Fountains of Methane 1000m across Erupt From Arctic Ice!

But ,not to worry about a global warming,but an ice age,be it small.

As the ice sheets and glaciers continue to retreat, they add fresh water to the oceans and the oceans become desalinated.
This,in turn will cause a momentary halt to important currents that help the earth stay stable and warm.

Another possibility is that there was a slowing of thermohaline circulation.[25][64][65] The circulation could have been interrupted by the introduction of a large amount of fresh water into the North Atlantic, possibly caused by a period of warming before the Little Ice Age known as the Medieval Warm Period.[66][67][68] There is some concern that a shutdown of thermohaline circulation could happen again as a result of the present warming period.[69][70]

Many northern latitude countries will be plunged into a mini ice age.
The last one ended just a mere 150 years ago,and it had lasted some 500 years.

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period (Medieval Climate Optimum).[1] While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939.[2] It is conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries,[3][4][5] though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. NASA defines the term as a cold period between 1550 AD and 1850 AD and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming.[6] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes areas affected by the LIA:

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by kdog1982


Actually, one should talk about warming periods ... and not cooling periods.

We should look at what causes these periods, and we should be looking at orbital variations of earth around the sun. Earth tilting anomalies, and variations in the sun ... as well as other stellar objects.

And finally, we should look at the Earths core ... the plasma core, inside it (not iron). Which is the reason for the electromagnetic storms on it's surface, known as thunderstorms. But during all human civilizations "jump" periods, you have Zeus, Thor ... Evil ... which does tell you, that the non-scientific mind was contributin these activities to Gods and Devils.

reply to post by kdog1982


They don't know what caused the little ice age, as it is labelled, and it has very little to do with our current situation. We are in a period of global warming that exceeds anything the planet has seen in tens of thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of year, and this global warming it accelerating.

Your evidence does not support your claims, and there is nothing that links the two events.

This is not a problem we can ignore, and hope it goes away.

reply to post by poet1b


There were several factors that contributed to the little ice age,or LIA.

Decrease in sunspots,increase in volcanic activity and the slowing down of the warm water currents feeding the north.

There is still a very poor understanding of the correlation between low sunspot activity and cooling temperatures.[59][60] During the period 1645–1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. The Spörer Minimum has also been identified with a significant cooling period between 1460 and 1550.[61] Other indicators of low solar activity during this period are levels of the isotopes carbon-14 and beryllium-10.[62]

Throughout the Little Ice Age, the world experienced heightened volcanic activity.[63] When a volcano erupts, its ash reaches high into the atmosphere and can spread to cover the whole earth. This ash cloud blocks out some of the incoming solar radiation, leading to worldwide cooling that can last up to two years after an eruption. Also emitted by eruptions is sulfur in the form of SO2 gas. When this gas reaches the stratosphere, it turns into sulfuric acid particles, which reflect the sun's rays, further reducing the amount of radiation reaching Earth's surface. The 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia blanketed the atmosphere with ash; the following year, 1816, came to be known as the Year Without a Summer, when frost and snow were reported in June and July in both New England and Northern Europe. Other volcanoes that erupted during the era and may have contributed to the cooling include Billy Mitchell (ca. 1580), Mount Parker (1641), Long Island (Papua New Guinea) (ca. 1660), and Huaynaputina (1600).[16]

en.wikipedia.org...

Was a change in thermohaline circulation responsible for the Little Ice Age?

www.pnas.org...

Which was preceded by the medieval warm period.




Now,I agree we are much,much warmer than we have been for quiet some time,but ,it is view point that the earth's climate has a self correcting mechanism ,while over time will take place.
It may happen within a few decades,or perhaps hundreds of years.
Just my thoughts on it.

Originally posted by Vitchilo
reply to post by CaticusMaximus

 

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)

Oh, so is that what the FEMA camps are for? (sarcasm)

When the Tundra Burns

"One day in 2007, on the plain in northern Alaska, a lightning strike set the tundra on fire.

Historically, tundra, a landscape of lichens, mosses and delicate plants, was to damp to burn. But the climate in the area is warming and drying, and fires in both the tundra and forest regions of Alaska are increasing.

The Anaktuvuk River fire burned about 400 square miles of tundra, and work on lake sediments showed that no fire of that scale had occured in the region in at least 5,000 years.

Scientists have calculated that the fire and its aftermath sent a huge pulse of carbon into the air -- as much as would be admitted in two years by a city the size of Miami. Scientists say the fire thawed the upper layer of permafrost and set off what they fear will be permanent shifts in the landscape.

Up to now, the Arctic has been absorbing carbon, on balance, and was once expected to keep doing so throughout this century. But recent analyses suggest that the permafrost thaw could turn the Arctic into a net source of carbon, possibly within a decade or two, and those studies did not account for fire.

'I maintain that the fastest way you're going to lose permafrost and release permafrost carbon to the atmosphere is increasing fire frequency,' said Michelle C. Mack, a University of Florida scientist who is studying the Anaktuvuk fire, 'Its a rapid and catastrophic way you could completly change everything.'

