Last Saturday in Sydney, Alexandra de Blas, one-time ABC Radio National Earthbeat Presenter, told everyone at that conference which I attended at the NSW State Library that Siberia’s permafrost was melting.
According to de Blas this was yet another sign of catastrophic global warming – the end is nigh etcetera.
de Blas had probably been reading New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725124.500):
THE world’s largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.
The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.The news of the dramatic transformation of one of the world’s least visited landscapes comes from Sergei Kirpotin, a botanist at Tomsk State University, Russia, and Judith Marquand at the University of Oxford.
Kirpotin describes an “ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming”. He says that the entire western Siberian sub-Arctic region has begun to melt, and this “has all happened in the last three or four years”.
The fellow who sat beside me on the Virgin Blue flight to Sydney also told me that “Siberia was melting”. He was terribly worried.
But according to the official Russian news agency (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050822/41201605.html):
The Russian Academy of Sciences has found that the annual temperature of soils (with seasonable variations) has been remaining stable despite the increased average annual air temperature caused by climate change. If anything, the depth of seasonal melting has decreased slightly.
“Unscrupulous scientists are exaggerating and peddling fears about permafrost thawing and swamp methane becoming aggressive,” said Professor Nikolai Alexeyevsky, Doctor of Geography and head of the land hydrology department at Moscow State University. “Siberia has vast natural resources, oil and gas above all. The article aims to set public opinion against Western Siberia and discourage investment in its industry, oil and gas. They are saying, “Swamp methane poses a global threat, so don’t touch Siberia.” They are deliberately trying to cause panic.
Alexeyevsky says that permafrost has a natural cycle of change, and that it advanced and retreated in the pre-industrial era as well.
Interestingly Russia has a whole academy dedicated to the study of the permafrost (http://www.sitc.ru/ync/ync_eng/ice.htm ).
Who should I believe?
de Blas went on to tell the crowd at the NSW State Library that global warming would destroy the Great Barrier Reef. Now that is plain wrong, see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000762.html .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The Russians
Oh for heavens sake – read the source paper – you have the quals in science – tell us your opinion versus a vested interest comment …. JEEZ !!!!!!!!!
And if the Artic ice is melting perhaps a few other things might conceivably be going on nearby too ….
check out the age profiles, carbon dating etc and then tell me whether you find it to be a scholarly piece of work …. or spin by evil-doers….
Phil,
The Arctic is ocean
My Data tells me that when the Siberian area thaws, the stench of rotting flesh is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,nyet?
Louis – I thought you were extinct…
No, just extant
This Siberian thing is just a thaw point.
Yes Rog – the whole argument has “bogged” down.
P.S. I’m still not talking with Jen …
Its ok if the argument bogs down for a while. When discussing complex issues, there is no point in russian.
Not bad guys, not bad at all. Actually quite good. Obviously descending to these levels of ridicule means you collectively haven’t a clue of the issue Jen raised above.
Oh exulted Louis – Master – I answered her further up – she’s basically trying for some spin but she can’t get any traction. She’s hasn’t checked the paper … it’s an intellectual involute …
Phil,
do you actually read the stuff you refer here?
Just wondering
Only if I know you’ll be reading it…
Descending to ridicule means you lost the debate.
I win.
So that means you read nothing then.
ooooo….. temper….
Just adopting your technique of answering questions…
Believe what you want !
Yes I read the stuff I refer to. That’s why I have the presence of mind to refer it.
Sometimes with blog-posts, I post a URL even if it contains some comments that I disagree with. But I post it to add value hopefully.
Incidentally what I find surprising is that you anti-AGW dudes don’t cite an alternative mechanism to explain what we’re observing …