'Fountains' of methane 1,000m across erupt from Arctic ice

[Old Rocks]

Can we increase the hydroxyl in the atmosphere?

That and other remedies are discussed at the site given for the posts.

All most all of the scientists that deal with the Arctic are very serious about the September observations of the methane emissions in the East Arctic Shelf. This was not expected at all.

The first expeditions checking the clathrates and other issues in the Arctic Ocean was done in 2003. They found elevated CH4 in the ocean, and elevated amounts in the atmosphere above the ocean. These increased until in 2010, they observed what they called 'torches', streams of methane bubbles breaking surface and going directly into the atmosphere. Some of these were tens of meters across.

But in Sept of 2011, in an area only 100 miles by 100 miles, they found over 100 'torches', some over a kilometer in diameter. According to Dr. Semiletov, there were probably tens of thousands of these 'torches' spread over the whole of the shelf. Most of the shelf is 50 meters or less in depth. And the temperatures of the water has been increasing every year, and the increased storms are mixing it more than in the past.

Simply, worst case scenerios were calling for this to happen toward the end of the century, not this year. The climate scientists are wrong again, they were far too optimistic about the time we had left to deal with the feedbacks in the Arctic.

Maybe we should stop whining about it and try to capture it, or would you complain about that too?

That is addressed on the site. But it will be at a cost comparable to that of WW3. In other words, no profit, just using as much as we can to defray the expenses a little.

 

[Intense]

Can we increase the hydroxyl in the atmosphere?

Should the governments actually decide to address the issue, people in your business will be in demand. For, somehow, that leaking methane needs be prevented from exiting into the atmosphere unburned. And, should we decide to do this, then we should at least get something back for the effort.

However, given we are talking about costs on the order of WW3, it is not going to happen. And, since governments are not going to do anything, we, as individuals, will have to deal with the consequences of runaway warming on an individual level.

I'd take the problem to Oil and Gas Exploration, not Government directly.

 

[Old Rocks]

WHO ARE WE?

In the preparation of the report contained in these pages, scientific and/or engineering advice was sought and obtained from the following people:
*
Ken Caldeira, Professor of Environmental Earth System Sciences, Stanford University, US;
Ed Dlugokencky, PhD, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US;
Michel Halbwachs, Professor of Physics, University of Savoie, France;
Veli Albert Kallio, Chairman of the Frozen Isthmuses’ Protection Campaign, UK/Finland;
Jon Egill Kristjansson, Professor of meteorology, Oslo University, Norway;
Mike MacCracken, PhD, Climate Institute, Washington, US;
David Mitchell, Associate Research Professor, Division of Atmospheric Sciences, DRI, US;
Brian Orr, PhD, former Principle Scientific Officer, Department of the Environment
Stephen Salter, Emeritus Professor of Engineering at Edinburgh University, UK;
Natalia Shakhova, PhD, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska, US;
Igor Semiletov, PhD, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska, US;
Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics, Cambridge University, UK;
Leonid Yurganov, PhD, Dept of Physics, University of Toronto, Canada.

Also consulted concerning the use of diatoms for water oxygenation were M V Bhaskar and Richard Harvey, the latter attending the workshop on Saturday only, see below. Furthermore Emily Lewis-Brown was consulted on ecosystem issues, and Andrew Lockley on methane air capture.


At the end of the Arctic Methane Workshop held in Chiswick, London W4, on the weekend of 15-16 October, 2011, a position statement on the Arctic methane emergency, proposed by the chairman, John Nissen, was agreed by the following:

Graham Ennis Doly Garcia Jon Hughes Veli Albert Kallio Graham Knight Dr Brian Orr Professor Stephen Salter Professor Peter Wadhams

Working group team producing the report, distributed as a brochure at the American Geopysical Union conference December 2011:

Sam Carana, writer blogger and editor at geo-engineering.blogspot.com
Peter D Carter, MD, US Canada;
Anthony Cook, science educator, International School of Ulaanbaatar,MN
Graham Ennis, former aerospace engineer, UK;
Gary Houser, documentary producer, US;
Jon Hughes, ex-editor Ecologist, UK;
John Nissen, MA, chairman of the working group, UK.

