
A crater formed in Siberia's permafrost is growing - nsajko
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170223-in-siberia-there-is-a-huge-crater-and-it-is-getting-bigger
======
M_Grey
That title is a bit sensational... there's nothing alarming about this. From
the article:

 _The trigger that led to the crater started in the 1960s. Rapid deforestation
meant that the ground was no longer shaded by trees in the warmer summer
months. This incoming sunlight then slowly warmed the ground. This was made
worse by the loss of cold "sweat" from trees as they transpire, which would
have kept the ground cool._

 _" This combination of less shading and less vapid transpiration led to
warming of the ground surface," says Julian Murton of the University of Sussex
in the UK._

This isn't related to climate change, and in fact may give us some data that
helps to refine climate models. It's unfortunate, but at least (given the
trend these days) it's not systemic.

~~~
Ygg2
Alarming point was, permafrost has as much of carbon as our atmosphere.

Once they thaw, the temperature skyrockets.

I think at this point, we might need to detonate some hydrogen bombs, just to
even out the temperature.

~~~
M_Grey
Flailing attempts at geoengineering will come later, after it becomes clear to
even the thickest person that we're desperately screwed.

~~~
hueving
Will they? It seems it would just trigger migrations inland away from rising
sea levels.

The significant improvements in agricultural technology over the last 100
years likely means it wouldn't significantly impact the ability to grow food
in countries rich enough to have the ability to geoengineer in this manner, so
it might not happen.

~~~
M_Grey
Look at North Africa and the Middle East... so much of the conflict now is
driven at least in part by climate change. Where there's desperation for water
and food, troubles that might have been just below the surface explode.
Climate change isn't just sea levels rising, it's changing climates; some
places with desert will green, some green places will turn to desert.

It's already started.

~~~
hueving
>Look at North Africa and the Middle East... so much of the conflict now is
driven at least in part by climate change.

I haven't seen this claim made before, do you have any links to read more? I
was under the impression that nearly all of the conflict is driven by things
like terrible government structures and ideological extremism (e.g. ISIS).

>Climate change isn't just sea levels rising, it's changing climates; some
places with desert will green, some green places will turn to desert.

Right, but that's why I pointed out that countries with advanced agriculture
technologies wouldn't be impacted nearly as hard and those are the same
countries with the means to geo-engineer.

~~~
anexprogrammer
There's been a number of pieces that bread prices, or water, can be indicators
of likely conflict. It's also revealing that so many regimes subsidise wheat
prices.

Try this [0] Mother Jones piece on "Bread Prices, A Measure of Political
Stability", or one from the Conversation [1].

There was a BBC documentary of 10 years ago. I can't remember the title so
haven't found a web link.

[0] [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/climate-
change-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/climate-change-food-
crisis-price-bread-political-instability)

[1] [http://theconversation.com/food-security-how-drought-and-
ris...](http://theconversation.com/food-security-how-drought-and-rising-
prices-led-to-conflict-in-syria-71539)

------
Dangeranger
The amount of potential methane locked away in the Siberian and Canadian
permafrost is frightening. However the amount of potential methane locked into
the continental shelf seabed is down right terrifying.

If these two sources of greenhouse gases begin to form a positive feedback
loop humanity is going to feel a world of hurt. It would lead us down a
climate change road which we cannot recover from.

~~~
brianbreslin
I wonder if it would be possible to harness these methane reserves for energy
production?

~~~
24gttghh
That's basically what Natural Gas is. While it appears to burn the "cleanest"
out of the fossil fuels, it still releases CO2 emmisions.

~~~
Diederich
Right.

Many roots of the modern environmental movement trace back to the early 70s
where smog in US cities was a thick, visible and almost always present
irritant. That, and burning rivers.

Very few of us had a clear understanding of global warming and climate change
at the time. Indeed, some brief panicked warnings of an impending ice age have
been endlessly presented and re-presented as proof that climate science is
bogus.

The term 'clean' was really all about particulate emissions. The shit that
polluted the air and the water in visible ways.

CO2 and methane missions are invisible and odorless, and so weren't really
considered at the time.

I'm not an expert on chemistry, but I believe that CO2 pretty much HAS to come
out of any energy producing reaction of fossil fuels.

