In some ways, it’s a black and white issue
Maybe all you really need to know is that there is a drastic difference between black and white.
White reflects heat, but black absorbs heat.
A permafrost burp, or belch, (the B in P-BoM, -Permafrost Belch of Methane) is when methane gas bubbles up from below the land surface, similarly as when we burp or belch to release gas as we digest food.
When permafrost belches, or as when any ice melts, it surges off to become dark ocean water. The heat is trapped. Liquid water rises coastlines, heats acidifying reefs, injects energy (and thus storms and hurricanes into systems), releases all manner of microbes and methane, and, may ruin your day.
The reflecting capability of whiter ocean ice is called the albedo effect. Methane is thirty times more effective at trapping heat than CO2 is, even though we must combat both. Melting ice, presently thawing in glaciers around the world, and at the rapidly heating poles, pours through new channels to our oceans. Liquid water rises coastlines. Organisms, including people, must move to higher ground or cooler seas.
Human emissions of methane come with our continuing pursuit and use of fossil fuels, our prodigious generating of garbage, and the inefficient methods with which we produce livestock and pollution.
These are all issues being confronted today, but the P-BoM problems are less discussed. They feel more distant than your daily commute to work — or your preparation of dinner with a flawed food system — all fully dependent upon fossil fuels.
Collapsing sink holes in cold regions accelerate this process. Opinions vary as to the scope of what we face, but everyone agrees that the disaster risks are very great.
We have warmed the earth though all of our industrial endeavors, and that is now playing out with melting poles and changing roles for all living species that are exposed to our new planet.
If the question is whether climate heating is a black and white issue, the answer is a definite yes. There have been many years on Earth that were too cold, or too hot, for diverse life. Earth itself, we must remember has a Goldilocks zone and global warming creates uninhabitable places. Reflecting — cooling, is good. Absorption — heating, is bad, at least for present life on Earth.
A Woolly mammoth pinata of problems
Once they exist in the environment, people share microbes, bacteria, viruses, and even pesky plant species.
The P-BoM, Permafrost Belching of Methane, does not just demonstrate the difference between white, cold frozen water, and blacker, warm oceans. Unfortunately, it releases and warms microbes, bacteria, and viruses that could have been frozen for up to 30,000 years. The warmer conditions are more favorable to mosquito borne diseases such as Dengue, Malaria, Zika, but can also favor new strains of influenza,or even small pox.
The truth is, we have less data about all the possible permafrost Pandora problems we are releasing. Scientists speculate that frozen animal carcasses presently contain nasty pathogens of many sorts.
They are much more likely to contain cooties, one might say, rather than to be filled with pinata candy. Even seeds frozen for eons can suddenly find a climate where they could thrive, out competing other species that now balance flora and fauna in specific locations.
There will be further fires in climates such as Hawaii, for example, because invasive cane grass that people have brought in place of sugarcane and pineapple(and especially native plants) is fire-ready tinder when it gets hot, dry, and windy. Our record heat and melting in the poles will have similar results of feedback loops with different plants, animals, and microbes.
As a tipping point, the P-BoM is already having dramatic effects, especially in Siberia, Northern Europe, Alaska, and most Arctic regions. But until people can fully relate to the interwoven intricacies of our daily habits and Earth’s interactive systems, we may not become aware enough of them in time to forestall several disasters.
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Please clap, highlight, comment and follow Christyl Rivers for ever-flowing rivers of appreciation
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Annie Spratt on Unsplash
