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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.
This is something where engineers know things that climate scientists apparently don't.
If the positive feedback was so strong, that the system was unstable (right half plane as it were) the earth would already be Venus. Doesn't stop climatologists talking out of the butts and proposing just such strong positive feed-backs.
TL;DR; Don't ask a climatologist a control systems question and expect a reasonable answer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
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.
Nobody in climatology has said earth will end up like Venus. Zip Zilch. You won't find a climatologist saying that. Anywhere. If you can take the bullshit liars have said about this debate out of your mental image of the debate, you might end up eventually realizing exactly how you got the the crazy spot you're in.
You are looking at the wrong end point. Yes, the planet will survive. Very few people are worried about that. You have to be a real doomer / gloomer to stay away worrying about Venus level runaway heating. But you can have a number of other scenarios that can be considered less than pleasant:
- Intensifying the sixth major extinction event. The other five really changed the planet around, much to Randall's comfort. The planet will survive this next one but since apex predators tend to be significantly effected and humans are the ultimate apex predator, this might be considered a Bad Idea.
- Increasing temperatures increase arable land (generally). The problem is that of time frames. It may take hundreds of thousands of years to convert warm swamps into farmland. Most Americans can't handle fasting between gas stations, much less millennia
- Increasing resource stresses - you may have noticed that humans are having a bit of a problem creating stable geopolitical structures during geologically and biologically stable periods. Add big swings in weather / climate, no matter which way, creates more stressors and more reasons for us not to get along with each other.
- Which segues into another bit of bad timing. Changing climate while simultaneously cranking human population to over seven billion. For a number of important resources it can be argued that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. The degree and speed of upcoming climate events may well overcome our ability to feed, water and house all of us.
So, it's not even a big issue which way the climate goes. The only way climate can mitigate the other problems is if it stays relatively constant. That doesn't appear to be happening.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!