See Home

 

[Old Rocks]

Can we increase the hydroxyl in the atmosphere?

Should the governments actually decide to address the issue, people in your business will be in demand. For, somehow, that leaking methane needs be prevented from exiting into the atmosphere unburned. And, should we decide to do this, then we should at least get something back for the effort.

However, given we are talking about costs on the order of WW3, it is not going to happen. And, since governments are not going to do anything, we, as individuals, will have to deal with the consequences of runaway warming on an individual level.

I'd take the problem to Oil and Gas Exploration, not Government directly.

They have neither the resources or finances for the scale the effort would have to be done on.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

"The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers. There is a large amount of variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice (sea ice, glacial ice, or snow) year-round, and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface. Average January temperatures range from about −40 to 0 °C (−40 to +32 °F), and winter temperatures can drop below −50 °C (−58 °F) over large parts of the Arctic. Average July temperatures range from about −10 to +10 °C (14 to 50 °F), with some land areas occasionally exceeding 30 °C (86 °F) in summer."

OR, call wiki and tell them to add a sentence of two on how our SUVs are melting the Arctic Ocean floor.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia.

That's excellent news. It shows that any methane release is unrelated to man made CO2.

 

[bripat9643]

Doesn't need to melt, as methane hydrates aren't really frozen. A lowering of pressure can cause methane release, which is what would happen, if the upper layers warmed and the water became less dense.

Uh . . . . That might lower the pressure by 0.00001%. The water at the surface is 32 degrees year round.

Just about a dumb fuck, aren't you, Pattycake.

Arctic Report Card - Ocean - Proshutinsky, et al.

Ocean temperature and salinity
Upper-ocean temperature

Upper ocean temperature anomalies in summer 2010 (Fig. SIO7 were comparable to those in 2009 (not shown) but remained lower than the record set in 2007, with no significant inter-annual changes in summer warming since 2008. In August 2011, there is a wide area of anomalously warm SSTs (sea surface temperature) in the western Arctic Ocean (north of NW Canada, Alaska and eastern Siberia), although maximum values do not reach those seen in 2007 (Fig. SIO7). Much of the eastern Arctic Ocean (north of western Russia and Europe) is also anomalously warm, with the exception of Fram Strait. For more information about water temperatures in Fram Strait, and the adjacent Greenland and Norwegian seas, see the essay on Cetaceans and Pinnipeds.

Inter-annual variations in SST anomalies reflect differences in the pace of sea ice retreat (see the essay on Sea Ice), as well as changing advection of warm ocean currents from the south (Steele et al. 2011). In recent years, solar radiation has penetrated more easily into the upper ocean under thinning and retreating ice cover to create warm near-surface temperature maxima (Jackson et al., 2010). In the Canada Basin, this maximum has descended to depths around 30 m because of increased downwelling in the convergent Beaufort Gyre during recent strongly-anticyclonic years (Yang et al. 2009), while surface mixing is decreasing as stratification increases (Toole et al. 2010; McPhee et al. 2009). Outside of the Beaufort Gyre, the temperature maximum does not survive through the winter (Steele et al. 2010).

According to your paper, the maximum surface water temperature was 37 degrees in the year 2007. Furthermore, the deepest this warm water penetrated was 30 meters in a specific local:

In the Canada Basin, this maximum has descended to depths around 30 m because of increased downwelling in the convergent Beaufort Gyre during recent strongly-anticyclonic years

How much does the density of water change with a temperature change of 5 degrees? It hardly changes at all.

From Wikipedia:

Properties of water - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Temp (°C) Density (kg/m3)
-----------------------------------------
+4 999.9720
0 999.8395

So the change in density is less than 0.001 percent, and that is only down to 30 meters, at the most. The change in pressure would be too miniscule to even measure. The temperature at the bottom is still slightly less than 32 degrees.

