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Strong Methane Emissions On the Siberian Shelf
rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."
By a factor of 27 or so. That's why effluent processing plants will burn the stuff off (apart from the fact it gives them some power).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
People have been expecting these Methane clouds:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3U0vEk53bVXHIcGUqqO64rvDAUg
"Melting of methane ice unleashed runaway global warming some 635 million years ago, according to a study released Wednesday that has implications for today's climate-change crisis.
Release of the potent greenhouse-gas, at first in small amounts and then in massive volumes, brought a sudden end to the planet's longest Ice Age, its authors believe.
During the "Snowball Earth" era, Earth froze over completely, with glaciers that crept down into the tropics and possibly even reached the equator."
The Hives: Hate to Say I told You So:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsm2hSKkH7E
Normally the relative greenhouse strength is corrected for a 100-year period (ie the shorter half life is already accounted for in the 27x number; I haven't checked the number, though).
It sounds like methane does have a feedback loop -- methane causes warming releases more methane. Sure, there's a limited amount down there, but it's a rather large amount. We'd really rather it stay put.
Not saying the CO2 isn't bad... but there's no shortage of other effects to go with it.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2088
"The release of massive clouds of methane from icy hydrates buried under shallow ocean floors is the leading suspect for the most devastating extinction in the fossil record, according to a new analysis.
Methane best matches the unusual carbon-isotope fingerprints found at the scene of the crime, says Robert Berner of Yale University in Connecticut, US, though it cannot explain atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time.
Berner says: "It's possible that you could have a combination" of effects causing the mass extinction that ended the Permian period, 250 million years ago. The event wiped out the vast majority of marine species and left Europe a near-desert."
Oh shi...
"we aren't currently getting the warmest temperatures of this century, so why has it just started now??"
It's called thermal inertia, however your question is still interesting.
I have followed the IPCC for many years and one of their biggest failures in accuracy has been what is sometimes called the "missing methane" problem. The 1997 IPPC report (and those that followed) predicted methane would keep rising but the follow up observations have (until now) shown the trend to be flat for the last 10yrs or so.
In otherwords the question is not why has it started rising again but rather why did it take an unexpected break for a decade?
BTW: I find it odd that the psuedo-skeptics have not lept on the missing methane issue as a way to discredit the IPCC, surely that would be more plausable than denying the North Pole is disintergrating, but that's politics for ya!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The mass extinction at the end of the Permian has been attributed to numerous causes. One of the prime theories also has to do with rapid release of methyl hydrates from ocean-floor clathrates.
The theory goes along the lines that oceanic overturning (exchange of bottom waters with surface waters) was limited in the Permian (even after the end of the Permo-Carboniferous glacial period), allowing accumulation of clathrates in oceanic sediments. However, overturning increased in the late Permian due to changes in oceanic circulation. This is conjectured to have caused massive releases of methane from methyl hydrates, with consequent large rapid swings in climate on land and in sea.
The evidence is not conclusive, but is strong. Most of it is derived from studies of marine fossils and isotope ratios. Discussion of the evidence and assessment of this and other theories for the extinction may be found, for example, in:
D.H. Erwin, The Great Paleozoic Crisis: Life and Death in the Permian, Columbia University Press, New York NY, 1993. ISBN:0715301306.
Of course, oceanic overturning is much stronger in the modern world, with deepwater formation especially strong in the North Atlantic and at the margins of Antarctica. This suggests the potential for clathrate release is probably rather less than it was in the late Permian, but not necessarily negligible. Another conjectured effect of global warming is slowing of oceanic overturning
The degree to which evidence supports these conjectures regarding ancient disruptions to climate is open to interpretation.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
>>BTW: I find it odd that the psuedo-skeptics have not lept on the missing methane issue as a way to discredit the IPCC
I think the IPCC has done a good enough job discrediting themselves, with their predictions historically overstating global warming:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001317verification_of_1990.html
Where do you people come up with this sort of nonsense?
Here's the projected relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature increase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPCC_AR4_WGIII_GHG_concentration_stabilization_levels.png
Notice how it keeps going up?
That's assuming we don't hit some kind of positive feedback loop.
> On the bright side, we might get to test this theory.
Wait. We might have the world's biggest fart on our hands, and your "bright side" is that we get to "test" (smell?) it? 0_o
Methane is odorless. Farts only contain up to about 10% methane. And before you ask: the methane produced by ruminant livestock usually is exhaled or "burped", not farted. Any more Urban Warming Myths?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yes, we are in an "ice age", technically speaking. That's geologically defined to be when there are still large continental ice sheets in both hemispheres, such as Greenland and Antarctica. What we are in right now is an "interglacial" part of an ice age, a period when the ice sheets are not as large as they are in a full glacial period. See Wikipedia.
That you use the word "bleating" does not make them wrong. The Tragedy of the Commons is very real, and current economic systems are built around abuse of critical global commons--the atmosphere, topsoil, the sea, surface water, ... Any system that does not protect global commons will, quite literally, lead to the destruction of the world. You're seeing it now. Global warming is merely the fashionable cause du jour; very real, but there are others just as deadly.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."