Fourth Challenge – Global Emergency

Over the last two decades or so a number of key, global ecological thresholds have been crossed with drastic consequences in terms of the threat of very abrupt ecological change becoming increasingly probable over the next few decades, a threat that few non-experts have yet fathomed. In order to illustrate the hair trigger dynamics of the emerging global situation we will focus first on changes in the Arctic.

Since 2010 a number of Arctic experts have become increasingly alarmed concerning two main interrelated developments: (1) the extremely rapid collapse of summer Arctic ice and (2) a sudden and very substantial increase of methane releases to the atmosphere from permafrost and the Arctic ocean. These matters are not extensively known outside a rather limited circle of specialists. We therefore provide a short lay language overview below.

As shown in Figure 2, top left corner, the trend for Arctic ice points at its complete disappearance in the 2015-2018 period. Arctic methane readings shown on the top right hand corner highlight the abrupt increase in emissions in the span of one year. The diagram on the left summarises the 13 feedback loops accelerating Arctic warming and potentially leading to runaway global warming if the recent Arctic developments continue and are left unchecked.

Presently a substantial proportion of the over 3,300 Gt (Giga tonnes, i.e. billion tonnes) of methane trapped until now in the Arctic as methane hydrates and as gas is becoming unstable as a result of present warming.

Figure 2 - Arctic Threat (sources: AMEG & http://arctic-news.blogspot.fr)

Under lower latitudes methane is 72 times more potent as a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) than carbon dioxide (CO2) over the first 20 years after release and 21 times over 100 years (as it gets progressively degraded into CO2).

However, under Arctic conditions methane is up to 120 times more potent than CO2 over the first 20 years after release. There is a rapidly increasing danger of abrupt gassing to the atmosphere of very large amounts of Arctic methane. This danger concerns more particularly the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). Dr Natalia Shakhova (University of Alaska) considers that some 50Gt of methane could potentially be released abruptly at any time from the ESAS. This is less than 2.5% of the 2,200Gt that could be eventually released from the ESAS. Even so, in terms of global warming impact, even the relatively small present releases put Arctic methane on a par with methane emissions from forest fires, fossil fuels and biomass burning. [1]

A substantial abrupt release would have huge global warming implications, in that 2oC of warming could take place over a decade or so instead of gradually over 50 to 100 years under current global conditions. An abrupt pulse of warming could lead rapidly to runaway global warming of over 6oC in the ensuing decades.

Even if an abrupt release does not take place, it is already clear that progressive Arctic methane atmospheric release that is already taking place as a result from global warming is accelerating and is bound to significantly speed up global warming. It should be noted also that the more gradual warming progresses the higher the probability of a sudden release being triggered. Such events have happened in geological times and resulted in global mass extinctions.

Presently not enough is known to assess the extent of the dangers. There are intense debates among Arctic specialists and between them and the broader climate change scientific community. Much more research must be carried out to differentiate between methane seepage that may have been ongoing for more than 500 years, for example in deep waters off the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway, from potentially anthropogenic emissions in shallow waters such as in the ESAS. [2]

However, the impacts on humankind and on life on Earth of potential sudden and/or gradual releases do not bear thinking. In the case of a substantial release, the prospect is a mass extinction of a magnitude comparable to that of the Great Permian Extinction of 252 million years ago that eliminated some 90% of life on Earth. Some Arctic scientists now consider that if high rates of Arctic methane emissions continue, as a worse case scenario, an extinction event of such a magnitude could take place within some 40 years after the initial release. This is why, based on what is presently known, a number of Arctic experts have become so alarmed at the dangers and at the magnitude of their global implications that they have taken the initiative of calling for an immediate emergency response, including geo-engineering focused on rapid cooling of the Arctic and an accelerated phasing out of all fossil fuel uses.[3] Given the existing danger signs, some stress that in their view humankind has now at most 15 years during which emergency action can and should be implemented, i.e. well before global warming reaches 2oC. [4] Since their initial alert in 2011 more alarming data has been collected, especially concerning the ESAS. To clarify this matter further, one may draw a comparison with an avalanche risk. After heavy snowfalls followed with relatively mild temperatures the avalanche danger substantially increases as the snow mass on steep slopes becomes unstable. Any slight disturbance may trigger an avalanche and yet it may not happen, of if it does the timing may not be known. However, once triggered the avalanche is unstoppable. It appears that the situation in the Arctic has moved or is moving into such an unstable state.