The idea that lower pressure from warmer water due to global warming is causing methane hydrates to dissolve is simply too absurd for words.

What do you have to say about that, Dumbfuck?

 

[Old Rocks]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia.

That's excellent news. It shows that any methane release is unrelated to man made CO2.

Fucking dumb, Todd. The East Arctic Shelf has an average depth of about 50 meters. That is not deep ocean, in fact, at that depth a storm can mix surface water right down to the bottom.

 

[Old Rocks]

Uh . . . . That might lower the pressure by 0.00001%. The water at the surface is 32 degrees year round.

Just about a dumb fuck, aren't you, Pattycake.

Arctic Report Card - Ocean - Proshutinsky, et al.

Ocean temperature and salinity
Upper-ocean temperature

Upper ocean temperature anomalies in summer 2010 (Fig. SIO7 were comparable to those in 2009 (not shown) but remained lower than the record set in 2007, with no significant inter-annual changes in summer warming since 2008. In August 2011, there is a wide area of anomalously warm SSTs (sea surface temperature) in the western Arctic Ocean (north of NW Canada, Alaska and eastern Siberia), although maximum values do not reach those seen in 2007 (Fig. SIO7). Much of the eastern Arctic Ocean (north of western Russia and Europe) is also anomalously warm, with the exception of Fram Strait. For more information about water temperatures in Fram Strait, and the adjacent Greenland and Norwegian seas, see the essay on Cetaceans and Pinnipeds.

Inter-annual variations in SST anomalies reflect differences in the pace of sea ice retreat (see the essay on Sea Ice), as well as changing advection of warm ocean currents from the south (Steele et al. 2011). In recent years, solar radiation has penetrated more easily into the upper ocean under thinning and retreating ice cover to create warm near-surface temperature maxima (Jackson et al., 2010). In the Canada Basin, this maximum has descended to depths around 30 m because of increased downwelling in the convergent Beaufort Gyre during recent strongly-anticyclonic years (Yang et al. 2009), while surface mixing is decreasing as stratification increases (Toole et al. 2010; McPhee et al. 2009). Outside of the Beaufort Gyre, the temperature maximum does not survive through the winter (Steele et al. 2010).

According to your paper, the maximum surface water temperature was 37 degrees in the year 2007. Furthermore, the deepest this warm water penetrated was 30 meters in a specific local:

In the Canada Basin, this maximum has descended to depths around 30 m because of increased downwelling in the convergent Beaufort Gyre during recent strongly-anticyclonic years

How much does the density of water change with a temperature change of 5 degrees? It hardly changes at all.

From Wikipedia:

Properties of water - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Temp (°C) Density (kg/m3)
-----------------------------------------
+4 999.9720
0 999.8395

So the change in density is less than 0.001 percent, and that is only down to 30 meters, at the most. The change in pressure would be too miniscule to even measure. The temperature at the bottom is still slightly less than 32 degrees.

The idea that lower pressure from warmer water due to global warming is causing methane hydrates to dissolve is simply too absurd for words.

Now Pattycake, someone with a bit of intellect might read the article and learn something.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia.

That's excellent news. It shows that any methane release is unrelated to man made CO2.

Fucking dumb, Todd. The East Arctic Shelf has an average depth of about 50 meters. That is not deep ocean, in fact, at that depth a storm can mix surface water right down to the bottom.

That's great, we don't have to worry about the deep ocean for centuries.

 

[saveliberty]

Anyone wonder how we got over a mile of ice over 50m of sea?

 

[bripat9643]

Now Pattycake, someone with a bit of intellect might read the article and learn something.

I obviously did read the article, you dumb turd, but I'm not a scientific and mathematical ignoramus like you. I actually understand what I'm reading.

If you had something intelligent to respond with, you would have posted it.

You've been pawned.

 

[saveliberty]

Actually, since the weight of the ice deformed the land and compressed it, the melting should have made the methane deeper in the ground. As it expanded, it would create spaces for the water to fill and thus maintain a great deal of the weight. Which weighs more a ton of ice or water?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia.

