The methane time bomb

[cal04]

Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

(snip)
"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."

[villager]

1. If we get *that* feedback loop, that would just about be that...

Dammit.

[Submariner]

2. We're blindly cooking our biosphere on our way to an extinction event

The food and water riots will make anything we have seen to date seem like a walk at the beach.

If not a supervolcano, then methane hydrates will blanket the earth and make the poles seem like the equator.

[Barrett808]

8. Don't kid yourself; the extinction event is well underway

It just promises to accelerate in the next few years...

[AndyTiedye]

3. Can't We Harvest the Methane?

[Hekate]

4. Earth will survive, but we may not. Interesting that Palin believes her Permafrost State is a "safe

... haven" or "place of refuge" for refugees from the Apocalypse.

Meantime, the world's megacorps have been planning a Northwest Shipping Passage for years--they have watched the ice recede, they knew the ice was receding, and what they saw in it was profit.

Gotta go. I suddenly am having a hard time breathing.

Hekate

[clear eye]

5. On a PBS Nova episode over two years ago they discussed something similar on land.

The methane there is not a fixed "deposit" but the result of waterlogged vegetation suddenly being warm enough to rot. We're talking endless miles of tundra.

[Barrett808]

6. This is in addition to the newly updated estimates of the soil carbon store in permafrost...

...which is apparently on the order of twice the total atmospheric carbon store.

I'm just glad I don't have children. :scared:

[wundermaus]

7. when the air caught fire...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7239313

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDbz2dpebhQ

http://www.grinzo.com/energy/index.php/2008/05/30/pondering-a-methane-apocalypse/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2174195060267517042

[skids]

9. So is this clathrate or not?

I thought clathrates were not exactly "shallow" deposits. This sounds like a deposite I had not heard of before. How much is under these sub-sea-permafrost deposits, compared to the ground level permafrost and deep sea clathrates? Anyone know?

[bananas]

10. Yes, clathrates.

From bloomberg.com:

"Warmer Arctic waters may release from the seabed methane locked up in compounds called clathrates, Sommerkorn said in a telephone interview from Oslo, where the WWF Arctic program is based. On land, the extra heat will help release carbon dioxide and methane, both greenhouse gases, from the soil, he said."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aFLKxIyTHX8Q&refer=canada