Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor 273
sciencehabit writes Researchers have discovered 570 plumes of methane percolating up from the sea floor off the eastern coast of the United States, a surprisingly high number of seeps in a relatively quiescent part of the ocean. The seeps suggest that methane's contribution to climate change has been underestimated in some models. And because most of the seeps lie at depths where small changes in temperature could be releasing the methane, it is possible that climate change itself could be playing a role in turning some of them on.
Global Warming? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this part of the "man made" global warming thing?
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Funny)
Earth farts......
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
most of the seeps lie at depths where small changes in temperature could be releasing the methane
in other words, the warming that is already occurring has (surprise surprise) a positive feedback loop. one of many. whether or not the initiator was man-made in origin (hint: it was and is).
Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
And let's break from the summary and go to the article for an even more damning quote(emphasis mine):
Jens Greinert, who heads the deep-sea monitoring unit at GEOMAR, downplays the effect of the new seeps on the atmosphere or ocean chemistry because the magnitude of the releases is dwarfed by human-associated inputs, such as livestock, or even other marine sites. “These little bits of bubbling here or there will not make a memorable impact,” Greinert says. He is more interested in what will happen as the world warms. “It becomes interesting only if you have a catastrophic release,” he says.
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this little bit of information is not a gotcha moment, but it leads credence to the idea that we still have no idea
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Setting: two people with their ankles handcuffed together
Says the left man: "We just don't know exactly how fast that car is going, your radar gun reading 67.432 MpH is based on sketchy theories I don't trust(and how did you get all those sigfigs?), and I'm guessing it's less than that, and think about how much effort it would take to move out of the way. Your 'get hit and die' theory is faulty, so we should clearly not move."
Says the right man: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
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Well, okay, I'll be less antagonistic about it.
Because the actual scientists involved have constantly been refining the theory and an entirely unreasonable amount of argument is dedicated to pretending that isn't happening.
It's just the people who are expecting a revolutionary reversal for no reason whatsoever never shut up about how we're not respecting the scientific method, I have a tendency to see that argument vis a vis climate change in a very harsh light.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
" what I am saying is that the "models" are wrong, "
No, you are wrong.
The models are excellent models. That have even 'shown' thing we didn't know about, but when we went and looked there they where.
That means they are excellent models.
"because they don't have all the variables in place,"
That doesn't make them wrong.
Are they 100%? No
Are they wrong? No.
You should problem make and effort to understand 2 things:
Climate models
Error Bars.
If someone falls off a building and and I say "My model predicts when will hit the ground and die in 45 seconds. And he hits the grounds in 44 seconds, that doesn't mean he won't hit the ground and die." It cold be the resolution of my tools wasn't fine enough, it could be a strong updraft I didn't know aboput. It could mean he was wearing parachute pants and the extra drag slowed him.,
But that does not make my model wrong, broken, invalid or useless.
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for example, lets say we find out that we are right, and we are to blame. but what if the planet has natural ways to rectify the situation that we do not understand? what if the planet is already doing "something" to fix the problem and we dont know it? what happens when we tr
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I do believe you have an odd definition for excellent [drroyspencer.com].
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All models are wrong. There is no such thing as a perfect model outside of trivial classroom models e.g. spherical cow. Modeling fluid dynamics for aerodynamic lift, structural integrity models for bridges and buildings, etc . all have errors. They don't account for all variables and it is impossible to do so.
Science isn't built on models. Models are built on science. As with any other branch of science models are used to help get a better understanding of the phenomena being studied. Models are TOOLS that
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
No, you just imagine that. The evidence is just rather overwhelming that man's contribution to CO2 levels massively disproportionate, and overwhelming natural sinks.
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" meaning AGW MAY NOT be the doom and gloom some make it out to be. "
wrong.
It means AGW "doom and gloom": could be worse the thought, nut not better then thought.
"but it leads credence to the idea that we still have no idea"
That is in no way true.