That's excellent news. It shows that any methane release is unrelated to man made CO2.

Fucking dumb, Todd. The East Arctic Shelf has an average depth of about 50 meters. That is not deep ocean, in fact, at that depth a storm can mix surface water right down to the bottom.

And the number of repeatable lab experiments showing how AGW melts ice 50m down is still zero

 

[westwall]

Doesn't need to melt, as methane hydrates aren't really frozen. A lowering of pressure can cause methane release, which is what would happen, if the upper layers warmed and the water became less dense.

Uh . . . . That might lower the pressure by 0.00001%. The water at the surface is 32 degrees year round.

Just about a dumb fuck, aren't you, Pattycake.

Arctic Report Card - Ocean - Proshutinsky, et al.

Ocean temperature and salinity
Upper-ocean temperature

Upper ocean temperature anomalies in summer 2010 (Fig. SIO7 were comparable to those in 2009 (not shown) but remained lower than the record set in 2007, with no significant inter-annual changes in summer warming since 2008. In August 2011, there is a wide area of anomalously warm SSTs (sea surface temperature) in the western Arctic Ocean (north of NW Canada, Alaska and eastern Siberia), although maximum values do not reach those seen in 2007 (Fig. SIO7). Much of the eastern Arctic Ocean (north of western Russia and Europe) is also anomalously warm, with the exception of Fram Strait. For more information about water temperatures in Fram Strait, and the adjacent Greenland and Norwegian seas, see the essay on Cetaceans and Pinnipeds.

Inter-annual variations in SST anomalies reflect differences in the pace of sea ice retreat (see the essay on Sea Ice), as well as changing advection of warm ocean currents from the south (Steele et al. 2011). In recent years, solar radiation has penetrated more easily into the upper ocean under thinning and retreating ice cover to create warm near-surface temperature maxima (Jackson et al., 2010). In the Canada Basin, this maximum has descended to depths around 30 m because of increased downwelling in the convergent Beaufort Gyre during recent strongly-anticyclonic years (Yang et al. 2009), while surface mixing is decreasing as stratification increases (Toole et al. 2010; McPhee et al. 2009). Outside of the Beaufort Gyre, the temperature maximum does not survive through the winter (Steele et al. 2010).

"RESULTS ARE FROM A 2D COUPLED ICE-OCEAN MODEL." Once again they confuse models with data.

 

[westwall]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

Gee. I wonder where all this methane is coming from. Perhaps an abiotic source? It sure seems to be coming from areas where it is not likely to originate based on the current theories of hydrocarbon production. This is more like what is seen on Saturns moons.

 

[westwall]

Home

At the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from 5-9 December 2011, there was a session on Arctic Gas Hydrate Methane Release and Climate Change at which Dr Semiletov of the Far Eastern branch of Russian Academy of Sciences reported dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – were seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

This has been reported by UK The Independent and copied by news around the world and in a number of online blogs, but the background is explained in detail by a website set up by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group. Essentially the problem they have identified is the following:

This emergency to our planet's biosphere comes from multiple positive Arctic climate feedback processes, each of which affects the whole biosphere and each of which will increase the rate of global warming / temperature increase. Atmospheric temperatures are rising faster in the Arctic than in temperate or tropical regions.

Already today, all the potentially huge Arctic positive climate feedbacks are operating.
The Arctic summer sea ice is in a rapid, extremely dangerous meltdown process. The Arctic summer ice albedo loss feedback (i.e. open sea absorbs more heat than ice which reflects much of it) had clearly passed its tipping point in 2007 – many decades earlier than models projected, meaning that it is now inevitable that the Arctic will become ice free in summer within the next few years. Models of sea ice volume indicate a seasonally ice free Arctic likely by 2015, with the possibility of a collapse to a small amount of residual ice as soon as summer 2013.

