
Russia’s permafrost is melting and it could have a devastating global effect - QuickToBan
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/melting-russian-permafrost-could-speed-up-global-warming-devastating-global-effect/
======
grecy
Don't think it's isolated to Russia either.

Alaska just reported their hottest June ever (It's in the 90's in a lot of
places now), and the Yukon is seeing massive, massive climate changes in
recent years.

The annual Redezvous festival used to be held ON the Yukon River in downtown
Whitehorse. Friends tell of driving onto the river, having huge bonfires, etc.
etc.

It hasn't even frozen over enough to walk on in a decade or more, and now it
actually goes above freezing in January most years..... even 20 years ago it
wouldn't go above -40 for all of Dec/Jan.

Things are changing very, very fast in the North.

~~~
floatrock
So, winter is _not_ coming?

~~~
ngvrnd
No. Cormac McCarthy's Road, or William Gibson's Jackpot, is coming.

~~~
blaser-waffle
The Road was implied to be a comet or maybe nukes.

This will look more like Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl".

------
aoeusnth1
We need coordinated, urgent political action on climate change. We already
have the technology needed to solve this - we just need to deploy it. Now.

~~~
fsloth
You could start calling it global warming. Climate change was brought forward
as a term to make it sound less frightening to the voting population.

~~~
at-fates-hands
> You could start calling it global warming.

Except that the planet has been warming and cooling for millions of years.

To put into perspective:

Age of Earth: 4.6 billion years

How long Dinosaurs lived: 400 million years

Age of humans: 200,000 years.

The human species is literally less than a blip on the earth's historical
radar. I'm convinced whatever we do to the planet, it will recover, like it
always has. Humans not adapting? That's the _real_ problem.

~~~
ska
This sort of perspective, while true, doesn't seem very germane to the
conversation of our current, rapid, and human caused climate change. We
collectively will have to deal with that (or die out, I suppose) and
understanding it and how to mitigate effects seems to be the sensible
response.

Understanding that the planet, if not the current biological configuration, is
likely to be around much longer that we are doesn't seem to add much; at least
to me.

------
throwaway5752
It _is_ having a devastating effect.

June was the hottest month recorded in human history: [https://weather.com/en-
IN/india/news/news/2019-07-16-earth-e...](https://weather.com/en-
IN/india/news/news/2019-07-16-earth-experiences-hottest-june-ever-record-2019)

It crushed the record and July is tracking to break that record.

There's not a socially acceptable way of conveying how bad it is. Running
around and screaming "we're all going to die" is more accurate that saying
things will be fine.

~~~
want2know
I even believe in ten years the world will be completely different.

When a country like India lacks drinking water a huge mass of people will be
on the move.

In Europe food production is in trouble. This will also cause a lot of trouble
and people will start to move to better places.

Maybe we will survive but that's indeed different from 'we will be fine'.

~~~
throwaway5752
It's hard to imagine an orderly retreat to more habital climates for that
number of people. I think you underestimate the synergy between war, famine,
and disease.

In this case the "royal we" is hiding a lot of death. I'm sure even in a 5 deg
C worst case model maybe a couple of hundred million people can survive by the
poles. But that means 90-95% population die-off. That's ignoring trophic web
collapses and ecological damage to the world that human beings have adapted to
for hundreds of thousands of years.

~~~
temp-dude-87844
I think the previous poster is being charitably vague, so that the reader can
substitute in their own interpretation whether resulting pressures on people
will result in orderly migration, displacement, or warfare. If history is any
indication, the answer likely to be a mix of the above.

But their interpretation shows a more nuanced understanding than those who
seem to suggest masses of people will die in situ, or driven to the fringes of
the planet to seek relief from the heat. People and societies are quite
adaptable, provided they have the means to modify their immediate environment.
Billions of people live in states that will likely fare all right, because
they can mitigate impacts with modest effort and resource cost, despite the
presence of political movements that are fixated with collective guilt.

The other billions who are less fortunate will be subject to intense pressures
for their survival. We've seen this before, and should know what to expect.
It's just that we're uncomfortable talking about it.

------
assblaster
"This could increase global warming by as much as 0.27 °C by 2100 and as much
as 0.42 °C by 2300"

~~~
mac01021
I understand that from a variety of factors including greenhouse gas
concentration, albedo, and solar intensity you can, in principal, compute the
earth's atmosphere's equilibrium mean temperature.

I understand this function to be such that any doubling of the atmosphere's
CO2 concentration (while holding the other factors constant) will increase the
equilibrium temperature by the same fixed number of degrees.

One thing I know nothing about is how to expect the earth's actual temperature
to change over time when there is a difference between actual and equilibrium
temperatures.

Suppose A(t) is the earth's actual temp at time t and E(t) is the earth's
equilibrium temp at time t.

    
    
       Presumably, dA/dt = F(A,E), for some function F.
    

Is anyone here physics-savvy enough to know what F looks like?

~~~
itcrowd
Well.. it is complicated. Depending on what exactly you want to know, you
could look into the concept of "Transient Climate Response" (e.g. start at
[1]).

[1]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08047](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08047)

------
aNoob7000
Does it really matter anymore? Not to sound too fatalistic, but are people
going to change? Unless people's houses are catching fire and there are food
shortages in industrialized countries, there is going to be little or no
change.