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interesting.... however the problem lies in the fact thats it is higher than they thought, meaning it COULD still be worse than they thought, meaning AGW MAY NOT be the doom and gloom some make it out to be. this little bit of information is not a gotcha moment, but it leads credence to the idea that we still have no idea
Scientists discover something new, which suggests they were wrong before, which means they could be completely wrong about everything. Just like when scientists discovered a new species of butterfly, proving we still have no idea if life exists on Earth.
Only for the subject of global warming can scientists discover a potentially new way in which climate change could accelerate over time due to man induced warming of the deep oceans, and that is used as evidence that maybe its not happening at all.
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There is no mod option for "dumb as a post." There's been a dozen peer reviewed papers that have come out in the last year saying the same thing. Once you step away from the political ipcc, things start to become the "land of conflicting scientific opinion."
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I'll just leave this here. [slate.com]
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The VERY NEXT SENTENCE:
He is more interested in what will happen as the world warms. “It becomes interesting only if you have a catastrophic release,” he says.
emphasis mine. i.e. it's slow now but if temps go up it becomes catastrophic.
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Is this part of the "man made" global warming thing?
Oh yea.. Personally, I think we should go drill said areas, use fracking and recover the methane before it gets loose....
As a side benefit, we can burn the stuff for fuel... Hey, it's being released anyway, so why not?
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Is this part of the "man made" global warming thing?
It's both. That's the trouble with climate change... it's a very very complex issue. The earth has its own rythems going on and we're throwing a wrench in them. How much is natural? How much is our fault? It's hard to say. But make no mistake... we're poking a very large... very angry bear. The less poking we do the better. It may wake up on its own but we sure as heck don't need to be helping.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
No this is naturally occurring seeps. We have known about them in the past but recent discoveries have shown that more exist than was thought and with methane being 30x more potent of a green house gas than CO2 it throws the models and calculations off.
There is however the hypothesis that we create the CO2 that causes the base warming and the because we are warming the oceans it may be causing more methane to be released.
However, this is not known for sure and the extent at which methane is being released from natural sources is still in question.
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We have known about them in the past but recent discoveries have shown that more exist than was thought and with methane being 30x more potent of a green house gas than CO2 it throws the models and calculations off.
If the seeps are not growing in size or quantity, the atmospheric methane due to the seeps should remain constant, and the models should be unaffected.
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According to your logic my toxicity model for iron in well water in Nowhereistan is unaffected by the fact that arsenic levels was elevated by 15000 times above normal in the data samples, because it was at that level all along.
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Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the seeps are not growing in size or quantity, the atmospheric methane due to the seeps should remain constant, and the models should be unaffected.
If the models underestimate the amount of methane, and the models have hard-coded adjustments to make the hindcasts agree with the temperature record, then the models underestimate the warming due to methane and over-estimate warming due to CO2; the models are wrong. There really isn't any other logical way to spin this.
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methane being 30x more potent of a green house gas than CO2 ...
It is more complicated than that. Methane is about 100 times [wikipedia.org] more potent than CO2 in the short run. But it has a half-life in the atmosphere of about seven years. So the its effect on warming diminishes quickly. Over a century, it has an average warming effect about 34 times that of CO2.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop arguing with strawmen. I really hope you got upvoted by shills, because the alternative is that some people have actually bought into the propaganda, which sickens me to consider.
The science that is settled is:
a) The average global temperature is rising
b) Increased CO2 levels cause increased temperatures
c) Humans are releasing far more CO2 than can naturally be absorbed
Those are the settled science - or as most people call them, facts. You will see GW defenders trot out the "settled science" line because people still try to deny those fundamental facts.
Those three facts lead to a settled conclusion:
d) Human activity is causing increases in global temperature.
Again, if you're arguing that, you are either grievously misinformed, or do not understand how logic works, or have decided that you want to argue for a point you know to be wrong.
