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Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor
sciencehabit writes Researchers have discovered 570 plumes of methane percolating up from the sea floor off the eastern coast of the United States, a surprisingly high number of seeps in a relatively quiescent part of the ocean. The seeps suggest that methane's contribution to climate change has been underestimated in some models. And because most of the seeps lie at depths where small changes in temperature could be releasing the methane, it is possible that climate change itself could be playing a role in turning some of them on.
Is this part of the "man made" global warming thing?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That methane dissolves into the water long before it reaches the surface and re-emerges, I would be surprised if even a small percentage of it make it to the atmosphere because bacteria would consume the dissolved methane before it can reach the surface. Even in the atmosphere where there is very little life the methane only lasts a couple decades, but in the ocean where it's teaming with life I doubt very little of it makes it to the surface.
A lot of people discuss this notion, and it's only rarely contextualized in terms of what's actually happening.
Methane is big. A huge greenhouse gas. It knocks the socks of carbon in all ways except that there's not that much of it(yet). It also doesn't "clean up" nearly as nicely after a couple of centuries of forest expansion/ocean calcification.
And a lot of evidence suggests warmer temperatures are going to release more big-time. It's scary because: we can't just stop producing it in bulk like CO2 the heat will release a lot of it naturally(and keep warming things). It's scary because: we have no (economically plausible) geo-engineering solutions like we might have to CO2. It's scary because geologic history suggests the runaways in the past last on the order of thousands of years.
We really really really don't want this.
Nature usually creates negative feedback loops that contribute to equilibrium. The textbook one is if there is population growth in a prey species, the population of predators will increase to check that growth.
In this case we have a positive feedback loop. Increases in temperature will cause more methane hydrate to melt, which causes an increase in temperature.
This is a very not good situation that does not have easy solutions.
Could this be related to the pacific light seen by pilots while flying across the pacific? http://www.pbase.com/flying_du...
Didn't folks predict this like decades ago as a normal part of global warming? There's a lot of methane frozen on the sea floor that, with a slight change of temperature, will go back into gas. Folks were talking about mining methane hydrates at one point.... ...I feel old... ..Get off my lawn...
fish farts are making the earth hotter
From TFA, they discovered these plumes and this is the first time they have mapped this much area.
That means they have a starting point, one datum for how much methane is coming from these areas. That's nice. Now keep measuring on an annual basis.
If you think this means "global warming", it's not even as bad as measuring the temperature in the morning and mid-day to prove your point. It's as bad as measuring the temperature ad mid-day and extrapolating through that one point.
Regardless if it is all naturally occurring seepage or if man contributed to exacerbating seepage, we must still be taxed to pay not just carbon credits but methane credits.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
The seeps discovered in the Atlantic may be just natural, but with evidence of warming-based methane release in the Arctic and that the tailing off of warming in the last decade or two is being caused by the uptake of heat into the ocean, it's not out of the realm of possibility that this is the leading edge of something different. The operative question is, how much does the water column have to warm up to start clathrates melting in shallower waters? Given that methane is 20 times more efficient than CO2 at trapping heat, and that the total amount of methane locked up in ices is pretty freaking huge, it seems like someone should really figure this out.
Hasn't this been a known issue since the investigation regarding all of the airplane disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle? The methane threw off their altimeters by making it look like they were climbing at a high rate, causing them to dive right into the ocean. Also, boats having been in the wrong places at the wrong time have had methane "bubbles" from the sea floor cause the water underneath them to get extremely "thin", which causes the boats to sink.
Methane offgassing from submarine frozen methane (clathrates) has been well known for a long time. The freezing point of methane is a function of both pressure and temperature. As pressure is increased, the freezing point also increases. As sea level rises, pressure at the seabed increases and offgassing decreases. So if seabed methane is a contributor to global warming, then it will cause sea level rise, thus limiting itself. Conversely, if the climate cools, then icecaps expand and sea level drops, causing increased methane offgassing. This a self-limiting scenario, not a positive feedback loop.
Who can we sue for this? We're Americans, after all.
in this chair.
Those who believe we should end EVERYTHING because it's not perfect generally need medication or serious counseling. I mean it. Get some help, dude.
Table-ized A.I.
No, you ignorant fool, it does "clean up" nicely. The half-life of methane in the atmosphere is estimated to be 7 years. Methane emissions are a significant problem. However, methane releases will largely fix themselves over a 50 year period. The problem is that global warming might set of a positive feedback loop of release of methane trapped in the arctic permafrost, causing a rapid rise in global temperatures.
For those who care about science, Methane (CH4) is much lighter than Nitrogen (N2) and Oxygen(O2), and is volatile. It will slowly oxidize in the atmosphere, and tends to migrate up where there's more UV to encourage oxidation. A major release will be very bad for current climates because the rate of temperature rise will be huge, and the methane will decompose to CO2 which will have a significant long-term impact on the environment.
I have to agree with conservatives on one point: we don't know enough about Earth to make any reliable predictions.
Maybe the Earth will somehow balance itself and the warming will level out. Or trigger positive feedback mechanisms that accelerate warming and/or change. We just don't know.
However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about altering the "normal" path. It's pretty clear we are gambling big-time via pollution and green-house gasses.
Some of the more thoughtful conservatives say we should go ahead and gamble: humans will adapt around change. Even though I disagree, that's a valid position, for science can't tell us WHAT to do, only what will happen (at best). If simulations show that juggling rakes has a 20% of putting your eye out, and you agree with the odds, and do juggle rakes and your eye gets put out, and you accept the consequences, at least you are honest. Blind, foolish, but honest.
