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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."
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."
"I fart in your general direction!"
Love,
Siberian Shelf
Meh, you guys were funnier when you were being eaten by lions.
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.
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.
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
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.