~~~
24gttghh
This lines up with my understanding of the history as well.

And actually, I found an article on phys.org that says to the contrary[0]! I
was surprised myself.

>Instead of burning methane (CH4), its molecular components, hydrogen (H2) and
carbon (C), can be separated in a process called 'methane cracking'. This
reaction occurs at high temperatures (750°C and above) and does not release
any harmful emissions.

[https://phys.org/news/2015-11-energy-fossil-fuel-carbon-
diox...](https://phys.org/news/2015-11-energy-fossil-fuel-carbon-dioxide.html)

------
nsajko
Related images and discussion here:

[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0678-200000...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0678-200000-year-
old-soil-found-at-mysterious-crater-a-gate-to-the-subterranean-world/)

[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0127-dozens...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0127-dozens-
of-mysterious-new-craters-suspected-in-northern-russia/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9120690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9120690)

------
rodionos
The Batagaika crater on Google maps:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Batagaika+Crater/@67.58752...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Batagaika+Crater/@67.5875202,134.7422223,7634m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x5bbfe8605f075181:0x5c183f59b6ae6d2!8m2!3d67.5804711!4d134.7728746)

There are a lot of lakes around that look like craters, just filled with
water.

Maybe 'crater' is a wrong term to apply to this formation.

------
jessaustin
TFA:

 _We found several layers of buried soils. Two of them look especially
promising. They show that thousands of years ago the climate in the region of
Verkhoyansk was the same as it is now, and even warmer._

------
jmcdiesel
For anyone who doesn't catch Destination Unknown (TV series), this was a
prominent feature in an episode... while its a bad sign for the climate in
general, it's at least unlocking 300,000 years of geology and archeology to
discover, specifically Wooly Mammoths

~~~
dundercoder
I can't wait till they bring back one of those! Amazing on so many levels.

------
dgudkov
Melting permafrost exposes ancient organics. I wonder if ancient plants or
microorganisms can revive because of this? Or ancient viruses/deceases?

~~~
pg_bot
Actually this has already happened with the Pithovirus which was discovered in
2014.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithovirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithovirus)

This virus is also interesting because it is orders of magnitude larger than
previously known viruses.

------
pmontra
The main cause of destruction in Ballard's The Drowned World (1962)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_World](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_World)
was the accelerated erosion due to melting permafrost after a global warming
event. Raising sea levels was minor in comparison.

The original cause of global warming was not increasing methane or CO2 levels
but solar tempests. We had other concerns back then. Interestingly the novel
is set in 2145, which is not entirely impossible if we want to project the
current trend to meet that ending.

------
phkahler
Favorite line: "For example, 125,000 years ago, the climate was going through
an interglacial period, during which it was several degrees warmer than it is
now."

And yet people keep saying our current conditions are unprecedented...

~~~
knz
It's unprecedented to experience that change with a population of 7 billion.
125,000 years ago we didn't have millions of people totally reliant upon just
in time food shipped in from distant locations or have massive settlements in
areas significantly affected by climate change.

~~~
jackmott
and the rate of warming was orders of magnitude slower.

------
elipsey
Article include hilarious hydrology misquote of the day: "vapid
transpiration".

------
jaequery
are we in global warming or global cooling? it seems the scientists or the
media change this around every now and then, which in turn they now call it
just climate change.

~~~
dundercoder
I don't know if there truly is an actual consensus in the scientific
community, but it is true that an aggregate warming of the earth as a whole
will cause some hot spots to become cooler, and some cool spots to warm, some
deserts to recover, and some wet regions to loose their rainfall. "Change" is
a good word.

~~~
greglindahl
In particular it's the case that some of Antarctica has been cooling:
[http://www.asoc.org/advocacy/climate-change-and-the-
antarcti...](http://www.asoc.org/advocacy/climate-change-and-the-antarctic)

Change is a good word, except when it causes the general public to be confused
about what the average is (warming.)

~~~
Diederich
Sea ice coverage in Antarctica is interesting.

Until the last couple of years, it's been at all-time highs, but it has
crashed big-time: [http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-
sea-i...](http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-
graph/) click over to Antarctica.

