Strong Methane Emissions On the Siberian Shelf 582
rrohbeck writes "The Independent reports brand-new results of high concentrations of methane — 100x normal — above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf. A large number of methane plumes have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor. This is probably due to methane clathrate, buried under the sea floor before the last ice age, breaking up as higher water temperatures melt the permafrost that had contained it."
Re:Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
Um.. what? You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right? Or are you suggesting that somehow the crust is thinning beneath the methane deposits and warming them, but at the same time there are no seismic events tied to this phenomenon, even though it is happening across a very large geographic region? Or are you just talking out your ass?
Re:Could this explode? (Score:3, Insightful)
It changes the spectrum of the flash a little.
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe a warming trend has lasted for long enough that it's finally hit the ocean bottom in that area?
Get it while it's hot! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Get it while it's hot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a theory for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
> You do know that the depths of the ocean tend to be very cold, right?
Normally..... unless there is volcanic activity in the region like is currently going on around the north pole.
Study finds Arctic seabed afire with lava-spewing volcanoes:canada.com [canada.com]
But oh no, it just has to be global warming. It get shot somewhere: Global Warming! Record cold? That's Global Climate Change for ya. Floods? Drought? Plague of Locusts? Manmade Global Warming every time and the ONLY solution is the destruction of Western Civilization, replacing the values of the Enlightenment with Socialism and Planning.
Re:Hollow Men (Score:2, Insightful)
> On the bright side, we might get to test this theory.
Wait. We might have the world's biggest fart on our hands, and your "bright side" is that we get to "test" (smell?) it? 0_o
Re:People have been expecting these Methane clouds (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, by "sudden" they mean "a mere million years".
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:4, Insightful)
The current Rehabilitating Mr Wiggles [mrwiggleslovesyou.com] answers this question: because it's kind of a dick thing to do.
Seriously though, if everyone went around killing each other whenever it suited them, you'd always be in danger of being killed yourself. There's very compelling reasons for a society to collectively agree that killing each other is a bad thing and that it won't be tolerated. No need for a fear of divine retribution.
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the difference in interpretation of exactly what "murder" is that determines the destructive societies from the constructive ones.
Funny thing is that Islam has an even stronger moral code against killing innocents than Christianity, yet they are the ones which have the least problem with targeting purely civilian populations.
Perhaps this goes to show that it's not necessarily what your holy book says literally, it depends on who your contemporary religious leaders are.
why is it "wrong" to kill someone (Score:4, Insightful)
It does touch on a point I've wondered about: religion seems to be the foundation of much of our societal moral code. Without the framework of religion, why is it "wrong" to kill someone?
Reminds me of thing Nietzsche wrote about the madman in the market place, "now that we've killed God, which way is up or down?" This is known as the question of 'grounding' and is the subject of much debate in the study of ethics.
Religion does provide one ground. It is perhaps most effective because it relies on blind obedience and discourages thinking. "What is wrong with murder ... easy ... God says don't do it." But other grounds, more suitable to thinking creatures do exist. Kant's categorical imperative, for example, "Want to live in a world where every person tries kill every other? No? Then don't kill."
Putting aside the question of grounding, it is my contention that a Christian cannot appreciate the true gravity of murder in the way an atheist can. Christians have convinced themselves in the existence of an afterlife. For them killing a human is merely removing them from this world (the less important world). An atheist on the other hand realises that killing a human being is the snuffing out of an individual and unique consciousness for all time. A consciousness which longs for existence, just as much as our own does. It is this moral consideration which stops the atheist killing. Theists instead act only in obedience to their God motivated by ultimate personal reward. You might go even further and state that whereas atheists can truly be moral creatures, theists can't.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Ryskin is talking about methane being loaded with water droplets, since it came from the ocean. He says that the water makes humid methane heavier than air. That makes the methane pool up on the surface of the land. Since it's pools of humid methane, it could easily get into the range 5-15% if there is enough methane coming out of the ocean.
You would be able to breathe that air pretty easily. Methane doesn't smell, and is non-toxic. You would probably be able to smell other gases coming out of the ocean, like hydrogen sulphide. It would only kill you by suffocation in an area where the methane displaced most of the oxygen, so there wasn't enough oxygen to breathe. And if there's enough oxygen for you to breathe, there's enough to explode with the methane, if there's a spark or fire.
So, how much methane is in the ocean?