The essential question scientists need to answer is whether the many factors that they yet do not yet understand could speed the release of carbon from permafrost --- or, possibly, slow it more than they expect.

For instance, nutrients released from thawing permafrost could spur denser plant growth in the Arctic, and the plants would take up some carbon dioxide. Conversely, should fires like the one at Anaktuvuk River race across warming northern landscapes, immense amounts of organic material in vegetation, soils, peat deposits and thawed permafrost could burn.

Edward A. G. Schuur, a University of Florida researcher who has done extensive field work in Alaska, is worried by the changes he already sees, including the discovery that carbon buried since before the dawn of civilization is now escaping.

'To me, it's a spine-tingling feeling, if it's really old carbon that hasn't been in the air for a long time, and now it's entering the air,' Dr. Schuur said. ' That's the fingerprint of a major disruption, and we aren't going to be able to turn it off someday.' "


Source: nytimes.com/ enviroment

reply to post by kdog1982


A better theory is that the Little Ice Age was actually created by the Black Plague.

The time frame matches up very well, and there is more evidence to support this theory than the others.

news.bbc.co.uk...

"Between AD 1200 to 1300, we see a decrease in stomata and a sharp rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to deforestation we think," says Dr van Hoof, whose findings are published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

But after AD 1350, the team found the pattern reversed, suggesting that atmospheric carbon dioxide fell, perhaps due to reforestation following the plague.

The researchers think that this drop in carbon dioxide levels could help to explain a cooling in the climate over the following centuries.

en.wikipedia.org...

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population,[1] reducing world population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century. The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, killing more people, until it left Europe in the 19th century.

We know the Gulf Stream clearly existed throughout the Little Ice Age.

www.nha.org...

The Gulf Stream, so named by Benjamin Franklin in 1762, is a mighty river in the ocean that flows from the Gulf of Mexico around the southern tip of the Florida peninsula and along the East Coast, bending off to the northeast when it reaches the vicinity of Cape Hatteras. It continues on to Iceland,the British Isles, and Norway. In the Straits of Florida the Gulf Stream is about forty miles wide and flows at a speed of about five miles an hour. As it progresses into the North Atlantic, it expands to several hundred miles in width and slows to about three miles an hour.

The first European to recognize the Gulf Stream as a discrete oceanic current was Ponce de Leon, following his landing in 1513 at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, in search of the Fountain of Youth. When he tried to return to Puerto Rico he found the current to be more powerful than the fair wind before which he was sailing, and his ships were driven to the north instead of southward, his intended course.

Maybe I was wrong earlier, when I thought there was no connection to the Little Ice Age, and our current situation. Maybe humanity has been affecting planetary climate for much longer than we have realized.

Here is another article on the Little Ice Age that is very interesting.

www.eh-resources.org...

There seems to be a fair amount of variation depending on which chart you are looking at.

reply to post by poet1b


There have been much warmer periods on this planet... Methane is a greenhouse gas, so maybe these "eruptions" and global warming are much more related than CO2 emissions from mankind.

Could be at the beginning, middle or end of a millions of years long cycle.

The earth has been warm enough in its distant past to have had the ocean levels 100ft+ higher than now.

How hot can it get?

Does anyone really want the answer to that?

reply to post by Erno86


I've said it before and Ill say it again.....the main reason for the Ice melting in Northern latitudes is NOT because of global warming.....the world is actually cooling.

What melts the ice is soot from pollution that our civilisations spews into the air. Soot settles on the ice is is much more heat absorbing then carbon Dioxide is or anything else the propaganda machines try and tell you.

This physical proof of ice melting is what these propagandists use to justify their cry that the world is warming - "surely it must be warming if the ice is melting", which cannot be further for from the truth.

yes, ice is melting, no the world is not warming.....soot is the cause....do your research, there have been great scientists writeups on this. The mainstream media will not discuss this as it goes against the Green Agenda being pounded into everyones head.

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia
reply to post by Erno86

 

I've said it before and Ill say it again.....the main reason for the Ice melting in Northern latitudes is NOT because of global warming.....the world is actually cooling.

What melts the ice is soot from pollution that our civilisations spews into the air. Soot settles on the ice is is much more heat absorbing then carbon Dioxide is or anything else the propaganda machines try and tell you.

This physical proof of ice melting is what these propagandists use to justify their cry that the world is warming - "surely it must be warming if the ice is melting", which cannot be further for from the truth.

yes, ice is melting, no the world is not warming.....soot is the cause....do your research, there have been great scientists writeups on this. The mainstream media will not discuss this as it goes against the Green Agenda being pounded into everyones head.

That make sense too.
Dark particles finding a home on the ice sheets,thus reducing the refraction of light off the ice,but increases the absorption of the light causing more heat to melt it.
Then,it is sort of a domino effect.
As that ice fresh water melts,it gets introduced into the ocean causing the salinity to drop and inevitably slows down the warm water currents causing the northern latitudes to cool down.
I wonder if this affects the pacific also.

reply to post by Melbourne_Militia


If that is all true, what caused the extreme ice melt 55 million years ago, along with a period of catastrophic global warming??

