It seems like yet another climate doomsday prediction has failed to materialize.
In August of 2005, the ever-alarmed Guardian posted this scare story:
Warming hits ‘tipping point’
Siberia feels the heat It’s a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting.
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“If we don’t take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide,” he said. “There’s still time to take action, but not much.
The article continues with:
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres – the size of France and Germany combined – has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
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It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying “tipping points” – delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth’s temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
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The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today.
The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.
Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an “ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming”. He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.
Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.
“When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it’s unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply,” said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
Three things in the article are important to note:
- As indicated by this PowerPoint presentation, the researcher Kirpotin visited in the summer, not the winter We have no weather records back to 11,000 years ago, we don’t know if such an event occurred in the summers of past millennia. But, it is reasonable to assume that given the propensity for that region to have large temperature swings, some melting in the summer is regular event every few years or decades. From Wikipedia, bold mine:
Verkhoyansk, a town further north and further inland, recorded a temperature of −69.8 °C (−93.6 °F) for three consecutive nights: 5, 6 and 7 February 1933. Each town is alternately considered the Northern Hemisphere’s Pole of Cold – the coldest inhabited point in the Northern hemisphere. Each town also frequently reaches 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer, giving them, and much of the rest of Russian Siberia, the world’s greatest temperature variation between summer’s highs and winter’s lows, often well over 94–100+ °C (169–180+ °F) between the seasons. - They say “…the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.” This indicates they don’t actually know, but are speculating. Speculation is not science, it is opinion. Further, three or four years is not long enough to establish any sort or climate pattern, which is defined by the World Meteorological Organization as being 30 years:
Climate is the average weather conditions for a particular location over a long period of time, ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. WMO uses a 30-year period to determine the average climate. - The final quote in the excerpt above is from Dr. David Viner who famously (and wildly erroneously) said in 2000. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” and winter snowfall “would become “a very rare and exciting event.” Given his poor track record, and the lack of any loss of snow in the northern hemisphere, take his opinion about permafrost with a grain of salt.
If we believe The Guardian story and those climate scientists in 2005, the whole area in Siberia must be a warm soupy mess by now, right?
Wrong.
That extended warming and melting just isn’t happening. While the researchers sounded alarm over a warm summer in Siberia in 2005, this past year has been completely the opposite. For example, this Washington Post Story from Jan 10, 2023: Siberia sees coldest air in two decades as temperature dips to minus-80
Or how about the story we covered on WUWT just a few days ago: Russia Reels From -60°C Cold Blast… And Munich Breaks December Snow Record
It must be tough to keep that permafrost at a melting tipping point with winter temperatures like that. Here is the view of the region today, note the widespread below zero temperatures:
You can be certain that any permafrost that “melted” during the summer is now refrozen and the tipping point aka “methane monster” is still in slumber.
Yes, in fact, the predicted tipping point from 2005 hasn’t happened at all, but undeterred, in 2022 climate science has pushed the goalposts out further, because it will happen, any day now.
Permafrost peatlands approach a climate tipping point
Permafrost peatlands in Europe and Western Siberia are much closer to a climatic tipping point than previously thought, according to a new study led by the University of Leeds. Scientists estimate that, even with the strongest efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and therefore limit climate change, by 2040 the climates of Northern Europe will no longer be cold and dry enough to sustain peat permafrost.
If I’m still alive in 2040, I’ll write about it then. But my guess (or speculation if you like) based on the history so far is that the permafrost will still be there in Siberia, no catastrophic tipping point will have occurred, and the doomsday goalposts will have been pushed to 2060 and beyond.
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