BP's Methane Monster: From the Gulf to the Globe

[G_j]

http://www.truth-out.org/bps-methane-monster-from-gulf-globe60623

BP's Methane Monster: From the Gulf to the Globe

Sunday 27 June 2010

by: Craig Collins, Ph.D., t r u t h o u t | Report

We hear a lot of talk about carbon dioxide as the most dangerous climate culprit. And we should. So far, loading the atmosphere with CO2 is the single biggest cause of climate disruption. But, in the final analysis, methane may prove to be the most deadly of all greenhouse gases.

Unlike CO2, methane is flammable. BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. The fiery blast killed 11 workers and sank the platform. Since then, an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil has spewed into the Gulf every day, making it the biggest oil spill in the US since the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

Methane is a menace to coal mining. Mines use giant fans to keep this colorless, odorless gas below dangerous concentrations. But if this fails, the tiniest spark can set off a deadly blast. Methane explosions killed 29 miners in the Massey coal mine disaster last month and claimed 12 miners in the Sago mine disaster back in 2006.

However, methane's explosive properties are a miniature menace compared to its heat-trapping capacity. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 25 times more potent, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. Today, the amount of methane in our atmosphere is spiking at an alarming rate. Scientists studying this situation call methane "a ticking time bomb," and warn that vast stores could be released from frozen deposits on land and under the ocean in the coming decades.

..more..

[undeterred]

1. lts like playing with fire.

Eventually you and everyone else will get burned.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Presumably,

given that its the main component of natural gas, that the reason people cook with it.

[HughMoran]

2. I read with great interest looking for the linkage between BP spill and GW

It appears to be missing from the article. There's no quantitative analysis at all, unless I missed something??

:shrug:

[G_j]

6. is methane being released due to the oil disaster? nt

[spin]

10. Yes ...

Spill gas seen as a big threat

The most ecologically disastrous part of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill might not be the millions of gallons of crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, but the even greater quantities of methane boiling out of the ocean floor.

Government scientists now say as much as 2.5 million gallons of oil is escaping from the blown-out well every day. But three to four times as much methane as oil is spewing from the same BP-owned well, University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha Joye said Tuesday.

"Nobody's talking about methane," Joye said in the first of what UGA says will be weekly news conferences. "There's a lot of gas in the water."

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/062310/new_660041253.shtml

[TalkingDog]

11. Ummm...really?

Seriously....

okay...i'll pretend you aren't being sarcastic.

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/deepeast01/background/fire/fire.html

with particular emphasis on these paragraphs:

A Force of Nature

Based on some scientific studies, hydrates may join the legion of natural forces, such as orbital wobbles, mass volcanic eruptions and ocean circulation, that drive global climate changes. Methane, the main type of hydrocarbon in hydrates, is a powerful greenhouse gas. It traps heat as carbon dioxide—the most well-known and abundant airborne greenhouse gas. Past massive meltdowns of subsea hydrates may, for example, have released enough methane to drive up global temperatures by 5 to 10 degrees Celsius during the Late Paleocene era—some 55 million years ago. Such an increase in temperature today would be enough to melt the ice caps, raise sea levels by several feet, and transform America’s Wheat Belt into a desert.


3D image of massive Storegga slide possibly caused by a gas hydrate melt-down -- resulted in a tsunami that drowned Scotland 7,000 years ago.

Below 500 m in temperate and subtropical oceans, such as those found off the continental United States, hydrate beds may lie just beneath or above the sea floor over much of the continental slope. Geologists speculate that massive submarine "slumps", which can be likened to sea-floor avalanches, may occur when hydrates break away from the steep slope. Such massive slumps may drive the tidal waves that could drown miles of coastal shorelines.

[HughMoran]

12. So there's no such thing as quantitative analysis?

Just conjecture?

It matter not how much methane is leaking relative to the levels needed to cause a 'tipping point'?

I would think one would want to address such things in a well written article.

[nashville_brook]

4. History Channel's Mega-Disasters explores geologic methane explosions...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25BE42PzZZc&feature=player_embedded

[snot]

5. Nice image. Got a bigger version, would you mind if others used it?

(I mean the oily bp blossom.)

[G_j]

7. sure

I borrowed it from someone else.

[FirstLight]

8. I was thinking about the methane connection

...and it's acceleration effects on warming. They can't burn ALL of it, can they...?

and then add to that the mass die offs of phytoplankton - which actually provide the planet with 50% of it's carbon exchange and o2 production...wow. that could very well be the death of an atmosphere over a decade or so...

[amborin]

9. K&R

[Cetacea]

13. K&R