What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Methane currently makes up 0.00017% of the atmosphere. That means these very localised 100x concentrations have 0.017% methane. This would mean if this concentration was worldwide, it would be approx 10x worse than the CO2 in the atmosphere. EVERYBODY PANIC.
However these are concentrations close to the surface over a very localised area. Permafrost makes up 25% of the earths surface, so that means on average this methane will now be of concentration to be 2.5x worse than the CO2. Still pretty bad.
However there are other factors, not mentioned. It's safe to assume 100x was the worst they found, not the typical (afterall makes for the best headlines), what was the average reading? How far above the surface was the reading taken? How does the concentration diffuse as you take readings higher up?
The article also neglects to mention that Methane breaks down after about 12 years (compared to 50-100 for Co2) and there's plenty of bacteria that break it down. Whilst this may cause levels to spike, once the vents in the exposed area are spent, it won't take long for levels to stabalise again.
Re:Here is a theory for ya (Score:2, Insightful)
Manmade Global Warming every time and the ONLY solution is the destruction of Western Civilization, replacing the values of the Enlightenment with Socialism and Planning.
I think I've met that meme before. Insightful is the new Funny.
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed the climate changes over time, but this time around 6 billion people are going to be in the ways of Mother Earth - this means we are going to see climate refugees and climate wars, again nothing new, we have always had something to run away from or fight over, the difference this time is the scale its going to happen on.
Oh also, it might be part of a natural cycle, but you keep saying that to yourself when standing knee deep in water, hoping for someone to pick you up.
Re:People have been expecting these Methane clouds (Score:3, Insightful)
Because natural global warming comes slowly and is periodic, unlike the unprecedented exponential increase we've seen lately.
I think if more people understood what a first derivative was all this climate change denial bullshit would be far easier to expose as interest group lies.
Well, time to replace democracy and freedom with socialism and planned economies, and murder all the Christians, which, according to the deniers, is all we scientists do
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:3, Insightful)
So you say that because one data set of many is off somewhat, all the other evidence (glacier retreat, dissolving ice shelfs, animal and plant habitats shifting northward, and record summer temperatures measured on the ground) isn't real either, and that an obscure paper is the only one that knows the truth?
Sounds a lot like one of the usual conspiracy theories to me. The corrected data will be used in the next IPCC report, let's see how much it changes.
Re:yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
more CO2 = higher temperatures
No. That theory has been soundly rejected by real science in the last 10 years. Get with the times.
[Citation needed] :)
Re:why is it "wrong" to kill someone (Score:3, Insightful)
"it is my contention that a Christian cannot appreciate the true gravity of murder in the way an atheist can. "
That's very wrong if that Christian believes that there is a place/situation/state called Hell, and that is is a very very very bad place/situation/state to be in[1].
Whereas many atheists believe once you die, that's it - nonexistence. IMO that is arguably an _infinitely_ better situation to be in.
Based on popular Christian doctrine:
If you killing a nonchristian you risk sending them to Hell.
If you kill a christian you send them to Heaven.
Therefore, if it is a choice between letting a christian live vs a nonchristian live, logic has it that the christian is expendable. Lots of christians can't accept it when I tell them stuff like if it were a choice between killing a robber/soldier or letting the robber/soldier kill your child, logic has it you should not kill the robber/soldier (unless perhaps in the case where you know he is a Christian? ;) ).
Sure in the real world and real scenarios, it might be that christian could save more nonchristians if he/she lives. But there have been many examples of christians dying and causing very many nonchristians to become christians eventually. e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Auca [wikipedia.org]
A Christian is someone who follows Jesus. When Jesus came, he said christians are to love one another, turn the other cheek etc. He most certainly didn't say go around killing people. So if christians go around killing (even Christians), they're not doing a good job of following Jesus. It might even be they're not actually genuine followers.
[1] This is not what Christianity claims hell is, but I have been considering that:
Assuming humans indeed have immortal souls. Then imagine an eternal existence without God, where after rejecting the only one who can make you perfect, you continue to exist eternally but in your imperfect form. The first 1000 years might be amusing. Maybe even a million years would be fun. Even after the last stars faded to utter darkness, you would be no closer to your end.
Naturally you being imperfect can't be allowed into Heaven - where everyone has been made perfect - otherwise you would eventually make it Hell.
Eternity is a very long time to be "not good enough". Maybe some people are good enough to enjoy Eternity without help from God. I don't think I am.
Re:Unprecedented? (Score:2, Insightful)
And the rate at which change is happening is unprecedented.