I guess some conservatives want to be proverbial lion trainers. The problem is that we all have to be in the same cage with them.
Table-ized A.I.
This is the first time they looked at a wide region.
They saw more methane bubbles than they guessed they might see.
They don't think anything is new except that they now know that there is yet another thing that they need to understand before having a working climate model.
Whoever wrote the summary is misrepresenting TFA.
Emitting methane as life forms do? You judge http://www.tokenrock.com/expla...
Blimey, in about 1998 this old guy from the Jo-Hos knocked on my door and presented me with some literature including something about how "all scientists" believe in god, especially the Great Fred Hoyle, so God must be there.
It also said that "scientists are telling us" about this vast, untapped wealth of hydrocarbon deposits on the deep sea beds in the form of these methane thingy-ma-bobs, so God had provided us with all the energy we'll ever need. He's a great guy that God dude! He didn't mention atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and global warning, though.
So, the Jo-Hos are right. God is really there! And we will never run out of energy!
Stick Men
Methane leaks in the Atlantic ocean floor, I blame Al Gore. This is clearly due to Global Warming.
So this is clearly an environmental story. Methane is Bad News for the Earth. But it's also useful as a fuel; it's the primary component of natural gas. So why don't we have energy companies go out to where the leaks are and harvest them? I know that deep ocean extraction isn't exactly easy, but there must be at least some money to be made. And hey, it would just so happen to prevent this deadly greenhouse gas from contributing to climate change (as much, as it would still contribute some if burned for fuel) and ocean acidification.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
..Chipotle.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Or to put it another way:
We still have no fucking clue how the planet works as a whole, so this new thing is scary.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I heard they've also discovered numerous methane leaks on Uranus too.
The average depth of the ocean is ~4000 meters. Sea level has gone up, what, a few inches? Fuck. For argument sake call it 2 whole meters. According to Wolfram, The water column pressure for 4000m is 392.266 bars. the water column pressure for 4002m is 392.462. Are you saying that two-tenths of a bar is going to make an appreciable difference in the freezing point of methane? Same goes for temperature. The mass of the oceans is ~1.33 x 10^21 kg. The mass of the earth's atmosphere is 5.14 x 10^18. Meaning that even a 2C increase in atmospheric temperature that ALL went into the ocean, the ocean will warm up a whole .002 degrees C. If two-thousandths of a degree. This is just ridiculous to think that either of these things make a lick of difference to how much methane the bottom of the ocean expels.
from an article just the other day about the scientific community not knowing that a lot of heat is is going into the deep ocean currents when they could not explain why the atmosphere is not hotter , i wonder if there is a "tin foil hat" for too much methane
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For the sake of the argument, let's skip past whether global warming is happening, and what is causing it. We'll just assume that it is so. So then...
Why is global warming a bad thing? Maybe it is a good thing. Maybe we should encourage it, not fight it. Are we just afraid of the unknown?
Possible reasons it could be good:
Is it possible that the earth is currently in a ruined, wasteland state, and global warming is really a correcting factor that will improve the environment? Maybe eliminates hunger and overpopulation as a concern?
Yeah, like that has never happened before.
Lets have a Methane Exchange and destroy peoples lives to fix it with Methane Tax Exchanges.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
The world is in the bathtub farting under the water and watching the bubbles.
Like when we were kids.
There has been so much nonsense spewed on this myth. If the earth has been spewing methane all along, then man couldn't have caused it.
So since we discoverd the ocean is fucking leaky, its our faultHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Oh, you mean "CATASTROPHIC man-made global warming", but were just too shy to say...
www.climatedepot.com
Really? ...
No it isn't the vents that were just discovered that contribute to climate change?
No no
It is climate change that caused the vents ?!
Can you spin things more blatantly?
In any case, yet more evidence of how little we know about our planet.
And more reason not to screw with it.
Adapt and accept that things change for reasons we cannot yet comprehend.
Laying blame and grandiose geoengineering 'cures', are the stuff of politicians and profiteers.
Don't be fooled.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Methane is the thrid most important greenhouse gas after water and carbon dioxide, currently contributing about 10% of the effect. There are tremendous amounts of methane frozen in permafrost and continental shelf hydrates. The fear is ocean warming cold melt more hyrdrates, release more methane and make it still warmer.
After fracked shale gas runs out in the 2030s, there is a vast amount of methane in mehane-ice in the seafloor. Currently it is too pressurized to easily produce (e.g. Mocondo accident). But when other fossil fuels runlow, industry will try to mine it.
releases far more methane, directly into the atmosphere, without miles of ocean to absorb it.
But the US needs a million fracking wells.
Because it's our Christian Psycho duty to end the world.
So I presume you are not a big fan of mammals but instead reptiles. They were the dominate species after all during that period.
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Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
All the methane escaping from every single vent in the oceans, comes nowhere near the highly concentrated methane escaping from cows and pigs. A sealed cattle barn is a severe explosion hazard, for instance.. and the methane from cow poop and flatulence, here where I live, is sometimes so strong I can hardly breath. Coonsidering the poop, gas, Kuru, and poor quality protein that red meat (a.k.a. beef) contains, I'd be happy is all the steers except those needed to keep the cows happy, and half of all the cows, weren't returned by the aliens that keep abducting them. I don't thinbk cars are as bad offenders as cows. Remember that methane is 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2.
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