That humans are contributing is settled science. The extent to which we are contributing is mostly-settled - we know we are the largest factor, but we don't have a complete and clear picture as to how secondary effects (ie. global-warming-caused global warming) or natural effects (solar variance) affect things.
The precise models of "given conditions A, B, C and D, what temperatures can we expect in the next X years at places Y and Z?" are not settled. Further, the data we give those models is not entirely precise, because getting absolute perfect knowledge of the entire planet is basically impossible.
But this does not invalidate the entire argument. You can say "physicists don't know how gravity works for supermassive singularities at nuclear scales", and say that physics is not "settled science". You would be correct. However, if you try to use that to argue that scientists don't know why the Earth orbits the Sun, you're committing serious errors of logic.
And if you then try to argue that you can build a giant but rickety skyscraper over the city, because it can't fall over because gravity isn't a settled science, well, you're just using broken logic to try to make a quick profit despite the fact that you will inevitably kill people when it falls over because hey, science may not be able to figure out the exact second it's going to collapse but we know it's not gonna stay up forever. I hope you managed to understand that metaphor there.
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You did oversimplify. There's really no sense in talking about the "extent to which we are contributing" because of various positive feedback loops. I suppose that if you just say "we are a major contributor to global warming" you would on safe ground, but anything finer than that an things get really complicated. Even this article talked about how a warmer ocean causes increased release of methane....which causes a warmer ocean...which... (Well, the article didn't expressly mention that this was a loop.
Re: Global Warming? (Score:2)
You said that we can't predict volcanos and quakes. That isn't entirely correct. Mt. St. Helens was predicted, and they cleared the mountain of most people.
And we do have signs of impending quakes, including certain mediterranian ants. Also, IIRC, methane gas release is also considered to be a quake precursor.
Which DOES make me wonder, if this methane release is normal, or recent. I guess we won't know, or even have an idea unless we compare it to other areas.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Interesting)
b) Uh, what? I don't even know what you're talking about there.
c) Plant (and algae) growth is a negative feedback loop on CO2, but it doesn't work on the same timescales. We're dumping centuries worth of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. And we're combining that with deforestation. By the time plants have grown to stabilize the temperature, we'll be stabilized several degrees over our current temperature, and that's assuming any positive feedback loops don't override it (look at the "clathrate gun hypothesis" for an example of what could happen).
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I'm guessing roughly that we're dumping millions of years of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Previous life forms were contributing their mass for conversion to petroleum for as long as the earth has been around (either 4,000 years or 4.5 billion depending on your level of insanity), and we are on the downward side of extraction. To run low on something, as quickly as we have done, that has been getting created for over 4.5 billion years, one has to be consuming it at a pretty good clip. I would do so
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Petroleum and coal have only been forming for some 100's of millions of years, basically since plants colonized the land and pseudo-forests started to grow. (Some petroleum may have been formed earlier by algae). For the first period of perhaps 60 million odd years there were no fungi to break down the plant matter and much of current fossil fuels were created, sequestering lots of carbon which we're now releasing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly a troll, but for the benefit of anyone who may miss that point, I will simply state that there is no known mechanism for farts causing rain, whereas the greenhouse effect [wikipedia.org] is a thoroughly understood and experimentally verified mechanism for CO2 causing warming.
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Last night's refried beans, bad.
Last Year's refried beans, very very bad...
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If you position a car at the top of a steep hill, release the parking brake and give it "only" a small push, it's still your fault that it crashes into the building at the bottom of the hill.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:5, Funny)
And because most of us in here are software types, we will carefully extract the car from the wreckage, put new wheels on it, push it back up the hill, close all the windows, and nudge it downhill again so that we can see if it does the same thing again.
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Even more importantly, will it go faster if we paint it red?
I doubt it even makes it to the atmosphere (Score:4, Insightful)
That methane dissolves into the water long before it reaches the surface and re-emerges, I would be surprised if even a small percentage of it make it to the atmosphere because bacteria would consume the dissolved methane before it can reach the surface. Even in the atmosphere where there is very little life the methane only lasts a couple decades, but in the ocean where it's teaming with life I doubt very little of it makes it to the surface.
