Landscape in Canada's high Arctic region (Newscom.com)
Digging up the dirt on Arctic carbon
By Peter N. Spotts | 08.25.08
You never know what you’ll find until you dig a little deeper. Scientists taking the measure of how much carbon the Arctic locks up beneath its tundra have done just that. Based on what they’ve found, they estimate that the Arctic could harbor an average of 60 percent more carbon that previous estimates have indicated.
Researchers are interested in the Arctic’s carbon budget because projections of global warming suggest that the region’s average temperature could warm by as much as 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, depending on the trajectory that emissions from human activities take. The concern: As the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws, significant amounts of carbon will find their way into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane. These added greenhouse gases would serve to reinforce global warming.
The results come from a group led by University of Alaska at Fairbanks soil scientist Chien-lu Ping and published in today’s edition of Nature Geoscience. Hints that the Arctic’s tundra may lock up more carbon than older, widely cited estimates had indicated date back at least to 2005. For instance, a team led by Jeffery Welker at the University of Alaska at Anchorage reported at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that in Greenland, it was finding between nine and 125 times the amount of carbon previously reported, depending on the type of Arctic landscape yielding the measurements.
The reason for wide differences between old and newer estimates? Researchers are literally digging deeper and in more places. The older estimates were based on measurements taken from the first 4 to 16 inches of soil, notes Dr. Ping’s group. But as Arctic soils warm over the course of this century, the heat will reach deeper, enlarging the permafrost’s active layer – the one subject to thawing and slow overturning. Ping’s group reached depths of nearly 40 inches, and did so at 117 spots around the Arctic to include different Arctic soil types. Once the team took its measurements, it beefed up the sample size (using previously published results) to 139 locations. Past studies, by contrast, had looked at only a handful of soil types. And based on today’s criteria, some of those older test locations no longer qualify as Arctic.
Once Ping’s team had scooped up its data, it used soil maps from other parts of the Arctic to extend its estimate of carbon stocks beyond North America’s Arctic.
The results highlight “the continual efforts by the scientific community to develop an accurate estimate of what’s out there,” says Dr. Welker in a phone chat. But, he adds, the next question is more complicated: How fast and how much of the tundra’s carbon stocks might move into the atmosphere? It’s a balancing act between the CO2 that tundra vegetation takes up via photosynthesis and the CO2 the soil gives off via respiration during the short but intense growing season. In addition, scientists increasingly are interested in CO2 given off through soil respiration in winter — something that could be an important part of the Arctic’s carbon equation.
At the moment, results from his and others’ work points to the Arctic as a continued net source for atmospheric carbon. It’s the combined effect of the tug of war between photosynthesis and respiration, plus decomposition of frozen organic material as the permafrost thaws. The Arctic’s permafrost locks up far more carbon than the atmosphere currently holds, so even small changes in the region’s status as a sink or source could have a significant effect on climate. Little wonder that scientists are digging deeper to pin down the details.
Note: Eoin O’Carroll is on vacation. He will return Sept. 2
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2. Jeff Id | 08.26.08
Mike, great comment. Everything Mike wrote is supported by the science.
This article presented the science of the most extreme global warming events as though it were fact. The media has become completely irrational on this subject.
I would also invite readers to go to the link below to see why Mike is correct.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/environment/anthropogenic-global-warming/
Our governments are letting us down on this and have deliberately created a false impression of the science. They IPCC was formed in 1988 by the UN for the purpose of evaluating the impact of humans on climate. If they could not identify a serious issue, they would have had to close up shop because you don’t need an IPCC if there is no climate disaster. By 1989 they were pushing global warming as hard as they could. This is well before this same group started declaring a “scientific consensus”.
Since that time funding has poured into the global warming advocates while dissenters have been systematically defunded. Dissenters to the IPCC papers have been stifled and the conclusions have been exaggerated until scientists have resigned.
I used to believe but there is just too much wrong with their conclusions.
