrost instability
Key Points

Our data provide evidence of drastic bottom layer heating over the coastal zone
We attribute this warming to changes in the Arctic atmosphere
Recent climate change can't produce an immediate response in sub-sea permafrost

Authors:

Igor A. Dmitrenko


Sergey A Kirillov


Bruno Tremblay


Heidemarie Kassens


Oleg A. Anisimov


Sergey A. Lavrov


Sergey O. Razumov


Mikhail N. Grigoriev


Summer hydrographic data (1920-2009) show a dramatic warming of the bottom water layer over the eastern Siberian shelf coastal zone (< 10 m depth), since the mid-1980s, by 2.1{degree sign}C. We attribute this warming to changes in the Arctic atmosphere. The enhanced summer cyclonicity results in warmer air temperature, and a reduction in ice extent, mainly through thermodynamic melting. This leads to a lengthening of the summer open water season, and to more solar heating of the water column. The permafrost modeling indicates, however, that a significant change in the permafrost depth lags the imposed changes in surface temperature, and after 25 years of summer seafloor warming (as observed from 1985 to 2009), the upper boundary of permafrost deepens only by ~ 1 m. Thus, the observed increase in temperature does not lead to a destabilization of methane bearing subsea permafrost and to increase in methane emission. The CH4 supersaturation, recently reported from the eastern Siberian shelf, is believed to be the result of the degradation of subsea permafrost due to the long-lasting warming initiated by permafrost submergence about 8,000 years ago rather than from those triggered by recent Arctic climate change. A significant degradation of subsea permafrost is expected to be detectable at the beginning of the next millennium. Until that time, the simulated permafrost table shows a deepening down to ~70 m below the seafloor that is considered to be important for the stability of the subsea permafrost and permafrost-related gas hydrate stability zone.

Let us hope these gentlemen are correct.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Oh please. Most of the permafrost that is extent is younger then 15,000 years. The oldest is around 500,000 years old in the deepest polar regions. I thinks 35,000 years is the record for Alaska though that may have changed in the last 20 years or so. Regardless, for most of Earths history there was no permafrost.

Yet more attempts to frighten the savages. So sad for you the savages no longer believe your BS.

Can you please post a link to the information for the permaforst. Thank you.

 

[Old Rocks]

An excellent source of information.

Arctic in Rapid Transition: Overview | International Arctic Research Center

Arctic sea ice extent and thickness are declining rapidly, simplifying access to oil and gas resources, enabling trans&#8208;Arctic shipping, and shifting the distribution of harvestable resources. These projected socio&#8208;economical opportunities have brought the Arctic Ocean to the top of national and international political agendas. Alarmingly, current sea&#8208;ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years (Polyak et al. 2010) and is taking place more rapidly than projected by any of the 18 global climate models used by the IPCC (IPCC, 2007). The persistent mismatch between observed and projected patterns makes planning and mitigation activities in the Arctic region complicated. Therefore, scientific knowledge of the present and past status of the Arctic Ocean and the processbased understanding of the mechanics of change are urgently needed to make useful projections of future conditions throughout the Arctic region.

The Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) Initiative is an integrative, international, interdisciplinary, pan&#8208;Arctic network to study the spatial and temporal changes in sea ice cover, ocean circulation and associated physical drivers over multiple timescales to better understand and forecast the impact of these changes on the ecosystems and biogeochemistry of the Arctic Ocean. The ART Initiative was initiated by early career scientists in October 2008 and subsequently endorsed by the Marine Working Group of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), formerly the Arctic Ocean Sciences Board. ART will be implemented via a three&#8208;phase approach:

 

[Big Black Dog]

There's lots of things in this old world that are not as firm as they used to be... Just saying.

 

[Old Rocks]

Yukon permafrost older than previously thought: Researchers

A swath of frozen mud and ice, inadvertently exposed by miners in central Yukon, is proving to be scientific gold.

The permafrost turns out to be about 740,000 years old and contains the oldest ice ever uncovered in North America, researchers say. It predates the arrival of long-extinct creatures such as the woolly mammoth, and has weathered some remarkable swings in the climate, including two notable warm spells 120,000 and 400,000 years ago when temperatures were higher than they are today.

All of which indicates that Canada&#8217;s foundation - half the country sits on permafrost - may be more solid than some have suggested.

 

[ScienceRocks]

There's lots of things in this old world that are not as firm as they used to be... Just saying.

The perma frost within that study says it is 2.6 million years old, which is about the time we want below 2.5-3c warmer then today within some studies I've read and others like hansen believe it is closer to 1.5-2c.

 

[Old Rocks]

A full article, with pictures, of a tunnel in permafrost. Demonstrates the complexity of permafrost units.

http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/cem/ine/publications/index_newdocs/CRREL_permafrost_guide15dec08web.pdf

Late-Pleistocene syngenetic permafrost exposed in the walls and ceiling of the CRREL permafrost tunnel
consists of ice- and organic-rich silty sediments penetrated by ice wedges. Evidence of long-continued
syngenetic freezing under cold-climate conditions includes the dominance of lenticular and micro-lenticular
cryostructures throughout the walls, ice veins and wedges at many levels, the presence of undecomposed
rootlets, and organic-rich layers that refl ect the former positions of the ground surface. Fluvio-thermal
modifi cations are indicated by bodies of thermokarst-cave (&#8216;pool&#8217 ice, by soil and ice pseudomorphs, and
by reticulate-chaotic cryostructures associated with freezing of saturated sediments trapped in underground
channels.