Re:I doubt it even makes it to the atmosphere (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA-
"Even in the more likely event that aerobic microbes devour the methane while still in the ocean, it is converted to carbon dioxide, which leads to ocean acidification."
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Re:I doubt it even makes it to the atmosphere (Score:5, Funny)
Excuse me, but - discussions here will be more free flowing and productive if people's opinions aren't pre-biased by any so-called "facts" which might appear in the linked articles. This is why we have a longstanding prohibition against reading them. Please remember that next time.
Thank you.
-- The Management
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As the Chinese motivational speaker always says, there's no 'a' in "teeming".
This is what they mean by "point of no return" (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people discuss this notion, and it's only rarely contextualized in terms of what's actually happening.
Methane is big. A huge greenhouse gas. It knocks the socks of carbon in all ways except that there's not that much of it(yet). It also doesn't "clean up" nearly as nicely after a couple of centuries of forest expansion/ocean calcification.
And a lot of evidence suggests warmer temperatures are going to release more big-time. It's scary because: we can't just stop producing it in bulk like CO2 the heat will release a lot of it naturally(and keep warming things). It's scary because: we have no (economically plausible) geo-engineering solutions like we might have to CO2. It's scary because geologic history suggests the runaways in the past last on the order of thousands of years.
We really really really don't want this.
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Which would add it increase CO2 levels for what they eat and increased methane from what they didn't eat.
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We really really really don't want this.
We really really really don't have a choice, do we?
Historically, this stuff just happens...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
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This stuff "just happens" over the course of literally millions of years(from your own links). Not a couple hundred.
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If you read the article there is a statement that the methane is converted to CO2 before it reaches the surface. It is a fuel source after all.
The thing is, where else is this going on? Like those mysterious holes [washingtonpost.com] in Russia?
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Methane is big. A huge greenhouse gas. It knocks the socks of carbon in all ways except that there's not that much of it(yet). It also doesn't "clean up" nearly as nicely after a couple of centuries of forest expansion/ocean calcification.
Actually, I believe the the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is a lot less than that of CO2. So, although it's a more "potent" greenhouse gas, the long term effects of CO2 are worse because of CO2's longer lifetime.
See e.g. this article on the effects of methane compared to CO2.
http://www.realclimate.org/ind... [realclimate.org]
When methane is released chronically, over decades, the concentration in the atmosphere will rise to a new equilibrium value. It won’t keep rising indefinitely, like CO2 would, because meth
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It also doesn't "clean up" nearly as nicely after a couple of centuries of forest expansion/ocean calcification.
Methane has less than a 9 year lifetime [wikipedia.org] in the atmosphere. Still bad, but very different from what you imply.
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So the world will be really, really stinky for about 9 years?
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Methane is odorless.
Gas you use to warm up your house has impurities added to it to make it smell: This is for safety so that you will detect a leak before you pass out.
Methane in farts is not what causes the smell. It is the other gasses.
Alas, since the most common experience people have with methane is household gas, this misunderstanding persists.
Re:This is what they mean by "point of no return" (Score:4, Informative)
Methane may be 23 x more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2, but it's also much shorter lived. Which is really worse?
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Whoopee! Those of us who survive can eat insect meat and drive around in methane-powered death vehicles with mohawks and face paint! Yay!
You are basically making shit up here. Sorry. More heat doesn't necessarily mean more rain, and simple turbine systems are very inefficient and require a pretty high level of technology to maintain (you need to be able to smelt and machine steel).
Meanwhile, in ten years we might have the ability to safely grow replacement organs in peoples' bodies. We might be on
Feedback loops (Score:5, Interesting)
Nature usually creates negative feedback loops that contribute to equilibrium. The textbook one is if there is population growth in a prey species, the population of predators will increase to check that growth.
