Methane could be our downfall

I recently introduced a work collegue to this forum, he was discussing some of the threads with his father and a family friend who works on the north sea oil platforms in a senior position, when the subject got to global warming the friend commented that what was concerning him the most about global warming, was the effects of the sea's temperature rising a couple more degree's which in turn would release the billions of ton's of methane held captive at the bottom of the oceans, the effects of this would pretty much kill us all a lot quicker, as it would super accelarate global warming.

So i did a little research, and he could be right, i'll put a link here to a 3 year old thread from ATS, the OP did a very good job of researching, i'll put some more links up once i get home, but for now here's a nice little quote from wiki on methane.

In addition, there is a large, but unknown, amount of methane in methane clathrates in the ocean floors. Global warming could release this methane, which could cause a further sharp rise in global temperatures. Such releases of methane may have been a major factor in previous major extinction events.

and the link to an old ATS post.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

If you have a quick google on the subject you find that it is something people are begining to talk about, especially with the icecaps melting as there is millions of tons of methane locked up in those aswell.
I myself had never heard of this, yet another threat to our life!

Except that same CH4 remained stuck to the ocean floor and icecaps during the Holocene's other interglacial periods, so your scenario is implausible.

Now if some mining or nuclear explosion somehow released a big pocket, then we could be in trouble... still unlikely since meteors have apparently failed to do so in the past. Either that, or the Earth quickly recovered.

reply to post by SlyCM


I was not refering to global temperature change, which incidently was estimated at between 0.5-2.0 degree's above present day temperature during the hypsithermal period, but sea temperature increase in excess of that, which "could" result in the release of the frozen deposits.

Did you read the old thread? its happened twice before.
it is very plausible.

Sorry, allow me to rephrase myself. It is certainly plausible, but not so much with current trends.

Ah well... with all these doomsday scenarios, it may seem hard to "see the light", but at least if we get wiped out evolution will continue on. It'll be like we were never here.

also.. don't forget about up in northern canada and places in Siberia, methane bubbles out of the ground constantly.. massive pockets of this stuff is going day and night... it bubbles up off the coast of oregon as well..

I think you may be on to something as this is the third time I have heard about this topic in the last week..

Jeepers! I thought this was going to be about all the thawing permafrost and the methane released from that. I flagged the thread. Humans can turn some of this around if we wake up in time. I will search the USGS site and see if they have any new research.

The lack of recent research is quite worrying to me, the effects on the clathrates due to global warming was discussed and studied as far back as 1997 according to one of the links i will post.
There is also a very detailed report produced by NASA on the effects, but once again its several years old.
Can any one find any newer research?

Report from 1997.
www.marscigrp.org...

NASA report.
www.giss.nasa.gov...

News article.
www.geo.orst.edu...

National Geographic article.
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Australian Government report.
greenhouse.gov.au...

Factory Farming is a big contributor of methane gases. *wink wink*

Well i told you about it 4 years ago, and now it hits msm, global warming acceleration just around the corner.

BBC News

The tragedy is that we’ve never bothered to safely extract this stuff –Methane Hydrate as a fuel. Apparently…

The scale of the resource is spectacular. By some estimates, methane hydrates contain more energy content than all other known fossil fuels combined.
Two small areas located roughly 200 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C., contain enough methane to meet the country's gas needs for more than a century. And this is only one of at least two dozen similar reservoirs discovered in U.S. coastal waters since the early 1970s. www.cbc.ca...

The main technical difficulty is that when the stuff is disturbed it bubbles, and by lowering the density of water (when the bubbles are in motion) they can cause ships to no longer float. But I’ve long wondered why a large patch of plastic sheeting, together with plastic piping, and a gas fuelled, gas compressor on a gas transport ship could not safely do the job.

On positive spin-off from Fukushima is…

Japan has begun its search for a new potential fuel source – and the demand has the potential to re-shape the energy market.
Two state-owned companies have begun work on prospective natural gas drill sites off the coast of Japan.
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation are drilling in separate locations for methane hydrate – a form of semi-solid natural gas.
If successful, Japan would be the owner of the world’s first seabed methane hydrate production. asiancorrespondent.com...

Methane Hydrate is not carbon free, but mostly is (being 4 parts hydrogen for every part carbon). Furthermore burning it (where 2 methane moles = 4 moles of water and one of Co2) is much better than letting it escape into the atmosphere because one molecule methane is 20 times worse at trapping heat than one of CO2).

www.bbc.co.uk...

Researchers say they have found more than 500 bubbling methane vents on the seafloor off the US east coast. The unexpected discovery indicates there are large volumes of the gas contained in a type of sludgy ice called methane hydrate. There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming. The scientists say there could be about 30,000 of these hidden methane vents worldwide. Previous surveys along the Atlantic seaboard have shown only three seep areas beyond the edge of the US continental shelf.

Just adding some more info to a very old thread.

a reply to: RancidCat

I think you should change the title of the diary from "could" to "will"...