Arctic permafrost leaking methane (=powerful greenhouse gas)@ record levels. Rapidly rising Arctic temperature 2 blame http://bit.ly/4yxKG6
This has to be one most aggravating articles I've ever read with regards to global warming...
"Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, leading some scientists to describe melting permafrost as a ticking time bomb that could overwhelm efforts to tackle climate change."
Now wait a second ... isn't it the evil US gas-guzzling SUV owners that are the problem?
First of all, you have should know a little background info on what the Arctic really is. It isn't all about cute little penguins (that is sarcasm because another news outfit out of the UK reported on Arctic penguins just late last year so I haven't found that UK reporters can be relied on anymore than the US media).
The "Arctic" is places like Barrow, Alaska. It is -24°F in Barrow, Alaska as I type. It has been cold all winter. In fact, it will be cold all spring, summer and fall as well. The high daily temperature is above freezing on an average of only 109 days per year. There are freezing temperatures on an average of 324 days per year. (Wikipedia)
Another way of looking at that is there are only 41 days of warm enough weather to be a problem to release methane in the low-end of the Arctic. Basically, what these scientists are telling us is that they know that increasing that to just a few days each year is A BIGGER PROBLEM THAN THE ENTIRE HUMAN EFFORT.
Comments
Post a Comment