~~~
maximente
probably not, but they might change their point of view enough to influence
elections, or personal/community behavior, or whatever else. while it might be
inevitable there could be a huge difference in outcomes, e.g. btwn 2c and 5c
or whatever your worst case is.

so, while i agree to some extent, the more people that mobilize and e.g.
influence the next round of policies/politicians, perhaps suffering can be
reduced, however slightly you think that is.

------
agumonkey
1) I'm sure climate change models took this into account but is it worse than
predicted ?

2) And if it releases land and resources.. how happy will Russia to increase
their economy through uses of gas/oil ? (not helping permafrost)

~~~
PeterisP
Permafrost melting doesn't really release land and resources; the main
resources were actively mined there while it was permafrost and if it's frozen
for part of the year and not frozen for a few months then it doesn't make
mining significantly simpler.

if anything, it destroys the existing infrastructure there which often
(especially for transport and pipeline paths) relies on the permafrost as a
permanent solid foundation.

~~~
agumonkey
Ok, so the main issue would be potential greenhouse gas release from melting ?

~~~
PeterisP
Yes, it's an additional feedback loop - more warming melts more permafrost,
releasing more methane that causes more warming. Due to this stopping/slowing
climate change is going to be more difficult.

------
renjimen
There's also the methane hydrate just under the seabed of the continental
margins of the world's oceans. A rise in water temperature may destabilise
large quantities, releasing huge amounts of methane, accelerating climate
change further.

[https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/ocean-
chemistry/climat...](https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/ocean-
chemistry/climate-change-and-methane-hydrates/)

------
mempko
Anyone working in the computer and software (or any high-tech) industry should
be worried about global warming. Even if society collapses, you will have
certain needs like food, clothing, etc. However, high technology requires a
highly organized civilization to exist and develop.

Global warming is a risk to organized human life and it's possible we won't be
doing anything related to computers in 20-30 years. It's not crazy to think
people will collectively lose the ability to make microchips and computers.
Progress and technological development cannot be taken for granted and
requires the right conditions to function.

Global warming is an existential risk to our industry!

~~~
lumberingjack
I am a farmer, was a net admin earlier in life but from what I have seen and
heard myself and talking to my tribe from up north climate change is a natural
event and there is nothing we can do to stop things like Earth's axis slightly
changing making the sun way hotter. People that want to fight climate change
should start in the cites with smog it is man made, it changes the climate in
a localized area, it kills, and you can do something about it. Yet I never see
these Climate change fighters completely giving up smog making devices.

~~~
mempko
You do tell them the sun isn't getting hotter right? Have you seen this?
[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-
wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)

~~~
davidw
I'm partial to this graphic... puts things in perspective and puts paid to the
notion that what's happening now resembles natural climate fluctuations.

[https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)

~~~
chmod775
> puts paid

I think you're being downvoted because of a typo.

~~~
ChrisGranger
It's not a typo, but a common English phrase.

[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/put-
pai...](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/put-paid-to)

~~~
chmod775
I don't think it's exactly common - at least not when compared to the usage of
other idioms using Google search.

There's also not a single match for that phrase in my entire ebook library...

Idioms like "as it stands" and "at the best of times" see like 50 times more
usage. Those are common.

You learn something new every day though! Now I can use it too and add to the
pile of people googling for that phrase's meaning that show up on Google
Trends.

------
SubiculumCode
I have at times worried about the trapped methane that could be released with
the permafrost...on some accounts I've heard the amount that could be released
is massive. I know that this methane can increase global warming, but I have
another fear. Although perhaps farfetched, is it possible that climate change
could release a dense, rolling methane cloud that can asphyxiate whole
populations?

~~~
jeffdavis
The molecular mass of oxygen gas is 32 and the molecular mass of methane is
16. The methane will tend to rise and mix, leaving plenty of oxygen near the
surface. It's unlikely to asphyxiate humans unless it happens really, really
fast.

People and animals have been asphyxiated by massive CO2 releases because they
can happen very quickly, and CO2 has a molecular mass of 44, making it stay
near the ground for longer, displacing lighter oxygen and nitrogen gases.

~~~
forkandwait
Isn't density not mass the issue? Methane still floats above air using density
from the internets, though I wonder about mixing

0.656 kg/m³ methane

1.98 kg/m3 carbon dioxide

1.225 kg/m3 air.

~~~
teraflop
Atmospheric gases under typical conditions behave pretty much like ideal
gases, which means it doesn't matter whether you talk about density or
molecular mass; they're directly proportional to each other. And the molecular
mass is independent of temperature and pressure.

------
_Codemonkeyism
s/could/will/g

~~~
edejong
Yes, that’s exactly the skew popular media will give this (already way too
sensational) reporting. And we shouldn’t do this, unless we want to lose the
scientific moral grounds.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Melting permafrost is releasing methane and CO2. Rising methane and CO2 levels
will increase climate change. There is no "sensational" or "skew". This is
like all this "may" "might" for 40 years that got us into the situation we are
now. We should have said "will" 40 years ago.

------
newnewpdro
Sounds like Russia is going to have a _lot_ more arable land in the future.