I'm not really arguing with you, but 'unprecedented' is relative what slice of time you look at and who's graph you pay attention to.
If you look at temperature records provided by proxy sources (ice cores, tree rings etc...) over hundreds of thousands of years - on many of the graphs you'll find - it's pretty clear that the last millennium has been nothing unusual.
If you look short term though, (past few hundred years) it looks pretty damning.
Funnily enough, this choice is similar to what happened in banking in the past 10-20 years. Banks had risk management departments, and the requirements were strengthened by government legislation. But the bosses discovered they could wriggle out of the straitjacket imposed by their risk management computer systems just by lengthening the baseline period used. Thus, if you looked at the past 1-5 years, it would be obvious that risk was excessive; but extend that period to 15 years, and average out the risk over that longer time - and hey presto, acceptable risk! (Until the floor falls out from under you, that is).
Re:What a surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
To answer your question -- no, not in itself.
However, that's not the question. The question is, has there been any change in the mechanisms releasing methane. If so, we don't know whether we've seen the full impact of the change that has taken place, or whether the change is progressing.
It's not a cause for panic, it's something to look into. Even if this change has no global implications, the Arctic is changing in ways that make it very worth keeping an eye on.
Re:yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
Where do you people come up with this sort of nonsense?
Real science. Grandparent is correct, and if you spend a few minutes researching the subject you'll (easily) find his missing link.
IPCC is a political organisation. AGW is a religion in the US (mostly). I prefer science over both politics and religion.
Re:People have been expecting these Methane clouds (Score:2, Insightful)
Because natural global warming comes slowly and is periodic, unlike the unprecedented exponential increase we've seen lately.
Periodic phenomena are exponential functions. There is no distinguishing between the two if you don't know amplitude, period and/or phase of the phenomenon. Additionally, even if we assume perfect periodicity, it should probably be fit onto a function based on an I/D derivation of our Suns' heating potential, and not on a straight line. Basically, we don't know whether our current situation is unprecedented.
I think if more people understood what a first derivative was all this climate change denial bullshit would be far easier to expose as interest group lies.
Why do you presume a first-order derivative is a good approximation of any periodic function? Over infinity, a first-order derivative of a periodic function is either a constant or a shifted/scaled variant of sgn(x). I'm reading nothing but FUD in your post...
Well, time to replace democracy and freedom with socialism and planned economies, and murder all the Christians, which, according to the deniers, is all we scientists do
... and that's not helping.
Re:Here is a theory for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which Reason was advocated as the primary source and basis of authority.
The intellectual and philosophical developments of that age (and their impact in moral and social reform) aspirted towards governmental consolidation, centralisation and primacy of the nation-state, and greater rights for common people.
I dunno... but this sounds like socialism and planning to me. I think the GP meant to advocate a 'free market' capitalist solution but this isn't looking so hot these days.
Re:Unprecedented? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the only events you see that are comparable in rate to the modern warming are the Dansgaard-Oescher events, associated with a restart of a collapsed thermohaline circulation. The THC is not now restarting, so it does appear something unusual is now going on.
Re:Siberia: crazy liberal myth or FACT? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're all confusing obvious trolls with christians.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hollow Men (Score:4, Insightful)
So it can get quite a bit hotter and life will still be sound.
Sure our civilization might not like it but life will go on.
Sure, I don't see many people denying it. But what will it do to our economy?
Never mind the economy, what will it do for the survival prospects of 6.7 billion people?
As a species, we are appropriating the majority of earth's productive capacity for our own survival. There are already numerous regions that are ecologically stressed (i.e. they have been pushed basically to the limit of their ecological carrying capacity). A reduction in global carrying capacity, even of just 10 or 20%, is not good news for our species. Look at the lives of people living in ecologically marginal lands - they are not worried about the economy, they are worried about the fact they have to walk 5km one way to get drinking water. They are worried about the fact that food insecurity is driving a societal breakdown. That's the future that's in store for billions more if (when) a climate change crisis really starts to kick in.
To respond to the GP - Earth will do just fine if humanity disappears. Life will indeed go on.
Re:yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, why don't you provide that link, then? It's the done thing to cite one's sources when making claims, rather than expecting your readers to do the work on your behalf. After all, if it's such a small job of work, it's better that you do it once, than that every one of your readers should have to do it separately. Unless you enjoy wasting your readers' time?
I spent a few minutes investigating anyway and found a discussion to the effect that temperature rises logarithmically with CO2 concentrations - as CO2 increases by orders of magnitude, temperature increases linearly. A law of diminishing returns.