*Such a collapse will inexorably lead to positive feedbacks under which today's carbon sinks such as permafrost, peat bogs, and rainforests worldwide will become net sources of atmospheric carbon leading to planetary catastrophe.

The retreat of sea ice is leading to the most catastrophic feedback process of all, many decades ahead of projections. This is the venting of methane to the atmosphere from frozen methane gas hydrates that are destabilizing along the East Siberian continental shelf in the Arctic.

Ahhhhhh!

 

[westwall]

Should the governments actually decide to address the issue, people in your business will be in demand. For, somehow, that leaking methane needs be prevented from exiting into the atmosphere unburned. And, should we decide to do this, then we should at least get something back for the effort.

However, given we are talking about costs on the order of WW3, it is not going to happen. And, since governments are not going to do anything, we, as individuals, will have to deal with the consequences of runaway warming on an individual level.

I'd take the problem to Oil and Gas Exploration, not Government directly.

They have neither the resources or finances for the scale the effort would have to be done on.

That is simply ridiculous. Energy in untold quantities and all you dudes want to do is get rid of it.

 

[westwall]

Home

Methane hydrate seems intrinsically vulnerable on Earth; nowhere at the Earth's surface is it stable to melting and release of the methane, and it floats in water, so the only factor holding it at high pressure is the weight of the mud overlying it in coastal margin sediments. A few degrees of warming in the deep ocean can have a significant impact on the stability of the hydrate, and it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia. Hence, there are concerns that climate change could trigger significant methane releases from hydrates and thus could lead to strong positive carbon–climate feedbacks (Schiermeier 2008).*David Archer 09 Gas hydrates: entrance to a methane age or climate threat?


Global warming through ocean warming will, when the sea floor is warmed upo enough destabilize methane hydrates releasing methane gas. The feedback is shown by a 2006 global warming assessment for the German government .

It is estimated that if 10% of methane stored in permafrost was released into the atmopshere, it would have an effect similar to a ten-fold increase in CO2. Abrupt warming would occur if the concentration of methane, or CO2, increased suddenly; this would in turn cause further melting of permafrost and release of even more ancient methane deposits ; and therefore it would intensify global warming even further. This phenomenon is known as a ‘positive feedback’. Even if methane accumulates with a slower pace it will still intensify global warming by oxidizing to CO2 which is a less potent greenhouse gas but with a much longer lifetime of 230 years.

Although as far back as 1992*(USGS) the threat of an enormous global climate change impact from marine methane hydrates destabilized from global arming was recognized. The scenario is sea level rise with ocean warming from which it has been assumed that it will take hundreds of years for global surface warming to penetrate down to the sea floor and below to destabilize the solid hydrates.

Methane gas has 160X the volume of the solid hydrate containin it, and therefor methane hydrate destabilization will tend to be explosive - on large por small. An MIT model *has found this effect and it has been suggested that this property makes the hydrates more vulnerable to warming because destabilization could be self propagating. "This indicates that we may be greatly underestimating the methane fluxes presently occurring in the ocean and from underground into Earth's atmosphere," Ruban Juanes 09 MT energy research

it is known that the temperature of the deep ocean responds to changes in surface climate, albeit with a lag of centuries to millennia.

That's excellent news. It shows that any methane release is unrelated to man made CO2.

Fucking dumb, Todd. The East Arctic Shelf has an average depth of about 50 meters. That is not deep ocean, in fact, at that depth a storm can mix surface water right down to the bottom.

Need to check your facts there silly person..the average depth of the East Siberian shelf is actually 100 meters. Really powerful storms can mix to a depth of 500 meters so there is definately a interaction going on. However, at such a shallow depth capping and exploiting are a relatively easy proposition!

 

[westwall]

Anyone wonder how we got over a mile of ice over 50m of sea?

We don't. You only get really thick ice like that with continental glaciation like is seen on Greenland and Antarctica. Depth of ice on the Arctic ocean is on average around 1.5 meters. Really old ice (over 4 years old) will get to a depth of 3 to 5 meters.