Methane Ignition, Alaska

[ashling]

Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic

This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features

Methane is bubbling from lakes all over the warming Arctic. Here ecologist Katey Walter Anthony (at right) ignites a large bubble that was trapped by the fall freeze—then freed by an ice pick.

See more pictures from the December 2012 feature story "Good Gas, Bad Gas."



http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/methane-alaska-thiessen/

[AverageJoe90]

1. True, but then again, methane bubbling itself isn't at all a new thing.

It's just the rate, which has slightly increased in recent years.....that's all.

[MNBrewer]

6. Extinction isn't new either.

[CreekDog]

8. nothing to see here move along

man.

[joshcryer]

11. "Slightly."

[msanthrope]

2. I thought this was gonna be a Palin thread...nt

[Brickbat]

3. Great photo.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Whew! I was afraid that was what some idiot named a town.

[Fumesucker]

7. Me too

[joshcryer]

9. I saw the top part of the flames and thought the town blew up!

(Had the same thought as you but saw part of the picture and thought we had another disaster. Though the clathrate releases are going to be a disaster in the future.)

[pinboy3niner]

12. Maybe we can start a project to follow it for 7+ months

I think we both deserve a much longer respite before any such undertaking, don't you?

But it's nice to bump into you again, Josh! My man!

[krispos42]

13. I did as well! n/t

[Fuddnik]

5. Lighting Mother Natures farts.

[mick063]

10. So what happens when

lightning strikes 100 million tons of the stuff?

Some scientist type inform me please.

All I know is that hydrogen bombs can be the equivalent of 100 million tons of TNT.

I'll wager there is more methane than that trapped up there. Perhaps not a mushroom cloud, but one heck of a fireball. Think of how long and how much the buried fossil fuels have supplied us with energy. Imagine all of the gas tanks in our cars igniting at once.


Or perhaps this is all part of Exxon's plan. Intentionally melt the ice caps, bottle the methane, and use it to power our cities. If you can avoid sending money to the Middle East, I predict easily attained political support. I predict a boon for the "spark free" tool industry. Ravaging our planet could be even more profitable than it already is.

[AverageJoe90]

14. "Or perhaps this is all part of Exxon's plan."

Or they could just nuke the methane fields to say one last "fuck you" to the rest of civilization and make some of the doomsday freaks' wet dreams come true.....and I'm only half-joking, by the way, some of the .1% really are that evil.....