Interestingly, I presented that information by invitation to a forum packed with coal industry folks over six years ago as they considered the potential to offset their CO2 footprint by capturing coal bed methane. To the best of my knowledge nothing developed in that arena, but again, I could be wrong.

As a humorous aside, part of my research for that presentation included an internet search. When I queried “coal bed methane, greenhouse gas”, the first hit was my own name on the agenda for the upcoming event. I remember thinking if I could only click on that link and find out what I was going to say, I could save myself a lot of work!

I don’t know that capturing methane poses any greater financial burden than capturing CO2, although in both cases of course not producing it in the first place is much cheaper.

The methane factor is one of the reasons using seasoned wood in my wood stove is considered carbon neutral, an argument I’ve intuitively found hard to grasp.

A tree left to rot in the forest produces methane – a factor that makes dammed impoundments where vegetation was not cleared in advance large sources of methane. But the same wood seasoned under roof before burning does not produce methane, albeit the same overall carbon content as it would have naturally.

It’s my understanding that many greenhouse gas reduction strategies include formulas that allow for increased credit for methane reduction relative to similar quantities of CO2 reductions. Hopefully that sort of flexibility will remain, so entities can utilize the most cost effective means to reduce their footprints.

A-mouse says: “we may be in more trouble than we can even see at the current moment.”

I agree. As a lawyer representing people with injuries, real and threatened, I’m familiar with the exaggeration phenomenon. People with an axe to grind tend see their situation as more dire than perhaps a neutral person would.

But with climate change, I’m afraid the reverse is true. For a lot of reasons, it seems quite possible that we don’t yet see or know the half of how grim the future is likely to be for our children and grandchildren.

Let’s pass health care and get to work on climate legislation — ASAP!

“In other news, the fraction of humans capable of giving birth has not changed much over the centuries, thus proving that the world’s population is not growing.”

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/05/climate-science-atmospheric-co2-fraction-risen-dangerously-fast-rate-knorr/

Ken.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704039704574616130812043404.html

and also this John Coleman video.

http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a

For an indication of how the arctic air mass dropping south across North America is balanced out, go to the weather.com site and set the weather map to “clouds”. Then zoom out and change the view to “world”, and set the clouds in motion by clicking the “past” button for a video of the past several hours. You’ll see arctic air racing south across North America, and another massive movement of air from across Asia headed north. This unusually massive pattern has been going on for days, and may stay in motion for days to come.

This sloshing of the atmosphere requires energy to set it in motion. Global warming means there is an increasing amount of energy in the atmosphere, which will be expressed in a great stirring of the air, as well as a gradual warming at our latitude, on average. We should expect more cold waves as well as more heat waves, more severe storms as well as more droughts.

A greater mixing of the atmosphere also means a greater relative warming of the poles over time, leading to faster melting of the ice caps.

Even more scary is the melting of the permafrost (frozen soils) in the subarctic. Besides thawing out the planet’s deep freeze and exposing wooly mammoth carcases, massive quantities of methane trapped in the permafrost is beginning to be released. The methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so we may have already set in motion a run away reaction we can not stop, and mankind may get to witness a change of climate the world hasn’t gone through in millions of years.

So to the deniers out there, enjoy this balmy weather, because you ain’t seen nothing yet. Get ready for the million year flood.

Here’s what he had to say about his research and its implications for climate policy folks:

“Dr Wolfgang Knorr has found that natural ‘sinks’ like oceans and forests have absorbed the same percentage of CO2, despite man-made emissions shooting up to 35bn tonnes a year.

His research suggests the earth may be able to absorb more carbon than previously thought, and may explain why climate change is happening more slowly than in some predictions.

He says his research is “good news” for the current Copenhagen climate talks, but warns they must still produce an agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

And Dr Knorr denies his research backs up people who deny the reality of climate change. He told Original 106.5: “That would be a very superficial interpretation of these results. Half of the CO2 we emit stays in the atmosphere and that’s enough to cause global warming.

“Also, this research is only based on the past. We are pushing the system to its limits and it might break at some stage, as the model suggests. But it hasn’t happened yet. I would not experiment with the climate system.”

However, he does believe his findings offer hope for the current Copenhagen climate talks, in which world nations are seeking an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

He said: “It’s good news because some suggestions that these things have already declined may have been false alarms. It is not as dire as we think.