But that's not what the original poster claimed. He claimed that there was a certain CO2 concentration beyond which there would be zero extra warming effect, and moreover that we were already at that concentration.
So it's quite possible that I'm reading the wrong thing. Or perhaps he was reading the wrong thing. Since neither of us have provided links or citations, we can't go to the source and find out, and so the argument goes nowhere.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that 'make-believe system' is intended and generally functions quite well if left alone (*CRA* cough) at allocating resources on a more efficient basis than every other system we've ever tried. Inefficient allocation of resources means increased poverty, and at the margin, increased death from same. For us middle-class first worlders a tick up or down isn't a big deal but getting out of grinding subsistence agriculture and moving up the ladder to a merely crappy factory job means the difference between losing one sibling or three in the 3rd world.
Re:Here is a theory for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
jmorris
"...replacing the values of the Enlightenment with Socialism and Planning."
Hyperbole straw man much? How about replacing our inefficient and inequitable society with a mix of small local initiatives like small organic farms supported by CSAs, co-ops, and farmers, and more local sustainable power generation like windmills and solar with SOME public large infrastructure like more trains and more subsidized broadband that seems to be working so well in Europe and Japan. The small local farms seems MORE in line with "enlightenment" thinkers like Jefferson whose vision of America was agrarian, decentralized, and New England town meeting based. Meanwhile your pure Freidmanite capitalism has collapsed from an orgy of ISVs, and "naked short selling." Time to go back to the drawing board to create a more just sustainable efficient society that provides information services and a good education for all it's members.
Enough (neo)conservative centralist globalist crony capitalist epic fail already!
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right in principle. However, the financial system is make-believe because it ignores the real cost of items. The cost of a tree is not just the cost of harvesting the tree, it is also the cost of not having the tree anymore--increased CO_2 in the air ((a) not sequestered by the tree and (b) produced by fossil-fuel--burning logging equipment), loss of topsoil due to erosion, loss of intangibles that are hard to put financial value on, like beauty... Gasoline ought to cost the full clean-up cost of the air that is destroyed (not just the oxygen consumed, but the cost of getting all the toxins, carcinogens, and whatnot out of the ground and air), etc. So yes, capitalism would be great--IF it accurately accounted for the real costs of things.
But these costs have only become apparent recently. When capitalism was invented a few thousand years ago, the cost of not having a tree anymore was irrelevant because there were so many trees (well, sort of--even back then they ran into numerous problems, but the problems were quite local). Now that there are 7e9 people in the world, everything is done on such a massive scale that even small per-capita incremental costs add up to, frankly, global ecological disaster. And our financial systems haven't caught up. Whether we can make them do so in time is up in the air. Pun intended.
So yes, capitalism is wonderful in theory, but as implemented, is make-believe.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
People have been bleating about market externalities for at least 150 years but when the rubber hits the road, all the alternatives are even worse at dealing with externalities. Compare pollution in the Soviet block with the West and the Sovs were clearly much dirtier.
It isn't that capitalism is perfect. It's not, which is why I'm open to alternatives. The problem is that people want to tear down capitalism and not discuss much that the alternatives they are pushing are even worse. That's just a no-go and dishonest to boot.
So what's your alternative?
Re:Hollow Men (Score:2, Insightful)
No and no. There's neither an "edge" nor a "limit".
(I'll refrain from pointing out the usual obvious agendas when people bring up "uncontrolled breeding" ... )
Re:Here is a theory for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh know, its the red threat all over again! Where is Patrick Swayze when we need him?! How is life in false dichotomy land? I hear you guys are trying to build a strawman that will someday reach the moon!
Seriously though, I don't think anyone advocated the end of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, nor even would recommend such. Sure, maybe your particular view of western civilization is threatened, but I doubt that most of us in the West share your values (I'm guessing extreme libertarian/freemarketeer). Yes, perhaps the "me first, screw everything else" ethos will be threatened, I have a hard time crying over this.
When someone attacks (or you perceive it, in this case) your ideology, and your reaction is paroxysms of rage, you probably have too much personally at state with a mere academic ideology.
Also, the enlightenment was much bigger than Adam Smith, and capitalism (in some form) much older than the enlightenment. Also, socialism and capitolism are NOT mutually exclusive (a lot of countries believe that we have the moral obligation of trying to lift people up). Nor is planning, EVER a bad thing. Its called foresight, its much better than cleaning up after your boneheaded mistakes all the time.
