Fountains of Methane 1000m across Erupt From Arctic Ice! , page 1

Given all the fuss about climate Change - looks like this little baby is going to decide for itself! Apparently the Earth is a living breathing organism - well from this report, it sounds like it just might be about to heal itself. Now this is a concern!

"The Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted a survey of 10,000 square miles of sea off the coast of eastern Siberia.
They made a terrifying discovery - huge plumes of methane bubbles rising to the surface from the seabed.
'We found more than 100 fountains, some more than a kilometre across,' said Dr Igor Semiletov, 'These are methane fields on a scale not seen before. The emissions went directly into the atmosphere.'


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... xzz1gTX0wFci

Scientists estimate that the methane trapped under the ice shelf could lead to extremely rapid climate change.
Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher.


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... xzz1gTV5kHVw

www.dailymail.co.uk... xzz1gSR8h6jJ

Sounds like we won't need those Tin Hats afterall - check out the good old hot water bottles and learn to build an igloo.

reply to post by JaqueFresco

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Sorry I'm no expert on this but I'm sure they'll be along. Just doesn't sound good at all does it.

Methane release not a good thing at all.

It means game over.

Ever heard of the great dying?
Look it up.

But this report came from March 4 of this year.

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

www.physorg.com...

The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying,[1] was an extinction event that occurred 252.28 Ma (million years) ago,[2] forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. It was the Earth's most severe extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species[3] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.[4] It is the only known mass extinction of insects.[5][6] Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera were killed. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after other extinction events.[3] This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions."[7] Researchers have variously suggested that there were from one to three distinct pulses, or phases, of extinction.[8][4][9][10] There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions; the earlier phase was likely due to gradual environmental change, while the latter phase has been argued to be due to a catastrophic event. Suggested mechanisms for the latter include large or multiple bolide impact events, increased volcanism, and sudden release of methane clathrate from the sea floor; gradual changes include sea-level change, anoxia, increasing aridity, and a shift in ocean circulation driven by climate change.[11]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by quedup

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This is extremely interesting, and nice catch spotting this news.

Although, the effects of this methane release may be slightly exaggerated, in some ways. (Human activities, such as herding of farm animals in concentrated locations, such as dairy cattle, pigs, etc....can possibly account for HUGE releases of methane as well).

This observation likely will point to the fact of some long-ago decomposed bio-matter that had been trapped in the ice, perhaps during the last Ice Age of ~10,000 or ~15,000 years ago? Combined with the migration, over those many centuries, of the ice in the Arctic.

Educated guesses until more up-close examinations and samples collected, can be obtained.

reply to post by quedup

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If one of these underwater caverns of methane breaks and completely empties, releasing trillions of tons of natural gas into the atmosphere, it could be enough to displace enough oxygen so that most air breathing creatures die, especially ones that have a precise lower limit on oxygen percentages required, like humans.

And there are thousands of these methane pockets all over the planets seabed. Only one good sized one needs to break. Perhaps one already has started to crack.

[/fearmongering]

reply to post by CaticusMaximus

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it could be enough to displace enough oxygen so that most air breathing creatures die,

Come on. That is NOT possible.

Anyway, some humans would survive... people in closed facilities...

But maybe there is hope,will will be saved by methane consuming microbes.Yeah!

Defusing the Methane Greenhouse Time Bomb Could methane-digesting bacteria and an Arctic cap of fresh water prevent a climate catastrophe?

www.scientificamerican.com...

Quote from quedup "I think you're right but I always think that this is when the climate flips - when it get's too hot - nature perhaps creates an ice age????

Either way - it looks like something has to give."

In 1966, Broecker proposed a new time scale based on extrapolation of a 120,000-year date for the last major warm peak in the oxygen-isotope record, and he proclaimed his data was a close match to Milankovitch summer insolation. He also introduced the notion of a "mode switch" in ocean circulation from a warm to a cold state. A few years later in 1970, Broecker and his student Jan van Donk elaborated on the "mode switch" theme and postulated rapid transitions from periods of maximum glaciation to the following warm periods. They identified 6 such "terminations" for the last 440,000 years, which define 5 full cycles for the last 400,000 years, for an average duration of 80,000 years per cycle. With this work, Broecker introduced the notion that the major ice age cycles of the Pleistocene were roughly 100,000 years long, and that glaciations grew gradually and ended abruptly, a pattern described as "sawtooth" cycles.

earthguide.ucsd.edu...

Originally posted by Vitchilo
reply to post by CaticusMaximus

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it could be enough to displace enough oxygen so that most air breathing creatures die,

Come on. That is NOT possible.

Anyway, some humans would survive... people in closed facilities...

edit on 13-12-2011 by Vitchilo because: (no reason given)

We'll know soon enough!

However, what cannot be disputed, is that methane is about 20x the insulator that CO2 is. A tremendous amount released into the atmosphere would have devastating climate impacts.

en.wikipedia.org...

The clathrate gun hypothesis is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures (and/or falls in sea level) can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost which, because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, leads to further temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization – in effect initiating a runaway process as irreversible, once started, as the firing of a gun.[1]

Its a good read.

Anecdotally, I heard somewhere that for all the oil that exists on the entire planet, there is 1,000 times as much coal. And for all the coal that exists on the planet, there is 1,000 times as much methane. That, is a proverbial # ton of heavy insulating gas, which doesnt need to be converted from anything, just released.

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