“That makes it slightly easier to stabilise the CO2 and the climate, so that’s good news for the negotiations because it’s tough enough to impose the necessary limits on CO2 emissions.”

But he is adamant the talks must agree to a cap on carbon, and believes climate change sceptics will find little use for his research.

He said: “We have had a lot of research that could be interpreted that way [as supporting climate change denial]. I believe science has to be open and fair and we should not hide any of the results.

“Climate critics will always find something, no matter what the results are. It’s not an indication not to do anything and you can always misinterpret results. But I think that kind of misinformation dies out quickly, I don’t see a problem.” ”

http://tinyurl.com/ykt666m

with additional discussion here:

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/knorr-soup.html

It’s also worth noting that Knorr’s research results are in direct conflict with other research indicating the absorption rate of oceans and land masses IS declining, specifically that while the total volume of CO2 absorbed remains constant, the overall increase in released CO2 means a higher percentage of that
released CO2 is staying in the atmosphere. The difference between the two conclusions appears to lie in different interpretations of land mass absorption.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/47/18866.full.pdf+html

and interpreted here:

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2007/11/carbon-cycle-misfortunes.html

What typically happens next in cases where independent research yields different conclusions is that the research of both will be carefully studied, attempts made to duplicate the results of each, and a new paper will be released identifying any flaws in either piece of research or analysis. Stay tuned…

And it’s important to note that neither paper provides valuable ammo for the skeptic crowd. Both agree that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing. Where they differ is in what percentage of the increase in emissions is re-absorbed in land and sea. The results of one affirm that we’ve got a big problem to address. The results of the other supports the conclusion that the
problem is even bigger.

Secondly, there’s sort of a question I have indirectly related to this post, that I’m exploring just for presenting some thoughts and perhaps provoke a little scientific discussion.

Say that, as we’re sure of, CO2 emissions are increasing. At the same time–and I’m making a big assumption here–forested land area is declining. If the rate of CO2 emissions going to the atmosphere is constant, while (in other terms) Net Primary Production is declining (assuming it is), then you have more CO2 being taken up by fewer plants and other biological materials, each year. Turns out NPP increases with higher temperatures (per square meter of producing area). See figure 6a here: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/energyflow/energyflow.html

Now, if, as I’m assuming (no time to do the research), NPP is climbing at an equal-ish rate that high carbon-sink matter (amazon rainforest) is being diminished, and the rate of carbon to atmosphere is constant…well, that would ‘prove’ that global mean temperature is rising, just as the chart shows at the top of this blog.

Of course, that also assumes a constant annual emissions and a constant exchange of carbon between ocean and atmosphere. We know emissions are going up, however. There is also research (Yale geophysicist) suggesting that the ocean’s are absorbing carbon from the atmosphere at a slower rate: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091124140957.htm

“Warm cola holds less fizz.” So, we now “know” that oceans are losing some of their ability to absorb CO2. This suggests that even if the CO2-to-atmosphere rates have been constant, this may not hold. Combine that with increases in atmposheric CO2 concentration, potential decreases in the ability of biomass to increase it’s NPP as temp’s rise (thus, their ability to absorb CO2 will also eventually decline, as everything has a capacity), and we may be in more trouble than we can even see at the current moment.

Just some thoughts, I’d love to hear others.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/04/foxnews-cold-weather-climate-science-hottest-decad/

and

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/05/china-freak-storm-global-warming-science/

That second one is especially interesting:

BEIJING: Freak snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials….

The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Guo Hu, linked the blizzard-like conditions this week to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.

”In the context of global warming, extreme atmospheric flows are causing extreme climate incidents to appear more frequently, such as the summer’s rain storms and last year’s icestorm disaster in southern China,” Mr Guo told Beijing News.

Ken.

Thanks for your comment … my apologies that you were offended by the photo.

It was honestly not my intent to use a photo that had been doctored in any way. (Though I have to admit being tempted to use the “Simpson-ized Don Surber” that the Raging Red blog previously posted).

I thought the one I had used was simply a cropped version of the Daily Mail’s promotional photo of you. I apologize for my error. I have replaced that photograph with one taken directly from the Daily Mail Web site.

I’d be interested in your response to the substance of my post, though.

Again, my apologies.

Ken.