So now to the issue at hand, with your FUD out of the way, Canada != Siberia. They actually are pretty far apart. I doubt a Canadian undersea eruption is enough to cause extensive sea floor heating in Siberia. But then again, I didn't RTFA, so I'm not sure if there is actually a temperature differential involved around the hydrates, or if there is some other process going on. To be clear, I have no idea.
Re:yes and no (Score:2, Insightful)
You get modded up for nothing but a naked assertion?
Go ahead, post a citation into the scientific literature which supports this claim.
P.S. The IPCC doesn't do anything but summarize what's already in that literature. If you think that the science proves something in disagreement with the IPCC summary of that science, cite references.
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:3, Insightful)
Should have previewed:
I find it odd that the IPCC fails to mention that increased underwater volcanic activity under the arctic has been occurring since at least 1999, including a pyroclastic eruption and one that supposedly was as large as Pompei
It's not odd; the heat generated by undersea volcanoes is negligible compared to the heat necessary to melt that quantity of ice. This is noted in other press releases [canada.com]. It would actually make a nice physics "Fermi problem" for students to estimate, back of envelope, the amount of ice that could be melted this way.
or would it be better to go ahead and destroy (or at least tax to ruin) western civilization as a precautionary measure?
... and here we descend from a seemingly honest question into insane political hyperbole.
Clue: "Carbon taxes will destroy the economy" is the conservative scare story version of "global warming will make the human race go extinct". Both are ill informed. You might start by reading A Question of Balance, the new book on climate economics by who is arguably the world's leading climate economist, Bill Nordhaus of Yale.
Note also that the evidence in favor of global warming is based on far more than Arctic ice melt rates.
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet every time we stray out of the capitalist camp (broadly defined) we later on figure out that the gains are illusory, usually a matter of robbing Peter (quietly) to pay Paul (loudly). Privatizing the global commons is possible and has been done in pieces. Why are S African elephant herds booming (they are privatized) while surrounding countries have major poaching problems?
I concede that until one figures out a decent privatization scheme, some regulation is better than an unregulated commons but that's about it.
Re:not the warmest temps (Score:3, Insightful)
Climatologist James Annan has a whole series of blog posts debunking Pielke's claims, e.g. here [blogspot.com] and here [blogspot.com], here [blogspot.com], etc. The short answer is that given the large amount of interannual noise present in the data, the 2.5 C "best estimate" trend is consistent with the observed trend, i.e. you can't say with statistical confidence whether the discrepancy is due to statistical fluctuations in weather or is something real in the underlying climate system. Pielke also makes the common mistake of pretending that the model predictions don't have any uncertainty and that you can "falsify" them based on a single best-guess trend. Actually, now that I look at it, he also used the projected 100-year warming rate, ignoring the fact that the warming rate is lower at the beginning of the projection period and higher at the end; this method will overstate the near-term warming projected.
For an actual published comparison of IPCC model projections to observations, try here [nasa.gov]. (Interestingly, they too ignore model uncertainty except for climate sensitivity uncertainty, although that is the largest uncertainty.)
Re:Don't worry about global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
It is very difficult to justify private ownership of something that is not produced by someone. Who should own the air? It must be owned by one entity, since there is only one atmosphere--national boundaries are irrelevant. And that means a monopoly. Whom should I pay for the privilege of breathing? What shall I do when they increase prices? What if they don't offer a product that I want? If Microsoft Air is too dirty, I can't just switch to Apple Air.
Government exists for exactly this purpose--to make sure that bullies can't destroy things at the expense of everyone else. Things like the air need to be managed by global nonprofits with the power to enforce rules (ie. armies), and I can't see anyone but a government doing this.
Or if I set up a global atmospheric regulation committee, what will you do? Pay me?
Re:yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
You really need to get out more. Seriously. Go read the journals. Look at the latest few issues of Science, Nature, Nature Geoscience, Journal of Climate, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, Climate Dynamics, Climatic Change, etc. Count how many of the papers dispute the claim, "AGW is the cause of most of the warming in the past 50 years", or predicate their analysis on a contrary claim. Seriously. Go do it before coming back and telling us what the scientific community does and doesn't think. I read most of those journals regularly, and this huge skeptical controversy that pundits claim exists among climatologists, just doesn't exist. Yes, people disagree on things, such as the impacts of climate change on hurricanes. But the basic premise of AGW is widely accepted, and has been for some time now.