[GWSG] EPA site scrubbing; State of the Climate; we're 170 times faster; pumping for ice; beware the clathrates

[Tilley, Al]

1.  The EPA website is being altered to remove mention of Obama climate programs, the UN, the role of fossil fuels in global warming, the partnerships and cooperative efforts of the EPA, and other matters obnoxious to the Trump administration.  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/epa-climate-web-pages-change-21133



2.  Yale Climate Connections supplies a State of the Climate graphic summary of changes in global temperature, sea ice extent, and CO2 accumulation.  http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/02/the-state-of-the-climate-in-2016/



3.  Human activity in the past 45 years is calculated to be causing climate to change at 170 times the average rate produced by natural forces over the period of life on earth. "The human magnitude of climate change looks more like a meteorite strike than a gradual change."  The study concludes that we must either slow climate change or face "societal collapse."   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/12/humans-causing-climate-to-change-170-times-faster-than-natural-forces



4.  Ten million wind-powered pumps in the Arctic could bring cold bottom waters to the surface in the winter, adding a meter to the sea ice to forestall its disappearance in the summer months.  The cost would be $500 billion.  The ecological costs of an ice-free Arctic could make that look like a bargain.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/12/plan-to-refreeze-arctic-before-ice-goes-for-good-climate-change



5.  While the article in the last item does not mention the issue, clathrates in the relatively shallow waters of the continental shelves around the Arctic are subject to destabilization, and thus to gargantuan releases of methane, if sea temperature rises sufficiently.  (The exact destabilization point depends partly on depth.)  Their destabilization could begin a cataclysmic nonlinear climate shift to a new state incompatible with current human cultures, or even human life, though the general scientific opinion seems to hold that shift unlikely because the conditions under which the clathrates exist are thought to be varied enough to produce a gradual release, not a catastrophic one.  So far there is no evidence of a disastrous spike in methane releases generally.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis  ?

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