Sunday, January 17, 2021
GMO test
  • Politics
    • American Politics
    • Canadian Politics
    • International Politics
  • Investing
  • Business
    • Corporate Culture
    • Leadership
    • Marketing
    • Supply Chains
  • Economy
    • Jobs
    • The Green Economy
    • GDP
  • Energy
    • Solar
    • Wind
    • Fossil Fuels
    • Renewables
  • Environment
    • Emissions
    • Wildfires
    • Biodiversity
    • Extreme Weather
  • Technology
    • Food
    • Health
    • Buildings
    • Renewables
    • Carbon Capture
    • Transportation
    • Climate Change
  • Social Change
    • Activism
    • Education
    • Psychology
No Result
View All Result
  • Politics
    • American Politics
    • Canadian Politics
    • International Politics
  • Investing
  • Business
    • Corporate Culture
    • Leadership
    • Marketing
    • Supply Chains
  • Economy
    • Jobs
    • The Green Economy
    • GDP
  • Energy
    • Solar
    • Wind
    • Fossil Fuels
    • Renewables
  • Environment
    • Emissions
    • Wildfires
    • Biodiversity
    • Extreme Weather
  • Technology
    • Food
    • Health
    • Buildings
    • Renewables
    • Carbon Capture
    • Transportation
    • Climate Change
  • Social Change
    • Activism
    • Education
    • Psychology
No Result
View All Result
GMO test
No Result
View All Result
Home Energy

Largest Ever Arctic Oil Spill and Climate Feedback Loops

by Richard Matthews
June 9, 2020
in Energy, Fossil Fuels
0

The largest ever Arctic oil spill has drawn attention to warming related feedback loops. The recent Siberian oil spill was caused by thawing permafrost which caused ground subsidence under a storage tank.  This is a pervasive problem in Russia as 65 percent of the country is covered by permafrost. Fires and melting sea ice are two additional feedback loops that exacerbate Arctic warming.

The May, 29, 2020 spill near the Siberian city of Norilsk in the Arctic Circle leaked 21,000 tonnes of diesel oil into the Ambarnaya river and turned the water blood red. Within days the leaked oil drifted more 12km (7.5 miles) from the site contaminating a 350 sq km (135 sq mile) area including another connected river. The spill has reached lake Pyasino Arctic glacial lake. Lake Pyasino is a major body of water and the source of the Pyasina River that is vitally important to the entire Taimyr peninsula. The Pyasina River flows into the Kara Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean. Greenpeace has compared the spill to the Exxon Valdez disaster.

As the leading source of climate changing greenhouse gas emissions fossil fuels are problematic but they are far more problematic in the Arctic. Spills in the Arctic are difficult to cleanup and they have a devastating impact on the fragile Arctic ecosystem. According to Russian authorities even with clean-up efforts that will last for years the river will never fully recover. As explained by Dmitry Klokov the head of Russia’s fishing agency, this is an an “ecological catastrophe”. Klokov said, “it will take decades for the restoration of the ecological balance of the affected
Norilo-Pyasinsky water system” but the river will never be the same.

Arctic warming

Greenpeace to declare that the Arctic is in a death spiral and this has serious implications for the region and the globe. Arctic warming is a global concern that adversely impacts global weather patterns and may push us past tipping points from which we will not be able to recover.

The unprecedented Arctic heatwaves that we saw in 2019 are part of a warming trend that is disproportionately affecting the far north. The Arctic has warmed much more than the global average which is around 1° C
(1.8° F). Some parts of the Arctic have recorded temperature increases of 3 to 4 °C (5.40 to 7.20 °F). Alaska is warming faster than the rest of the continental U.S. and Canada, home to 40 percent of the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world. The world’s oceans are also heating up but nowhere is the warming more pronounced than in the Arctic. A WMO report indicates that in recent years parts of Arctic Russia, temperatures were 6°C to 7°C above the long-term average..

Melting permafrost

Warming Arctic temperatures are releasing carbon and methane, the two most serious GHGs. Melting permafrost on land and the sea floor has been described as a ticking time bomb prompting scientists to declare a state of emergency. For years scientists have observed massive quantities of methane emanating from melting ice on the sea floor in the Arctic.

