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falenas108 comments on LINK: Melting Arctic is releasing millions of tons of methane - Less Wrong Discussion
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It is very possible that this would make it worse than anticipated, but a quick reminder to anyone afraid ice melting will create a positive feedback loop:
The main thing that takes CO2 out of the atmosphere is the ocean. Adding more water will mean more CO2 can dissolve. This is the main reason why in the past, the climate always returned from getting too hot or too cold.
About 2.5% of the planet's water is freshwater; about 99% of that freshwater is ice, so considering only freshwater ice, if it all melts we'd have about 2.5% more CO2 capacity. There's also such a thing as seawater ice (see: North pole), but it doesn't add that much volume to the system, overall.
Any expansion in CO2 capacity due to melting ice will be completely dwarfed by other effects.
Without knowing how much CO2 is stored in the sea it's difficult to say whether 2.5% more CO2 capacity is much or very little.
I think the key question is: How much methane/CO2 is a liter of water in the state of ice storing and how much is the average liter of sea water storing.