Runaway Global Warming has arrived

Cid_Yama · Last edited by Cid_Yama on Fri Aug 22, 2008 6:49 am; edited 2 times in total

Methane discharges from subsea permafrost increases dramatically

Methane discharges in the permafrost break-up process in the Arctic pose a threat to the entire terrestrial climate, Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, reported.

"Yet another POI expedition is currently at work in the Arctic, along with ours. The expedition members are exploring the Lena River mouth, where we discovered abnormally high concentrations of methane last year.

"POI researchers have already carried out 47 studies and confirmed as follows: the concentration of methane in water and the atmosphere increases at a rapid pace, which is indicative of the break-up of permafrost on the shelf of Arctic seas," Semiletov said.

Over the last year, a large international expedition that included oceanologists from Russia, Canada, the US, Britain, and Germany had explored the entire Arctic coast and detected high concentrations of methane that exceeded the norm 1,000-fold. Researchers' opinion is that this may be connected with the disintegration of gas hydrates at the sea bottom, owing to a rise in the temperature of water and the atmosphere.
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Cid_Yama · Last edited by Cid_Yama on Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:45 am; edited 2 times in total

Background so you know what this means

Much of the methane produced by crustal methanogens fails to reach the surface. It becomes trapped for long periods in tundra permafrost, and in the icy hydrate crusts that form on sea floors. This submarine reservoir alone is believed to contain roughly 3,000 times the volume of methane presently in the atmosphere.

This is hydrogen’s loaded gun.

Deep-sea hydrates consist of a lattice of ice crystals packed with bubbles of methane gas. Locked in by cold abyssal currents generated by the sinking of dense saltwater in icy polar seas, they remain frozen and stable. But whenever rising temperatures thaw the polar icecaps to any significant degree, the fresh melt-water pools on the surface, inhibiting the driving mechanism that runs the global circulation system. There is now strong evidence to suggest that on some occasions in the recent past those huge gyres shut down entirely.

When this occurred, the hydrates disintegrated, releasing their methane into the atmosphere in a series of gigantic ‘burps’. Some of these methane burps appear to have been large enough to raise the global temperature by 5–10°C.

This appears to have been the case about 55 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary when the release of some 1,200–2,500 gigatons of hydrate methane generated a sea-temperature rise of 4°–5°C, triggering a mass extinction of marine species. The global temperature spike of 8°–10°C that occurred at this time appears to have been vastly greater and more abrupt than could possibly have been generated by the gradual rise in atmospheric CO2 that preceded it.

Life’s Narrow Escape

Something similar also appears to have occurred about 250 million years ago during the massive Permian extinction when some 95% of all known species disappeared from the fossil record. New stratigraphic evidence from Greenland and Russia suggests that a massive cosmic impact combined with associated vulcanism in Siberia to trigger a protracted extinction process around the world. The ensuing biological decay then injected so much CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere that the planet gradually warmed by 4°–5°C. This appears to have crossed the ‘hydrate threshold’, triggering a massive release of abyssal methane and forcing the global temperature to rise by a further 5°. The magnitude and speed of this second temperature rise pushed almost all ‘higher’ life to extinction.

The northern tundra is currently warming faster than most other regions of the planet. Its permafrost is melting and bacterial methane that has been locked away for tens of thousands of years is now beginning to escape. Similarly, many abyssal hydrate beds are riddled with melt-holes and are highly unstable. Hydrogen’s loaded gun is now on a hair trigger.

Ice ages consist of a series of glacial episodes separated by brief interludes of warmth. These interglacials begin abruptly and end with a slow descent into a new glacial. The Vostok drill core in Antarctica reveals the pivotal role that methane has played in shaping this temperature roller coaster during the past 400,000 years. Ancient air bubbles trapped in the ice show that a major spike in atmospheric methane coincided with the beginning of each of the four interglacials of that period. It indicates that a methane surge provided the hair trigger that sent global temperatures rocketing upwards.

This well-documented link between methane and temperature suggests that it hardly matters what causes the initial temperature rise. What matters is that methane emissions explode at some stage during that rise. Ominously, annual methane emissions have more than doubled in the past two centuries, and most of that increase can be blamed on human activities, especially pastoralism, irrigation and energy generation via hydroelectricity. But if the current collapse of methane hydrates continues, our species will be unlikely to survive this century.

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Large methane release could cause abrupt climate change as happened 635 million years ago

The researchers posit that the methane was released gradually at first and then in abundance from clathrates – methane ice that forms and stabilizes beneath ice sheets under specific temperatures and pressures. When the ice sheets became unstable, they collapsed, releasing pressure on the clathrates which began to degas.