Did we have pollution issues then?

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade
reply to post by Melbourne_Militia

 

If that is all true, what caused the extreme ice melt 55 million years ago, along with a period of catastrophic global warming??

Did we have pollution issues then?

soot is not only a by product of pollution from modern day man....think about it for a second....increased Volcanic activity could both heat and cool the earth depending on the amounts of ash/soot deposited into the atmosphere and if any chain reaction takes place.

Im not scientist so I wont try and say what I preach is relevant for what happened millions of years ago, but the underlying principle is the same.

Masssive amounts of volcanic ash have been known to cool the world tempriture...Mt Penitubo eruption proved this.

But a small amount of ash might be enough to settle and melt ice...would also depend where this eruption took place and how the air currents took and deposited it.

Also have to keep in mind what type of gasses these volcanoes spewed into the atmosphere....the gasses could have warmed the earth via a greenhouse effect.

reply to post by Fractured.Facade


Last I looked it up, you have to go back a 127 Million years to a period when the Earth temperature was beleive to be higher than the present, and the increase in global temperature is accelerating.

It is pure speculation as to what cause those higher temperatures in the past, but currently, we are able to monitor the change, and the evidence clearly points to man made pullution.

The peole who ignore this are choosing to life in a fantasy world.

reply to post by poet1b

Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago

www.physorg.com...

Previous research into this period, called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, estimates the planet's surface temperature blasted upwards by between five and nine degrees Celsius (nine and 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few thousand years.
The Arctic Ocean warmed to 23 C (73 F), or about the temperature of a lukewarm bath.
How PETM happened is unclear but climatologists are eager to find out, as this could shed light on aspects of global warming today.
What seems clear is that a huge amount of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases -- natural, as opposed to man-made -- were disgorged in a very short time.

reply to post by Fractured.Facade


We have seen a 1 degree rise in less than a century, and the increase in temperature is accelerating.

This is serious stuff.

reply to post by poet1b


I'm in agreement with you on this.

What I am thinking is that THIS period of global warming we are in now, could actually be caused much more by methane being released (as outlined in the OP) than by anything mankind is doing... And if you look at what happened 55 million years ago, it could have had the same cause.

If so, there may be NOTHING we can do about it now... No matter how much we restrict CO2 emissions.

Methane is a super-greenhouse-gas!

With these eruptions and potentially more elsewhere, and even more possibly catastrophic eruptions we may be DOOMED... How hot can it get???

reply to post by Fractured.Facade

I was watching this show on one of the science channels,it was about life in 2100.

Towards the end,they discussed the fact that methane was being released and the had a last ditch effort to save them all.
They seeded the clouds like chemtrails and made the earth cloud covered for years to help cool it down.
I will see if I can find it.

Earth 2100

n 2050, they and their 19-year-old daughter Molly move to New York City by car, passing desperate Texans begging for rides north. One pulls a gun on Molly, but fortunately, others in the car/truck convoy point automatic weapons on the desperate man, who backs down. While the others in the convoy make it to Canada, New York City is a marvel of clean power, clean transit, and community gardening. Josh sets to work building a flood barrier to hold back the ocean,but the CO2 warming unleashes trapped methane in the Arctic, which causes even faster, non-linear warming. An effort to use sulfur dioxide as a last resort to cool the planet is called off when it is found to destroy the ozone layer.Lucy finds and helps quarantine and neutralize a strange new disease, and Molly moves upstate to an agricultural community. During a storm at high tide in 2075, Josh is killed trying to fix a stuck gate, and New York City is flooded. Lucy refuses Molly's offer to live with her, her husband and son. Starving people among the rotting flood damage set the stage for the return of the disease Lucy saw, now called "Caspian Fever."

en.wikipedia.org...

abcnews.go.com...

reply to post by Fractured.Facade


Yeah, I think we are in agreement, just adding to what you stated.

We might currently be past the point of no return, and probably are. I think the evidence shows that we caused this, but there is still the possibility that it is beyond our control. My opinion is that we should try and do something about it, if we can, which is better than not doing anything.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade
reply to post by poet1b

 

There have been much warmer periods on this planet... Methane is a greenhouse gas, so maybe these "eruptions" and global warming are much more related than CO2 emissions from mankind.

Could be at the beginning, middle or end of a millions of years long cycle.

This is why scientists perform serious experimental and observational studies. The composition of the atmosphere has been measured carefully and globally over decades. They're pretty sure right now that the dominant change has been from human injection of fossil fuel byproducts, and this can be determined from the isotopic ratios of carbon. Measurements of other gases and sources were of course included, but at present, volcanic eruptions and other geophysical sources appear to be only a minor factor. This is not just theory, but experimental evidence.

The problem is when warming causes a feedforward and icy tundra becomes an additional source instead of a sink.

The earth has been warm enough in its distant past to have had the ocean levels 100ft+ higher than now.

How hot can it get?

Does anyone really want the answer to that?

In the past it has been hot enough for alligators to swim in the Arctic.

Anyway, anywhere near this level of heat will be catastrophically terminal for technological human civilization.