CO2 release out of control says scientist—(Carbon capture and sequestration is needed)

CO2 release out of control says scientist

4:00AM Monday May 18, 2009
By Eloise Gibson

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After first suggesting there could be negative effects from pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 1957, the award-winning American scientist - who was in New Zealand last week to speak at a past climates symposium - has turned his attention to taking carbon out of the air and storing it.

He believes the world has no chance of getting CO2 emissions under control in time to avoid dangerous global warming.

He wants urgent research done to find ways to tuck atmospheric CO2 away until after human production of it has peaked.

For New Zealand, he says, this could mean letting the Australians take care of it. Dr Broecker is a fan of a method developed by his friend and workmate at Columbia University, Dr Klaus Lackner, who has found a way to catch carbon using special plastic fibres attached to units the size of shipping containers.

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Greenland’s ‘good news’ methane finding
Reference: 09/62

Ice core research has revealed that a vast, potential source of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, is more stable in a warming world than previously thought.

24 April 2009

Based on international research published today in Science, the finding includes Australian contributions from CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

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“The result is a good news outcome for climate scientists monitoring greenhouse gases and investigating the likely sources of methane in a warming world,” says CSIRO’s Dr David Etheridge, from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research who helped show how the air could be extracted from polar ice to measure past methane changes and identify their causes.

“There are vast stores of methane clathrates beneath the ocean and in permafrost and there is evidence that millions of years ago release from these storages caused significant climate change, although none in more recent times.

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“We know that emissions of methane are increasing now and that some sources might emit even more with warming, causing a positive climate feedback, or amplification. But this finding suggests that the clathrate source is less susceptible than recently feared,” Dr Smith says.

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