Slashdot Mirror
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."
So this is how the world ends. Not with a bang but with a flatulent belch of ancient methane.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Luckily the methane emissions won't cause further warming. Hurray!
"The right to do something does not mean doing it is right." William Safire
Could this be used to drive electric plants? Is it recoverable? Anyone have a match? A really fucking big match?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
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.
We're advising all our customers to put everything they have into canned foods and shotguns.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Except that these are _recent_ findings. The outer core of the Earth has been molten for a long, long time. (At least, heck, 6000 years or so)
Um.. what? You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right? Or are you suggesting that somehow the crust is thinning beneath the methane deposits and warming them, but at the same time there are no seismic events tied to this phenomenon, even though it is happening across a very large geographic region? Or are you just talking out your ass?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
"I fart in your general direction!"
Love,
Siberian Shelf
Meh, you guys were funnier when you were being eaten by lions.
Methane has an atmospheric half-life of about 7 years (turning into CO2 and water), fairly independent of any biosphere.
CO2 has an atmospheric half-life of somewhere between 50-100 years, with some nasty feedback (more CO2 = higher temperatures = longer half life).
So, per-volume, methane is worse, but what's gonna get us is the CO2 because that hangs around much longer and has the positive feedback.
Pun certainly not intended, I'm sure.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor over the Siberian continental shelf.
In other news, the Russian Navy announced a successful test of a submarine powered by a brand new propulsion system. The exact details are still classified, but sources claim there is a mysterious link between it and a new food and beverage contract awarded by the Navy to Taco Bell
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Works like this - first the permafrost/ice melts...this reduces/removes the main barrier that keeps the underlying water and sea floor at one relative temperature. Once that barrier is removed, the water and sea floor heat up, with the result being an increase in the release of otherwise captured methane.
It is actually a very simple, process...one that we could perhaps do without, of course, but hey - the times they are a change'n and Mother Nature is making the calls.
If you mean that the oceans and atmosphere have been cooling in the Northern hemisphere in the past few months, yes. It is Fall. If you mean they've been cooling for the part several years, no. Global temperatures are still increasing. It's called "global warming." It's why there have been record low amounts of Arctic ice the past several years.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Actually, there are very few lightning events over the ocean compared to over terra firma, but they do occur, especially when you are trying to save important objects.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
> You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right?
Normally..... unless there is volcanic activity in the region like is currently going on around the north pole.
Study finds Arctic seabed afire with lava-spewing volcanoes:canada.com
But oh no, it just has to be global warming. It get shot somewhere: Global Warming! Record cold? That's Global Climate Change for ya. Floods? Drought? Plague of Locusts? Manmade Global Warming every time and the ONLY solution is the destruction of Western Civilization, replacing the values of the Enlightenment with Socialism and Planning.
Democrat delenda est
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
In Soviet Russia... the outdoors farts on you.
-David
Actually humanity dies from lighting the fart. Consider what Professor Gregory Ryskin wrote:
"The consequences of a methane-driven oceanic eruption for marine and terrestrial life are likely to be catastrophic. Figuratively speaking, the erupting region "boils over," ejecting a large amount of methane and other gases (e.g., CO2, H2S) into the atmosphere, and flooding large areas of land. Whereas pure methane is lighter than air, methane loaded with water droplets is much heavier, and thus spreads over the land, mixing with air in the process (and losing water as rain). The air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%; as such mixtures form in different locations near the ground and are ignited by lightning, explosions and conflagrations destroy most of the terrestrial life, and also produce great amounts of smoke and of carbon dioxide. Firestorms carry smoke and dust into the upper atmosphere, where they may remain for several years; the resulting darkness and global cooling may provide an additional kill mechanism. Conversely, carbon dioxide and the remaining methane create the greenhouse effect, which may lead to global warming. The outcome of the competition between the cooling and the warming tendencies is difficult to predict."
You can see there's no real need to worry about global warming. If the "explosions and conflagrations" don't get you, the smoke and dust might cause global cooling. Or global warming, it could go either way. But the methane explosions are predicted to be the biggest killer.
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...
I did! I just stuck it in the fridge so I could share with friends and family later. Enjoy!
"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.
Evolution has hardwired it into our brains: Killing fellow tribe members is bad for survival, ergo it will be perceived as immoral.
The current Rehabilitating Mr Wiggles answers this question: because it's kind of a dick thing to do.
Seriously though, if everyone went around killing each other whenever it suited them, you'd always be in danger of being killed yourself. There's very compelling reasons for a society to collectively agree that killing each other is a bad thing and that it won't be tolerated. No need for a fear of divine retribution.
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
The Hebrew verb originally used is generally considered to be interpreted by "murder" (too lazy to look up a reference, but I've heard it a number of times) - so it is thou shalt not murder. No large scale social framework could function for a long period of time without the ability to kill. I guess you could point to certain eastern religions like the Jains as having functioned, but they generally get their asses handed to them throughout history.
It's the difference in interpretation of exactly what "murder" is that determines the destructive societies from the constructive ones.
Funny thing is that Islam has an even stronger moral code against killing innocents than Christianity, yet they are the ones which have the least problem with targeting purely civilian populations.