In this case we have a positive feedback loop. Increases in temperature will cause more methane hydrate to melt, which causes an increase in temperature.
This is a very not good situation that does not have easy solutions.
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Well, no, the earth does have negative feedback loops. We can see them in the historical records the deniers like to somewhat mindlessly cite for "natural cycles".
Depending on the scale of the runaway, those factors can just take thousands to millions of years to kick in.
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OK. I was focusing on human-scale time periods. Geological-scale is indeed different.
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This is something where engineers know things that climate scientists apparently don't.
If the positive feedback was so strong, that the system was unstable (right half plane as it were) the earth would already be Venus. Doesn't stop climatologists talking out of the butts and proposing just such strong positive feed-backs.
TL;DR; Don't ask a climatologist a control systems question and expect a reasonable answer.
Re:Feedback loops (Score:4)
As the other reply points out- there are negative influences that do check the process and prevent the Earth from becoming Venus.
Unfortunately for us, they take hundreds of thousands of years to happen.
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"This is something where engineers know things that climate scientists apparently don't."
My sig applies to you.
Idiot.
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Real engineers know that reality is rarely a linear system represented only by poles and zeros.
Re:Feedback loops (Score:4, Informative)
Hey, look, HornWumpus, you don't know shit.
Our planet, has, in it's history, quite provably been over 10 C warmer, due to different carbon levels. That's huge, FYI. Earth has a proven history of going extremely warm(and no one is saying Venus is our future, thanks for the implied strawman there). That kind of change would murder our system of agriculture, almost everywhere.
Not exactly, higher CO2 levels and warmer temperatures would provide more arable land, more plants absorbing CO2 etc. That is one of the feed backs that mitigate CO2 concentration buildups. I do know that plants in higher CO2 concentrations can handle higher temperatures. Raising the CO2 concentration to 1500ppm in an enclosed green house promotes plant growth and the plants do much better at temperatures up to and a little above 32.2c (90f) I did a study a few years back on that and was surprised at the results.
Re:Feedback loops (Score:5, Insightful)
You are looking at the wrong end point. Yes, the planet will survive. Very few people are worried about that. You have to be a real doomer / gloomer to stay away worrying about Venus level runaway heating. But you can have a number of other scenarios that can be considered less than pleasant:
- Intensifying the sixth [bbc.co.uk] major extinction event. The other five really changed the planet around, much to Randall's comfort [xkcd.com]. The planet will survive this next one but since apex predators tend to be significantly effected and humans are the ultimate apex predator, this might be considered a Bad Idea.
- Increasing temperatures increase arable land (generally). The problem is that of time frames. It may take hundreds of thousands of years to convert warm swamps into farmland. Most Americans can't handle fasting between gas stations, much less millennia
- Increasing resource stresses - you may have noticed that humans are having a bit of a problem creating stable geopolitical structures during geologically and biologically stable periods. Add big swings in weather / climate, no matter which way, creates more stressors and more reasons for us not to get along with each other.
- Which segues into another bit of bad timing. Changing climate while simultaneously cranking human population to over seven billion. For a number of important resources it can be argued that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. The degree and speed of upcoming climate events may well overcome our ability to feed, water and house all of us.
So, it's not even a big issue which way the climate goes. The only way climate can mitigate the other problems is if it stays relatively constant. That doesn't appear to be happening.
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Hmm, let me take a stab at your points
1) No other apex predator exists and thrives in as many varied Eco systems as humans. From the arctic to the desert we adapt and survive. Where as other apex predators fail to adapt and go extinct, we as a species adapt and survive. The reason for this is our ability to reason and to build tools.
2) True, however our ability to reason and build tools allows us to adapt both our selves and the land at a much faster rate than nature. Thus as the land becomes arable we move
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Please quote your source when making such claims.
