Permafrost
on the northeastern side of Spitsbergen, Svalbard, an island in the
arctic region between Norway and the North Pole. (Photo: Olafur
Ingolfsson.)Warning that a dramatic "burp" or "pulse" of
methane from beneath the fragile permafrost of the Arctic caused by
continued global warming would set off a "climate catastrophe," a new
study says that the continued melting is also an economic "time bomb"
that could cost the global economy $60 trillion.
Billions upon
billions of tons of methane remain stored in the permafrost throughout
the Arctic regions, but specific concern has been placed on the enormous
reserves that sit locked beneath the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that if these deposits—many frozen in
the form of methane hydrates—were released, they would trigger massive
feedback loops and dramatically increase the rate of global warming.
The new study confirms these established fears, but also looks at the potential social and economic costs that would follow.
Though the corporate scavengers of the fossil fuel and mining
companies are drooling over the prospects of a melting arctic in order
to exploit previously inaccessible reserves of mineral and energy
resources, the climate researchers say both the planetary and economic
impacts should be taken extremely seriously.
The report's authors say that global financial and political leaders
of the world continue to avoid the warnings of scientists when it comes
to the dangers posed by the melting arctic.
As the
Guardian's John Vidal
reports:
Governments and industry have expected the widespread warming of the
Arctic region in the past 20 years to be an economic boon, allowing the
exploitation of new gas and oilfields and enabling shipping to travel
faster between Europe and Asia. But the release of a single giant
"pulse" of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East
Siberian sea "could come with a $60tn [£39tn] global price tag",
according to the researchers who have for the first time quantified the
effects on the global economy.
Even the slow emission of a much smaller proportion of the vast
quantities of methane locked up in the Arctic permafrost and offshore
waters could trigger catastrophic climate change and "steep" economic losses, they say.
"The global impact of a warming Arctic is an economic time bomb,"
said Gail Whiteman, a climate policy analyst at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and one of the authors of the report.
"The imminent disappearance of the summer sea ice in the Arctic will
have enormous implications for both the acceleration of climate change,
and the release of methane from off-shore waters which are now able to
warm up in the summer," added Cambridge University's Peter Wadhams,
another co-author.
As Vidal notes:
The Arctic sea ice, which largely melts and reforms each year, is declining at an unprecedented rate. In 2012, it collapsed to under 3.5m sqkm by mid September,
just 40% of its usual extent in the 1970s. Because the ice is also
losing its thickness, some scientists expect the Arctic ocean to be
largely free of summer ice by 2020.
The growing fear is that as the ice retreats, the warming of the sea
water will allow offshore permafrost to release ever greater quantities
of methane. A giant reservoir of the greenhouse gas, in the form of gas
hydrates on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), could be emitted,
either slowly over 50 years or catastrophically fast over a shorter time
frame, say the researchers.
A "massive methane boost," explained Wadhams, "will have major
implications for global economies and societies. Much of those costs
would be borne by developing countries in the form of extreme weather,
flooding and impacts on health and agricultural production."
________________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
************************************************************************
Arctic methane 'time bomb' could have huge economic costs
By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News
Increasing temperatures in the Arctic region are reducing sea ice cover
and increasing the possibility of methane leaching from the sea bed
Scientists
say that the release of large amounts of methane from thawing
permafrost in the Arctic could have huge economic impacts for the world.
The
researchers estimate that the climate effects of the release of this
gas could cost $60 trillion (£39 trillion), roughly the size of the
global economy in 2012.
The impacts are most likely to be felt in developing countries they say.
The research has been published in the journal Nature.
That's an economic time bomb that at this stage has not been recognised on the world stage”
Prof Gaile Whiteman Erasmus University
Scientists
have had concerns about the impact of rising temperatures on permafrost
for many years. Large amounts of methane are concentrated in the frozen
Arctic tundra but are also found as semi-solid gas hydrates under the
sea.
Price of gasPrevious
work has shown
that the diminishing ice cover in the East Siberian sea is allowing the
waters to warm and the methane to leach out. Scientists have found
plumes of the gas up to a kilometre in diameter rising from these
waters.
In this study, the researchers have attempted to put an
economic price on the climate damage that these emissions of methane
could cause. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, even though it lasts
less than a decade in the atmosphere.
Related Stories
Read More Here
***********************************************************************
