2007May27: The permafrost in Newtok, Alaska, (population 315) is melting due to warmer air and ocean temperatures. Studies suggest that Newtok could be washed away within ten years. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it will cost $130 million to move the village (IHT, 2007). “There is evidence that greater warming could release substantial amounts of methane in the Arctic. Much of the ten-degree Fahrenheit global warming that caused mass extinctions, such as the one at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, appears to have been caused by release of “frozen methane.” Those releases of methane may have taken place over centuries or millennia, but release of even a significant fraction of the methane during this century could accelerate global warming, preventing achievement of the alternative scenario and possibly causing ice sheet disintegration and further long-term methane release that are out of our control,” wrote Jim Hansen, NASA Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, in the New York Review of Books (Hansen, 2006).
Reference: Hansen, J. The Threat to the Planet. New York Review of Books. 2006. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19131; International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/27/america/27alaska.php
Image Description: Takikchak River near Newtok, Alaska. The photo was taken by a USGS employee, 2005May25. Image Location: USGS. http://pubs.usgs.gov/wdr/2005/wdr-ak-05-1/regions/southwest/15304400.php Image Permission: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
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This post is tagged 2000s Climate Change Events, 21st Century and Climate Change, Advanced Economies and Climate Change, Alaska and Climate Change, Climate Change Effects, Climate Change Research, Coastal Erosion, Governments and Climate Change, Ground Temperatures, Methane, NASA and Climate Change, National Governments and Climate Change, North America and Climate Change, Oceans, Permafrost Thaw, Polar Regions and Climate Change, Rising Seas, Surface Temperatures, Temperatures, United States and Climate Change, US West and Climate Change, Warming Ocean Temperatures, Warming Temperatures