Re:Feedback loops (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody in climatology has said earth will end up like Venus. Zip Zilch. You won't find a climatologist saying that. Anywhere. If you can take the bullshit liars have said about this debate out of your mental image of the debate, you might end up eventually realizing exactly how you got the the crazy spot you're in.
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I'll even break it down for you. You got into this crazy spot because:
1) you don't want to believe that AGW is true
2) you find any goddamn reason, no matter how tenuously connected to reality or frequently debunked, to deny its existence because the consequences (if true) are too terrible
3) besides, the people who are convinced that AGW is true and we shouldn't pollute so much are those people.
4) Those people just want to tell you how to live anyway, so fuck them.
5) so therefore, you've convinced yourself
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The truth is, I don't know what's wrong with the deniers, and while I sort of adopt that narrative as an explanation, I don't really have any solid evidence that's actually how their brains are broken.
I like to ask as honestly as I can, and of course, that never gets an answer either. People just assume I'm trolling and move on.
How do you ask "What's wrong with you?" without coming across as actively hostile?
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People have been asking that at least since Socrates was put to death for asking annoying questions.
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Stop making shit up about Venus, it's a non sequitor.
". Assuming it would be universally a bad thing is idiotic."
I't's bad for humans, and has the very real possibility of being the cause of are extinction.
It will be the end of our civilization as we know it.
I say both of those statements without hyperbole.
We need to start doing something series now. Had we continued were Carter left off, we wouldn't be in this mess. Now we need to be even more aggressive.\Ad if we keep waiting we will need to get more and
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The salem hypothesis [rationalwiki.org].
It's not that engineers are always falsely certain about scientific things, it's just that we're the ones who are most likely to think we're more qualified than we are with regards to science.
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There's no need to "defend the moron climatologists" since they not the ones making those claims. There are plenty of people on the AGW is happening side who are getting overwrought about methane but most scientists studying the subject think it's a minor issue compared to CO2. It's something worth paying attention to but the chances of a catastrophic release from undersea methane deposits appears to be pretty remote.
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There is a feedback control that may help mitigate a small portion of the effect already, humidity. Water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere contribute to warming.... until they are concentrated enough so that the albedo effect kicks in ( clouds reflecting sunlight away ).
That isn't to say that it will be the panacea in any way, shape, or form though - since it will barely have an over-all effect short term. I was merely pointing out one tiny feedback check that is going on as we speak.
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We could create permanent cloud cover to block out the sun. That would have the added side effect of stopping the solar-powered robot menace, though perhaps it would drive them to find a more sinister power source.
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Which would do nothing to save us as a species.
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You don't seem to understand what they means.
"You talked about feedback loops that restore a system to equilibrium"
That does not mean it returns to a previous state. It means when energy input/capture levels off there will find a NEW equilibrium, not the same. There is no rule the new equilibrium needs to be habitable to humans.
", this could be the mechanism that then reverses warming."
IN no way does that make any sense what so ever.
Either they have been going on and are already taken into account, or they
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To your specific point, we even have several historical examples in the ice records of (geologically) sudden 'pulses' in CO2 and temperature to levels comparable or exceeding today.* In every case the system has then returned to an equilibrium....DOZENS of times over the past couple of million years. The feedback loops you talk about are real; the cataclysmic FUD you're talking about negative feedback is, quite evidently, not.
The Earth will definitely return to equilibrium and the biosphere will certainly continue to exist.
The piece you're missing is that I'm a human. I care about human stuff that happens on human time scales.
"So maybe the global economy collapses and a couple billion people starve to death, but just give it 10,000 years and things will straighten themselves right out."
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To your specific point, we even have several historical examples in the ice records of (geologically) sudden 'pulses' in CO2 and temperature to levels comparable or exceeding today.* In every case the system has then returned to an equilibrium....DOZENS of times over the past couple of million years. The feedback loops you talk about are real; the cataclysmic FUD you're talking about negative feedback is, quite evidently, not.