One can expect that the necessity of an emergency response will occupy central stage in future climate negotiations – given the evidence presented by Arctic experts, it certainly should. The chief issue though, is that presently no technology with high enough EROIs is readily available for emergency substitution of fossil and nuclear fuels [5] and even less so concerning the energy requirements of geo-engineering.

To date, the IPCC, global organisations like the G20, individual governments, industry, and most of the main media have remained impervious to the Arctic Methane Alert. There is clearly a knowledge gap between those Arctic experts who have raise the alert and the remainder of the climate and more broadly ecology and Earth System science communities, a gap that Arctic scientists are endeavouring to bridge. However, the overall gap between the relevant scientific community taken as a whole and decision-making elites in politics and industry globally is much wider and so far shows no sign of being bridged any time soon.

The Arctic methane threat is only one out of many. We have chosen to focus on it because it highlights well the type of emerging abrupt ecological threats that results from the crossing of critical thresholds (also called “tipping points”). It is thus important to replace the Arctic threat within its global context. This threat is possibly the most critical among a number of thresholds that have already been crossed or are being crossed, notably: CO2 level above 350ppm since the late 1980s, rate of biodiversity loss now above 10 species lost per million species/year, Nitrogen extracted from the atmosphere for human use above 35Mt/year, Phosphorus flowing into oceans reaching 11Mt/year. [6]

One must also include present oceans dynamics. Oceans contain some 99% of life on Earth. Marine ecosystems are the “master switch” for life. BAU dynamics have begun to flick this switch in the off position. Some of the catastrophic processes underway include: ocean acidifying faster than species can adapt to, big fish populations down by 90% over the last 50 years, total collapse of all fisheries expected before 2050, de-oxygenation of large areas due to global warming, rapid increase in pollutants, notably Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Endocrine Disturbing Compounds (EDCs), and plastic waste (now forming floating continent-sized garbage patches notably in the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Indian oceans), plankton, mangroves and coral reefs, key sources of life, all endangered (approximately 50% drop in phytoplankton over the last 40 years – New Scientist, 7/4/2012). [7]

Each threshold crossed is in itself a major challenge. However, the series of threshold crossings that have taken place in recent years, that continue taking place, and now the coming to the fore of the Arctic threat, challenge everyone to accept what some of us have been pointing out for some time, namely that the global situation has already morphed into a global ecological crisis. The image of an avalanche is also highly relevant here in that, as in an avalanche, in the present global situation each issue triggers more issues that in turn trigger even more issues with the danger that the whole process rapidly becomes uncontrollable (in mathematical terms this is called a Self Organising Criticality, a SOC). Once triggered on a mountain slope, a snow avalanche continues its course until the tumbling down snow mass reaches a new stable equilibrium further down the slope. The same applies to the global ecological SOC. This SOC has been triggered and requires immediate, global, emergency responses.

Until recently one could still consider that this SOC would unfold in a kind of slow motion and become overwhelming only in the longer term. The early collapse of Arctic ice that is now taking place and the related methane threat now forces us to a radical reconsideration. The threat of the global ecological SOC becoming rapidly very abrupt, uncontrollable and overwhelming is immediate. Although we must learn much more about it, given the enormous potential consequences, the precautionary principle must apply. This is why the Arctic, climate and Earth System scientists involved in the AMEG have called for Arctic emergency responses in the very short term, and why one must expect that more calls of this nature will increasingly be made concerning a growing range of other interrelated issues, leading finally to calls directly concerning the global ecological SOC itself. Recently David Spratt, having reviewed in great detail the recent scientific literature on climate, Earth System and tipping points concluded bluntly: “we face an unavoidably radical future... no longer is there a non-radical option… We are in an emergency.” [8]

In short, the timescales for action in response to the compounded three Energy Challenges and the fourth Ecological Challenge have come to converge onto the present. We have noted earlier that a timeframe of 15 years has been argued during which to mount and fully implement a response to the Arctic threat. However, as we will emphasise further in subsequent postings concerning the three Energy Challenges less than ten years remain to mount an effective response. So, considering the Four Challenges taken together, one cannot emphasise too strongly how dire the global situation has become. Yet to date, in every single country, decision-making elites have at best focused on long-term, rather gradual, climate change, gradual, long-term oriented “energy transitions” and “decarbonisation of economies” and, since 2008, mostly on resuming unfettered Business-As-Usual. Those elites remain stubbornly blind not only to the immediacy and magnitude of each of the Four Challenges but even more worryingly to how they interactions constitute an even greater threat, that of a uncontrollable energy and ecological SOC.

