Methane frozen beneath Arctic seabed destabilising, scientists warn

[Swede]

This is kinda scary.


Huge quantities of methane below the Arctic seabed are showing signs of destabilising, according to research conducted in the East Siberian Sea.

Scientists aboard Russian icebreakers have discovered that methane is leaking from the sub-sea permafrost far faster than had been previously estimated, raising concerns that climatic tipping points may have been reached.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7050312.ece

[Loki]

1. This won't be pretty.

[omega minimo]

2. uh oh. better rearrange the deck chairs

:sarcasm:

[SmileyRose]

3. imagine the stink in Alaska when that thing blows.

[L0oniX]

15. They are used to it already ...Palin lives there.

[mikehiggins]

4. kinda scary? kinda?

If true this could be the "game over" point.

I felt bad about my little grandkids, worried about what kind of world they would grow up in.

Now I'm beginning to worry about how my kids will make it.

At 65 I sort of suspect I don't have to worry too much. By the time the water sinks the NYC subways I should be dead. Of course, I'm being optimistic. I really never thought I'd live past 30 and look at how that turned out.

It may be just old man pessimism but one of my friends who has spent the last twenty years collecting gold and guns may turn out to be the smartest of us all.

[JVS]

5. We're going to die!

[old mark]

13. Well, eventually, yes....didn't anyone ever mention that to you? nt

[havocmom]

6. Gonna be the fart heard 'round the world

Isn't there CO2 in the thawing areas too?

Critical mass in 7...6...5...4....

[8 track mind]

7. the brown note n/t

[matt819]

8. For a fictional take on this subject

Run, do not walk, to the library and get out The Rapture by Liz Jensen. Don't be put off by the title. It's worth the time and effort.

[Odin2005]

9. Earth Farts?

:scared:

[sam sarrha]

20. more like Earth ass blasters.. large deposits of methane hydrate have a phenomena where they release

all their stored energy spontaneously.. within milliseconds. see post #17

[Fumesucker]

10. When John Barnes wrote "Mother of Storms" in 1994 he didn't forsee this til 2028

And even then it took a subsea nuke in the Arctic Ocean..

Things are a bit early..

http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Storms-John-Barnes/dp/0812533453

[Uncle Joe]

11. This is a mega serious red flag.

<snip>

As a greenhouse gas, methane is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide but emissions from subsea permafrost are not included in climate change prediction models.

<snip>

The permafrost that covers vast tracts of land in the far North is thawing, steadily adding methane to the atmosphere. The Arctic has warmed at about twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Climate scientists are concerned that as rising temperatures melt more permafrost, the added methane will raise temperatures further and so cause a wider thaw.

<snip>

Thanks for the thread, Swede.

[northernlights]

22. methane is a very stable molecule...

as I recall, it hangs around in the atmosphere a *lot* longer than CO2. It does leave me wondering whether it will continue global warming, or whether it will block so much sunlight from penetrating that we'll have a cold, sort-of dark ice age. :scared:

Game over.

[anonymous171]

12. Oh shit. nt

[TransitJohn]

14. Yeah this is bad because these deposits are gas hydrates.

Meaning, a whole lot of methane locked up down there will be released to the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_hydrates

[mochajava666]

16. Holy shit. I've been dreading this for over 20 years

This looks like a key tipping point. If this is that tipping point, this will trigger several other tipping points that turn negative feedback loops into cascading positive feedback loops. Venus, our sister planet, is Earth with a runaway greenhouse gas scenario.

This is really bad. My hope was that between our technology and cultural changes, we could keep up enough with the changing environment in order to mitigate some of the most disastrous effects. This is happening way too fast. I was expecting this may happen in 20 years under worse-case scenarios. Damn.

[sam sarrha]

18. yea.. it could get so bad the temperature could go up well over 200* and rain sulphuric acid

bummer.

[mochajava666]

21. You're right. That's even worse than I thought

From Steven Hawking in 2007

http://www.merliannews.com/Environmental_Awareness_46/Stephen_Hawking_Worried_That_Global_Warming_Will_Turn_Earth_Into_Venus.shtml


Fire and Brimstone. Sounds like Hell on Earth.

[sam sarrha]

17. when it warms up we'r Screwn.. at the end of the last ice age warm water entered a Fjord in Norway

and detonated a deposit of methane Hydrate.. the explosion threw so much dirt into the stratosphere it blocked the sun's heat and set back the end of the ice age 1000 years.

methane hydrate deposits are fracturing off San Fransisco CA.. bubbled big as houses are coming up.. it is worried that a boat will fall into a bubble hole there so much comes up on occasion.. that is what is speculated is happening in the devils triangle to large ships over the centuries..

[Electric Monk]

19. We should find a way to harvest it, and use it, since it's coming up anyways

or we could all run around and panic...