There is little or no evidence that CO2 levels have been above about 300 ppm in the past several million years. They are now about 400 ppm so you have to go back more than 5 million years or so to find a comparable level.
As far as feedbacks and the cycles of the ice age go, the main driver appears to be orbital variations (Milankovitch Cycles) which are definitely not a feedback. Once the Milankovitch Cycles kick things off then various feedbacks come in to play.
Related to? (Score:2)
All I saw was. . . (Score:2)
TFA says "discovered" and "first time" (Score:2, Insightful)
From TFA, they discovered these plumes and this is the first time they have mapped this much area.
That means they have a starting point, one datum for how much methane is coming from these areas. That's nice. Now keep measuring on an annual basis.
If you think this means "global warming", it's not even as bad as measuring the temperature in the morning and mid-day to prove your point. It's as bad as measuring the temperature ad mid-day and extrapolating through that one point.
Regardless of it, we must still pay... (Score:3)
Regardless if it is all naturally occurring seepage or if man contributed to exacerbating seepage, we must still be taxed to pay not just carbon credits but methane credits.
offgassing is a function of pressure (Score:2, Insightful)
Methane offgassing from submarine frozen methane (clathrates) has been well known for a long time. The freezing point of methane is a function of both pressure and temperature. As pressure is increased, the freezing point also increases. As sea level rises, pressure at the seabed increases and offgassing decreases. So if seabed methane is a contributor to global warming, then it will cause sea level rise, thus limiting itself. Conversely, if the climate cools, then icecaps expand and sea level drops,
Re: (Score:2)
As sea level rises, pressure at the seabed increases and offgassing decreases. So if seabed methane is a contributor to global warming, then it will cause sea level rise, thus limiting itself
With what coefficient, though? Will it decrease significantly before London, Netherlands, and major West Coast and East Coast cities are under water? Sea bed is really deep, a few meters of extra water isn't going to change anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Therefore we can ignore it and I can keep driving my SUV that gets 10 MPG to the grocery store. Suck it, liberals!
offgassing is a function of pressure (Score:2)
On uncertainty (Score:2)
I have to agree with conservatives on one point: we don't know enough about Earth to make any reliable predictions.
Maybe the Earth will somehow balance itself and the warming will level out. Or trigger positive feedback mechanisms that accelerate warming and/or change. We just don't know.
However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about altering the "normal" path. It's pretty clear we are gambling big-time via pollution and green-house gasses.
Some of the more thoughtful conservatives say we should
Jehova's Witnesses Knew This Years Ago (Score:2)
Blimey, in about 1998 this old guy from the Jo-Hos knocked on my door and presented me with some literature including something about how "all scientists" believe in god, especially the Great Fred Hoyle, so God must be there.
It also said that "scientists are telling us" about this vast, untapped wealth of hydrocarbon deposits on the deep sea beds in the form of these methane thingy-ma-bobs, so God had provided us with all the energy we'll ever need. He's a great guy that God dude! He didn't mention atmosphe
Cap the leaks and profit? (Score:2)
So this is clearly an environmental story. Methane is Bad News for the Earth. But it's also useful as a fuel; it's the primary component of natural gas. So why don't we have energy companies go out to where the leaks are and harvest them? I know that deep ocean extraction isn't exactly easy, but there must be at least some money to be made. And hey, it would just so happen to prevent this deadly greenhouse gas from contributing to climate change (as much, as it would still contribute some if burned for fuel
Mother Nature, meet... (Score:2)
..Chipotle.
Re:Bermuda Triangle? (Score:4, Funny)
Hasn't this been a known issue since the investigation regarding all of the airplane disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle? The methane threw off their altimeters by making it look like they were climbing at a high rate, causing them to dive right into the ocean. Also, boats having been in the wrong places at the wrong time have had methane "bubbles" from the sea floor cause the water underneath them to get extremely "thin", which causes the boats to sink.
Less Discovery Channel for you, buster.