“Our findings document an abrupt and catastrophic means of global warming that abruptly led from a very cold, seemingly stable climate state to a very warm also stable climate state with no pause in between,” said Martin Kennedy, a professor of geology in the Department of Earth Sciences, who led the research team.

“This tells us about the mechanism, as well as the rate of change,” he added. “What we now need to know is the sensitivity of the trigger: how much forcing does it take to move from one stable state to the other, and are we approaching something like that today with current carbon dioxide warming.”

“This is a major concern because it’s possible that only a little warming can unleash this trapped methane. Unzippering the methane reservoir could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees, and the mechanism could be geologically very rapid. Such a violent, zipper-like opening of the clathrates could have triggered a catastrophic climate and biogeochemical reorganization of the ocean and atmosphere around 635 million years ago.”

When released into the ocean-atmosphere system, methane reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and can cause marine dysoxia, which kills oxygen-using animals, and has been proposed as an explanation for major oceanic extinctions.

“One way to look at the present human influence on global warming is that we are conducting a global-scale experiment with Earth’s climate system,” Kennedy said. “We are witnessing an unprecedented rate of warming, with little or no knowledge of what instabilities lurk in the climate system and how they can influence life on Earth. But much the same experiment has already been conducted 635 million years ago, and the outcome is preserved in the geologic record. We see that strong forcing on the climate, not unlike the current carbon dioxide forcing, results in the activation of latent controls in the climate system that, once initiated, change the climate to a wholly different state.”
_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

Cid_Yama

Models and geophysical data indicate that large areas of the Arctic shelves, as a result of their exposure during the Last Glacial Maximum, are thought to be almost entirely underlain by subsea permafrost from the coastline down to a water depth of about 100 meters. Subsea permafrost is still poorly understood, due mainly to the lack of direct observations. However, it is known to contain gas hydrates, a solid phase composed of water and gases that formed under low-temperature, high-pressure conditions. Large volumes of methane in gas hydrate form can be stored within or below the subsea permafrost, and the stability of this gas hydrate zone is sustained by the existence of permafrost. Degradation of subsea permafrost and the consequent destabilization of gas hydrates could significantly if not dramatically increase the flux of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere.

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_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

vision-master

Where are we going?

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mos6507

eXpat · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 08, 2006 Posts: 1081

We will be suffocating in methane and there still will be people denying climate change.
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Stocking up on popcorn Smile

Fishman

Or, nothing we do will make a rat's ass difference.

wxman · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 23, 2005 Posts: 178

While this is definitely a concern, atmospheric methane levels have actually been growing more slowly in the past few years than they had been before. The melting Arctic is sure to resume the upward trend, but it looks like the methane sinks are doing a pretty good job of keeping the atmospheric concentrations down (like the oceans and land are keeping CO2 levels far, far lower than they would be just based on anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels).

vision-master

vision-master

Poles are shifting...........

Climate change!
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Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

Cid_Yama · Last edited by Cid_Yama on Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:25 am; edited 1 time in total

Greenhouse Gases, Carbon Dioxide And Methane, Rise Sharply In 2007

Last year alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase. NOAA scientists released these and other preliminary findings today as part of an annual update to the agency’s greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world.

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Wxman,

Did you really not know? Or are you just intentionally spreading disinformation?

Also, the oceans are now saturated and CO2 has caused massive ocean acidification resulting in an anoxic deep ocean and dead zones spreading throughout the oceans.

Surely if you have been here, you must know these things. Or are you just a FOXhead?

Surely you know physical laws and reality remain constant irregardless of political affiliation. Time for the neocon idiots to shut the frak up!
_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

MadScientist · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 418

Spanktron9

Interesting to see this post today. I was having dinner last night with my Father-in-law, and we were discussing whether PO or GW would hit hardest and first. I said PO, he said GW. His logic was that the methane hydrates would release and alter climate so quickly no one could do anything. He also pointed to the almost total lack of awareness of this issue in the general public.

Cid_Yama

1000 fold increases in seawater saturations of Methane has nothing to do with theories or computer models.

It's slapping you in the face. It's here. It's no longer in the realm of prediction. The reality is upon us.

Makes it kind of hard when you have to argue against hard data, doesn't it?
_________________
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues

vision-master

Forget the debate about the World farts and climate-change.
The poles are shifting.

Are you all stuck on the theory that climate change is due OR not due to the burning of fossil fuels? Razz

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Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.