In the face of the present eerie climate change situation Paul Beckwith, part-time professor in climatology at University of Ottawa, Canada, notes:

“As crazy as things are now, clearly they are not bad enough to wake up the general population enough to vote down denier politicians and demand extensive governmental action on the problem. Not to worry, that action is a sure bet in the near future, the only question is will it happen next year, or in 3 years?” [9]

Paul Beckwith’s view applies to the Four Challenges taken as a whole. It remains to be seen how far the global situation has to degrade before people in “the general population” realise that they have no longer any other option but that of taking matters in their own hands and then what avenues remain open to them. In subsequent postings we will attempt to bridge some of the very substantial knowledge gaps concerning vital energy matters. This will lead us to focus on how it is possible to take evasive action while there is still time and forge a new path towards sustainable prosperity.

[1] Arctic Methane Emergency Group, 2011, Arctic Methane Alert, www.arctic-methane-emergency-group.org. http://arctic-news.blogspot.fr is a good source of up to date expert information on the Arctic emergency. For overviews in lay language see also, Nafeez, Ahmed, 2013, “Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe” in The Guardian, 24 July; and Vidal, John, 2013, “Rapid Arctic thawing could be economic time bomb, scientists say” in The Guardian, 25 July.

[2] See C. Berndt, T. Feseker, T. Treude, S. Krastel, V. Liebetrau, H. Niemann, V. J. Bertics, I. Dumke, K. Dünnbier, B. Ferré, C. Graves, F. Gross, K. Hissmann, V. Hühnerbach, S. Krause, K. Lieser, J. Schauer, L. Steinle, 2014, Temporal Constraints on Hydrate-Controlled Methane Seepage off Svalbard in Science, 343, 284 (2014), DOI: 10.1126/science.1246298; and Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope & Peter Wadhams, 2013, Climate science: Vast costs of Arctic change in Nature 499, 401–403 (25 July 2013) doi:10.1038/499401a.

[3] See the site of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG) at http://www.ameg.me.

[4] See for example, Light Malcolm, 2013, The Non-Disclosed Extreme Arctic Methane Threat, https://sites.google.com/site/runawayglobalwarming/.

[5] Very few people do realise that nuclear is simply not a viable candidate for fossil fuel substitution, especially not on a large scale because of the amount of energy from fossil sources that is embodied in nuclear plants and nuclear fuel production, treatment and disposal. A programme aiming to substitute nuclear for fossil fuels would result in a net deficit of energy supply during the whole duration of the programme, precisely when an increase in supply is desperately required.

[6] See for example, Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, III, F.S., Lambin, E., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H., Nykvist, B., De Wit, C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R.W., Fabry, V.J., Hansen, J., Walker, B.H., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, C., Foley. J. , 2009, A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461: 472-475 DOI 10.1038/461472a.

[7] For a thorough lay language overview see Mitchel, Alanna, 2008, Seasick, the hidden ecological crisis of the global ocean, Murdoch Books, Millers Point, Australia.

[8] In his conclusion Spratt is quoting Prof. Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research introducing the Radical Emission Reduction Conference, 10-11 December 2013, Royal Society, London (Spratt, David, 2013, Is climate change already dangerous? Climate Code Red, Carlton, 3053 Australia). See also, Spratt, David, 2014, The real budgetary emergency and the myth of burnable carbon, http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/05/the-real-budgetary-emergency-burnable.html. A growing number of scientists call for a radical change of paradigm to put in place emergency action grounded in sound science and away from ideology, belief and prejudice. See for example, Anderson, Kevin, and Bows, Alice, 2012, ”A new paradigm for climate change” in Nature Climate Change 2, 639–640, doi:10.1038/nclimate1646; and Hulme,Mike, 2012, What sorts of knowledge for what sort of politics? Science climate change and the challenges of democracy, 3S Working Paper 2012-15, Norwich: Science, Society and Sustainability Research Group.

[9] Beckwith, Paul, 2014, Our new climate and weather, at http://arctic-news.blogspot.fr, 18 January.

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