$60 Trillion Global Economic Impact Of A Massive Methane Release In The Arctic, New Study Shows

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Up to $60 trillion USD (just shy of the global GDP for one year) is what climate change impacts will cost the world’s economy if the estimated 50 billion tons of seafloor-trapped methane gas in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf were to be released into the atmosphere.

That’s according to new economic modeling research conducted by economists at the University of Cambridge (UK) and Erasmus University in The Netherlands (and reported by Reuters). The team looked at possible scenarios involving the release (out-gassing) of so much methane — whether a steady release over a decade, or, several lower and slower releases* — and assumed that the rate of annual global temperature increase continues at its current pace.

In each scenario, physical changes in the Arctic stemming from the large out-gassing of methane gas led to “steep” economic costs. These staggering costs will be due mainly to losses from flooding, drought, and other disasters (the “mean global climate impacts”).

And that’s just the methane clathrate, or hydrate, gas (CH4) trapped in ice under the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf; there are other vast areas and amounts of trapped methane, buried under frozen seafloors, throughout the Arctic region. And then there’s the potential carbon “bomb” (of CO2 and CH4) from bacterial decomposition of plant matter in thawing permafrost soil.

At more than twenty times the heat trapping capacity of CO2, a large quantity of methane gas (CH4), though shorter-lived in the atmosphere, can trigger a series of impacts that could have devastating, perhaps irreversible, consequences on the Earth’s climate, all centered on a warming Arctic. And all of these impacts translate into major damage to the world’s economy.

“The global impact of a warming Arctic is an economic time-bomb,” said Gail Whiteman, an author of the report and professor of sustainability, management and climate change at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

The researchers estimate the cost to be even greater than this if one factors into the equation the effects of ocean acidification (collapse of reefs, fish stocks). On the other hand, the impact could be considerably lessened (never eliminated) to less than $40 trillion if we take serious climate mitigation steps, like drastically cutting emissions.

Who Bears The Burden?

Though this cost is the result of emission from the developed world (primarily), and more recently the hyper-developing world (like China, India, and Brazil), up to 80% of this cost will be born by developing world countries, according to the report

These less developed (“poor”) economies will be forced to spend (and borrow against) their national treasuries to mitigate, restore and/or repair damage to agriculture, forest and ocean ecosystems, and habitable land. There will be additional massive costs due to disease (made worse by climate change impacts), climate refugees and water/food insecurities.

The report highlights a growing, global issue of deep concern: this great inequality of responsibility verses impact is prompting many to assert a principle of Climate Fairness or Climate Justice.

What’s The Risk And the Reality?

A field study from 2010 (Sharkova et al) of the out-gassing of methane gas from the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf showed that, while there are several super-saturated methane “hot spots” in the water column, and the sea-floor appears to be perforated in large areas, so far, the ocean-air coupling and mixing of gases (CH4, CO2, etc.) in this region appears to be stable; there is yet no net increase in atmospheric methane in this region (note: not all dissolved methane gets released back into the air, depends too on the temperature of the water and the atmospheric pressure above the sea).

However, an increase in sea-floor temperature could accelerate the thawing of the hydrate and thus the rate and volume of methane gas release, and this could “speed up sea-ice retreat, reduce the reflection of solar energy and accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet,” according to the paper.

According to the report, this event would likely speed up the date at which the global mean temperature would hit 2° Celsius (i.e., sometime in the next 15 to 35 years if we choose to do nothing about GHG emissions), but if we choose to reduce emissions globally (but by how much is not certain), this date could be pushed back to 2040 — and we would still only have a 50% chance of keeping things cooler than 2°C until century’s end.

While some climatologists cite a 3°C increase limit (for the century) as being the “breaking point” for permanent (and irreversible) global climate change, others are more conservative, and use the 2°C mean global temperature increase as the critical threshold. Due to inherent variations in local conditions, estimating when temperature changes will happen (assuming we do nothing to curb current rates of GHG emissions) is a matter of calculating probabilities based upon known factors and giving time ranges over which certain changes could occur. This study only uses methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf sea floor, and global mean temperature rate, as its climate inputs.

However, the Reuters (see link below) article references a recent study by the International Energy Agency warning that at current increasing emission rates, we are on track to a 3.6°C – 5.3°C increase by century’s end.

Given this last estimate, it may very well mean that we will see the results of our global experiment with climate warming within many of our lifetimes. We may get the answer to the question of “What would happen if…?” sooner than we might hope.

*(Note: it is not clear at this date if the researchers considered/modeled the effects of a so-called methane “burps” — a rapid and massive releases of methane)

Material for this post came from the Reuters news release (via The Huffington Post): ‘Arctic Methane Release Due To Climate Change Could Cost Global Economy $60 Trillion, Study Reports‘ by Nina Chestney

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