Perhaps this goes to show that it's not necessarily what your holy book says literally, it depends on who your contemporary religious leaders are.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
It does touch on a point I've wondered about: religion seems to be the foundation of much of our societal moral code. Without the framework of religion, why is it "wrong" to kill someone?
Reminds me of thing Nietzsche wrote about the madman in the market place, "now that we've killed God, which way is up or down?" This is known as the question of 'grounding' and is the subject of much debate in the study of ethics.
Religion does provide one ground. It is perhaps most effective because it relies on blind obedience and discourages thinking. "What is wrong with murder ... easy ... God says don't do it." But other grounds, more suitable to thinking creatures do exist. Kant's categorical imperative, for example, "Want to live in a world where every person tries kill every other? No? Then don't kill."
Putting aside the question of grounding, it is my contention that a Christian cannot appreciate the true gravity of murder in the way an atheist can. Christians have convinced themselves in the existence of an afterlife. For them killing a human is merely removing them from this world (the less important world). An atheist on the other hand realises that killing a human being is the snuffing out of an individual and unique consciousness for all time. A consciousness which longs for existence, just as much as our own does. It is this moral consideration which stops the atheist killing. Theists instead act only in obedience to their God motivated by ultimate personal reward. You might go even further and state that whereas atheists can truly be moral creatures, theists can't.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
>>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
"It's called thermal inertia"
No, it's really not, at least in this case.
From the article:
"It is likely that methane emissions off Svalbard have been continuous for about 15,000 years - since the last ice age - but as yet no one knows whether recent climactic shifts in the Arctic have begun to accelerate them to a point where they could in themselves exacerbate climate change, he said."
In other words, no, anthropogenic climate change doesn't seem to have a real link to this.
The "missing methane" problem is still there. Despite this (and other) clathrate/methane releases, actual MEASURED methane in the atmosphere isn't anywhere near high enough to make up the difference in the IPCC's predictions.
Clathrates at this sort of depth are more pressure-sensitive than temperature-sensitive, and according to the IPCC and others, the oceans are supposed to get deeper as the ice caps melt. So they have to choose one or the other scenario - they can't have both.
And the rate at which change is happening is unprecedented.
I'm not really arguing with you, but 'unprecedented' is relative what slice of time you look at and who's graph you pay attention to.
If you look at temperature records provided by proxy sources (ice cores, tree rings etc...) over hundreds of thousands of years - on many of the graphs you'll find - it's pretty clear that the last millennium has been nothing unusual.
If you look short term though, (past few hundred years) it looks pretty damning.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Methane currently makes up 0.00017% of the atmosphere. That means these very localised 100x concentrations have 0.017% methane. This would mean if this concentration was worldwide, it would be approx 10x worse than the CO2 in the atmosphere. EVERYBODY PANIC.
However these are concentrations close to the surface over a very localised area. Permafrost makes up 25% of the earths surface, so that means on average this methane will now be of concentration to be 2.5x worse than the CO2. Still pretty bad.
However there are other factors, not mentioned. It's safe to assume 100x was the worst they found, not the typical (afterall makes for the best headlines), what was the average reading? How far above the surface was the reading taken? How does the concentration diffuse as you take readings higher up?
The article also neglects to mention that Methane breaks down after about 12 years (compared to 50-100 for Co2) and there's plenty of bacteria that break it down. Whilst this may cause levels to spike, once the vents in the exposed area are spent, it won't take long for levels to stabalise again.
So all the "Smoking can kill you" warnings should now be postfixed with "Instantly".
"Myself I like facts to support my arguments, and I'm also a strong believer in falsifiability in science."
Strange then that we haven't seen any from you in this thread, but since you have now named a source I will happily be moded flaimbait again by repating my original call of bullshit to your "facts". I like this random site by an amature astronomer, it mentions Svensmark, but I encourage readers to do their own debunking like that scientific amature has done, what follows is my own summary...
Svensmark for those who don't know him belives cosmic rays influence cloud cover, and this explains...well, everything! The glaring problem with this idea, (that incidently demands a "do nothing because nothing can be done" response), is that the 3-4 decade long data set that measures cosmic rays shows no statisticaly significant trend whatsoever. Extra points for those who can find the raw cosmic data sets, AFAIK they are available 'somewhere' on the net. Svensmark now claims that the current cooling is because of a change in cosmic rays, problem is we are not currently cooling and no change in cosmic rays has been detected. Now some people will confuse cosmic rays with sunspots and this is encouraged by Svensmark, problem is that if it's "sunspots" then why doesn't the climate have an 11yr cycle like sunspot activity does? - IMHO and as a holder of a science degree Svensmark's "theory's" are like swiss cheese and his motivations for demanding inactivity are embarrasingly obvious.
For those who like Occam's razor here's how to shave Svensmark: Clouds are the most uncertain part of climate models, the effect of cosmic rays on clouds is even less certain and produces no detectable forcing outside the current margin of error for clouds.
Here is a similarly terse application of Occam by the UK's Met office. It's the only myth they can be bothered debunking in their "toolkit", the rest of their toolkit panel contains "facts" that you might want to look at, you know - to support your future arguments.
BTW: A genuine attempt on your behalf to debunk those "facts" will also inform your "strong beliefs" as only genuine skepticisim can.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.