climate change cannot be stopped : Melbourne Indymedia

'Extrapolating their data to Siberia's other lakes, the researchers estimate that more than 4 million tons of methane is being released into the atmosphere each year -- between 10 and 63 percent higher than previous estimates. The study, led by Katey Walter at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks is detailed in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Nature.

"The effects can be huge," Walter told the Associated Press. "It's coming out a lot, and there's a lot more to come out."

Other studies have calculated that about 500 billion tons of carbon is locked up in Siberia's permafrost and that up to 90 percent of it could be released if the region continues to warm as expected. If this happens, the coming decades will see an increase in the number and size of methane-releasing thaw lakes, scientists say.

"It's kind of like a slow-motion time bomb," Ted Schuur, professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida, told the AP. "There's these big surprises out there that we don't even know about."

While methane from Siberian lakes is a relatively modest contributor to climate change compared to human greenhouse emissions by industry and automobiles, it helps intensify a positive feedback mechanism for global warming.'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212598,00.html
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'In another study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Margaret Torn at the University of California at Berkeley shows the climate impact of this additional greenhouse factor.

"We found a significant amount of warming coming back from these feedbacks that we're not yet estimating," said Torn. "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, currently estimates that we could have warming by as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century. But if Earth responds as it has in the past, we would actually be committed to 7.7 degrees Celsius warming."'
http://www.alaskareport.com/news11037.htm

[n.b. The 'leaked' IPCC update estimates a warming of 3degC by 2100. Factor in the above difference of 2.5degC and you get 5.5degC and a worst case scenario.]

Ocean acidification link: http://www.tasmedia.org/node/1214