Melting permafrost on land is another major concern. This permafrost covers around 8 percent of the Arctic land surface (approximately 1.9 million square kilometres) and contains 1,500 billion tons of carbon. This is half the global total of ground carbon and around twice the amount of CO2 currently in the atmosphere. According to a NASA study the rate at which carbon is released from the permafrost into the atmosphere is accelerating.The study concluded that Arctic carbon spends less time locked in frozen soil that it did four decades ago.

More fires

Arctic warming is fueling a feedback loop that increasing fires and exacerbating warming. Arctic fires are particularly harmful to the climate because the burning of peat on the Arctic tundra releases vast amounts of trapped carbon.

This problem appears to be getting worse. In 2019 we saw a dramatic increase in Arctic fires. Last June Arctic wildfires emitted 50 megatons of carbon dioxide. As of July there were more than 100 wildfires burning across the Arctic Circle. Some of these fires spanned almost a quarter of a million acres. In Alaska alone almost 400 wildfires ravaged 600,000 acres. Fires in Russia, including hundreds of fires in Siberia released 300,000 megatons of carbon dioxide in July. The GHG emissions from the 2019 Arctic fires eclipsed the cumulative total of all GHG emissions from
Arctic fires in the previous decade.

These fires also produce black carbon which settles on the Arctic ice. This causes sunlight to be absorbed rather than reflected back in space through a process known as the albeido effect. The absorption of sunlight further increases warming.

Melting sea ice

Global warming is decreasing sea ice and this increases both the absorption of sunlight and temperatures. Sea ice extent for May 2020 averaged 12.36 million square kilometers (4.77 million square miles), placing it in the fourth lowest extent in
the satellite record for the month. This was 930,000 square kilometers
(359,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 May average.

Ice is disappearing in the Arctic and we will soon see summers completely devoid of sea ice. As explained scientist Walt Meierhere there is not much doubt about why this is happening, “climate change is the overriding thing” Meierhere said.

Related
Four Oil and Gas Spills that are Worse than we Thought
KXL Pipeline Leak Highlights Serious Dangers and Questionable Economic Value
Partial Summary of Oil Spills in 2016
Repeated Spills Show the Soulless Self-Interest of Fossil Fuel Companies

ShareTweetShare
Previous Post

Webinar – Impact of COVID-19 on the Renewable Energy Sector (IRENA Youth Talk)

Next Post

Will We Learn from COVID-19 or Will We Go Back to Business-as-Usual?

Related Posts

Energy

Eliminating Fossil Fuels Centerstage at the UN Climate Ambition Summit

December 16, 2020
Energy

University Installs Innovative Water Battery to Harness Solar Power

September 1, 2020
Energy

Abandoned Oil Wells Leaking Methane and other Contaminants

August 14, 2020
Energy

Oil Spills Illustrate the Dangers of Fossil Fuels

August 12, 2020
Energy

The Fossil Fuel Industry is Financing the Militarization of Police

August 6, 2020
Energy

The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Environmental Racism and Funding of Racist Police

August 5, 2020
Next Post

Will We Learn from COVID-19 or Will We Go Back to Business-as-Usual?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • SoundCloud

Subscribe to the Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Leadership

Corporate America’s break up with Trump & the GOP

by Richard Matthews
January 15, 2021
0

Resistance to Donald Trump started shortly after he announced his intention to run for public office, but it was not...

Read more

Climate Change is Fueling Deadly Extreme Weather and Costly Climate Disasters

January 13, 2021
protected areas and new species on the map of the world

Summary of Positive Biodiversity Stories

January 11, 2021
images of extreme weather events

Long Term Warming Trends Tell Us What We Need to Know

January 9, 2021

Trump Leads an Insurrection after He and the GOP are Rejected in a Historic Election

January 7, 2021
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Investing
  • Politics
  • Technology
  • Social Change

© 2021 Copyright The Green Market Oracle.

No Result
View All Result
  • Business
    • Corporate Culture
    • Leadership
    • Marketing
    • Supply Chains
  • Economy
    • GDP
    • Jobs
    • The Green Economy
  • Energy
    • Fossil Fuels
    • Renewables
    • Solar
    • Wind
  • Environment
    • Emissions
    • Biodiversity
    • Extreme Weather
    • Wildfires
  • Investing
  • Politics
    • American Politics
    • Canadian Politics
    • International Politics
  • Technology
    • Buildings
    • Carbon Capture
    • Climate Change
    • Food
    • Transportation
    • Health
    • Renewables
  • Social Change
    • Education
    • Activism
    • Psychology
    • Marches

© 2021 Copyright The Green Market Oracle.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In