Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 6785 Location: Oil-addicted Southern Californucopia
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:13 am Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
eric_b wrote:
How did this turkey get an 'expert' rating?
Entertainment skills. _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Quote:
Exposing this sea to sun 24/7 for a number of weaks or months as is happenig now may lead to dramatic heating of these clathrates. If anyone has access to any studies going on there now, I would be very interested.
Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Re: SO2 climate engineering.
We need Pinatubo levels of SO2 released into the stratosphere on a continuous or biennial basis. Around 10 megatons average every year. Since SO2 is very good at forming aerosols (via H2SO4 which adsorbs H2O) it will be sedimented out rather quickly (e.g. the Pinatubo injection flushed out after less than five years with the bulk gone after two years).
We have no current technology to deliver 10 million tons of gas into the stratosphere directly. Proposals talk about cannons lofted on balloons, etc. We need to deliver it in a dispersed fashion. Since sulfate aerosol is the prime seed for heterogeneous chemistry (via supersaturated ternary solutions which also act freezing nuclei for ice) we can expect more robust ozone holes.
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:31 am Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Thanks for the graphic, xironman. Any idea how likely it is that some of that surface heat will make it down to the ocean floor? Could evaporation increase the surface salinity so much that, even though it's hot, the warm surface water would become heavier than the cooler water below and sink to the bottom?
I know something like that happens with the thermohalide circulation in the Atlantic. I had never thought about the same type of thing happening in the Arctic.
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
dohboi wrote:
First of all it is far too diffuse to collect. What are you going to do, put a plastic bag around the whole of Siberia and the shelves of the Arctic Ocean?
that seems logical. but i haven't priced out the design. we're talking about a few million square miles of plastic film. that's a lot of grocery bags. _________________ http://www.LASIK-Flap.com/ ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Hi dohboy,
I think that you need to go to the papers for the GW aspects. There isn't so much that's known for sure except from paleo studies (and the conclusions from that aren't encouraging).
Anyway, the idea that we can engineer climate is vastly premature. It would be like playing with matches in a powder room. Talk about hubris. _________________ only the paranoid survive
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Thanks for the link, and I certainly agree about hubris. This is a Greek word that seems to originally refered to uncontrolled growth that goes beyond all reasonable or natural bounds. Pretty good description of our current situation.
Joined: Aug 24, 2005 Posts: 442 Location: Costa Geriatrica, Spain
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Cabrone wrote:
Just to note that the chief editor of this site is the skeptic Patrick Michaels who has his fingers in the fossil fuel pie.
Er...so what? What's that got to do with anything? I don't care if the source is Pol Pot or Hitler. Is what is being said about Methane concetrations in the atmosphere stabilising true or not? Thats all that matters.
Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:41 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Don't be a nitwit, skepto. His being a paid stooge for the denialist lobby has everything to do with it. It means he has no interest in the truth about this utterly serious issue, so is perfectly willing to distort, misrepresent, spin, and cherry pick data to make it fit his preconceived agenda.
And either you know this and are being cute or insincere yourself, or you don't know this and are a complete and utter dolt. I suspect that the former is the case.
Briefly, the fact that methane seemed to have plateaued for a period at historically very high levels is no cause for great comfort. Since methane usually only stays in the atmosphere for about ten years, for it to be maintained at that high level means massive new sources of methane must be coming into the system. And what ever comfort you might get out of that is now dashed, since methane levels are now on the rise again even above these incredibly high levels.
Again, he either knew these facts and chose to spin and misrepresent them in a way to please his funders, or he was ignorant of them and was just mouthing the words given him by the ones pulling the strings. Either way, all one can really say is---pathetic.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
dohboi wrote:
This is a Greek word that seems to originally refered to uncontrolled growth that goes beyond all reasonable or natural bounds.
In ancient Greece it was an actual crime when understood as pride in excess. For example dishonoring the remains of an enemy after killing him. It basically refers to pride out of any bounds.
Like imagining that we can "control" a system such as the climate, which we barely understand. Or that it's OK to exterminate other species because they supposedly "don't matter". Humanity as a species is now in a state of mortal hubris. _________________ only the paranoid survive
Last edited by btu2012 on Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:11 pm; edited 3 times in total
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
Skeptik,
Learn what happened in the past when methane hydrates were released in quantity. The outcome of that would be so serious (quite likely human extinction) that we can't afford taking the risk of that happening. We are like kids playing with a nuclear bomb.
If that happens then it's game over, for us and most other species. _________________ only the paranoid survive
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: Re: The Great Siberian Methane Melt is off and running
dissident wrote:
Re: SO2 climate engineering.
We need Pinatubo levels of SO2 released into the stratosphere on a continuous or biennial basis. Around 10 megatons average every year. Since SO2 is very good at forming aerosols (via H2SO4 which adsorbs H2O) it will be sedimented out rather quickly (e.g. the Pinatubo injection flushed out after less than five years with the bulk gone after two years).
We have no current technology to deliver 10 million tons of gas into the stratosphere directly. Proposals talk about cannons lofted on balloons, etc. We need to deliver it in a dispersed fashion. Since sulfate aerosol is the prime seed for heterogeneous chemistry (via supersaturated ternary solutions which also act freezing nuclei for ice) we can expect more robust ozone holes.
I agree most of the 'geoengineering' schemes are insane. However people have seriously discussed these things. One such plan would concentrate on keeping the arctic cold enough to hold on to its ice pack.
The modeling results interested Wood. He calculated that it would take roughly 300,000 metric tons of particles each year to shade the sunlight in the Arctic by twenty-five percent -- a tiny amount, on a planetary scale. As for how to get those particles up there, Wood thinks that a half-dozen 747s could do the job. Even better, you could build a Kevlar tube fifteen miles long, with a diameter slightly larger than a garden hose. The bottom of the hose would be connected to a combustor that created the aerosols, while the top would be held in place by high-tech kites or a high-altitude airship that the Defense Department is developing. "It's nothing more than a fancy blimp," Wood says.
Wood seems to think it could be done for a modest $Billion/year, again concentrating only on the arctic.
I don't like the idea, however since people are not going to stop burning stuff it might be the only way to prevent a huge methane 'burp'.
Max CH4 in the last million years was about 700 ppb. We are now at 1,900 ppb or 1,200 ppb higher than anything we know of. BTW extra 1,200 ppb is worth about 30 ppm of CO2e warming wise.
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