For more information read part 1 to 3 at.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/environment/anthropogenic-global-warming/
3. Factchecker | 08.27.08
Always important to take a look at the source. CO2science.org is a new biased source, obviously well funded, with connections to industry. It’s a new one on me. I would remind all and sundry that when claims like the above are made, it is important to look where they come from. A few clicks and it’s obvious; don’t accept conclusions until you’ve had a chance to review where they come from.
4. Factchecker | 08.27.08
I forgot to mention, comment above is about Mike and Jeff, not the article. I agree that “as much as” 6 degrees celsius is not what is generally accepted. But it’s ridiculous to claim as they do that there are no adverse effects, especially given worldwide weather/climate facts on the ground.
While I was at it, I took my own advice and looked at noconsensus.wordpress.com/. It too is not a particularly credible source.
5. Chad | 08.27.08
Yes, we should all listen to some crackpot named “Mike” on some random blog, and ignore the major scientific organizations! Clearly, Mike is one bright guy…even though he cannot seem to understand the difference between warming in the Arctic region and warming across the whole planet, which he completely confuses in his post. He cries out for “empirical evidence” of warming, even though the only possible emperical evidence - actual warming - has occured! He tries to escape this conundrum by pointing out short-term deviations to trends, which is a scientifically ignorant conflation of climate and weather. Climate change is ten year rolling averages, weather is anything less.
Mike then acts like he is revealing some hidden conspiracy by pointing out CO2 fertilization effects, which are well-known and have been included in virtually every economic model on the topic. Yet he fails completely to point out the other side of the same coin - how high temperatures, flooods, and droughts will all negatively impact crop yields, likely far more than any gains made by fertilization. Anyone who points out one side of the argument but not the obvious opposite is biased to the point that there is no reason to continue to discuss the matter with them.
6. Disaster Responder | 08.27.08
Scientists will never commit to facts: scientists frequently state that “there is no exact science.” The thing that we have to go on is the realities of what is happening today in our own respective environments. Our weather patterns seem to have gone completely haywire in Alaska. Perma frost is warming in certain areas according to monitors placed by a certain mining company, there are areas along some rivers that are caving in due to melted perma frost, land is eroding due to higher than normal sea levels, ice is not forming as usual, and we’ve had rain on the last day in January in 2007 when our temperatures should be in the average of -30 to -40 degrees. These events are realities that we have to deal with while people speculate. Mother Nature is the only one qualified to prove the facts: she is the bearer of the reality of climate change.
7. Jeff Id | 08.28.08
Factchecker, above seems to feel that anoyone who disagrees must not be a credible source. This is exactly what the enviros want you to think.
If factchecker spent some time on http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/environment/anthropogenic-global-warming/
He would realize that the “science” is being dictated by the IPCC through a vast network of government organizations formed with a single purpose- promotion of man made global warming. Saying one site has some link to industry is fine but the majority of the government organizations need global warming to justify their existence. It is all laid out in the link above.
If you are running an organization formed in 1988 called intergovernmental panel on climate change you had better find some climate change caused by man or you will be looking for a job.
Go ahead, be skeptical of any source of information you need to, but just make sure you include the government funded global warming “Science” on your list.
The data does not support the conclusions.
Common sense for common goals.
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1. Mike | 08.26.08
Good article, except it was irresponsible to claim that “projections of global warming suggest that the region’s average temperature could warm by as much as 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, depending on the trajectory that emissions from human activities take.”
It would be useful to cite a credible source for this claim. First of all, there is no empirical evidence (verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory) that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere causes global warming. And secondly, a 6ºC increase is the worst case scenario of only one of six widely-discredited computer models referred to in the latest IPCC report (SP4). The range of predictions of the six computer models is 1.1ºC to 6.4ºC by the end of the century. It should also be noted that NONE of these models predicted the cooling that has occurred from 2002 to the present. No credence should be given to any of these models when the fundamental theory behind each of them has no scientific basis in fact.
Furthermore, there is significant evidence that increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere is actually beneficial to plants, animals and humans. “Warming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. In addition, elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 have been shown to increase the amounts and effectiveness of disease-fighting substances found in plants that protect against various forms of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.”
See http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/health/ch5.php for further details.