Methane 'escaping' from Arctic sea bed

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Yahoo News

Scientists fear the rate of global warming could accelerate due to the escape of methane from beneath the Arctic seabed.

Huge methane deposits are rising to the surface as the Arctic region heats up, according to preliminary findings.

Researchers found massive stores of sub-sea methane in several areas across thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf and observed the gas bubbling up from the sea floor through "chimneys", according to reports.

One of the expedition leaders, Orjan Gustafsson, of Stockholm University in Sweden, said researchers had found "an extensive area of intense methane release".


Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080923/tuk-methane-escaping-from-arctic-sea-bed-dba1618.html

---

This is the first documented evidence that the runaway may have started.

Repeat : The researchers believe escaping sub-sea methane - which is around 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide - is connected to the recent rises in temperatures in the Arctic region.

Original ITN News link is here : http://itn.co.uk/news/f01b41ad7772c7fa30fef10fccefbfa6.html

[skids]

1. This... is bad. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

2. your sigline says it all n/t

[SpiralHawk]

3. "The Bible don't mention this, and Rush don't believe it." - Republicon Homelanders

"So it cannot possibly be true. Support Sarah Palin's republicon family, um, values, and all this fact-based lib-rul horseshit will like, um, go away. Smirk." - Republicon Homelanders

[semillama]

4. we are fucked. n/t

[Fumesucker]

5. Mother of Storms..

Once again, science fiction is ahead of the curve, John Barnes wrote "Mother of Storms in 1994"..

http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Storms-John-Barnes/dp/0812533453

[eowyn_of_rohan]

9. Small nuclear bombs, hmmm?

The premise centers around small nuclear bombs being detonated in the Artic ocean in the year 2028, releasing methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, which in turn heats the oceans and atmosphere

I have had this strong feeling for quite some time that those oil hunters in the arctic are melting, exploding and/or otherwise destroying the ice fields up there in their search for Texas Tea

[alfredo]

14. bush didn't act on global warming because it was melting the ice caps.

He saw dollars for oil companies. He was more concerned about his friends dying rich, than the human species living long.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

15. i still believe they are intentionally melting or blowing up the ice fields

tinfoil theorist or tinfoil realist?

[alfredo]

20. It would have shown in seismic and micro-barograph readings.

bombs have different signatures from earthquakes.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

22. that's true for explosives...what about other methods?

eg., microwaves a la Raytheon?

[alfredo]

24. Nothing that leaves any kind of signature, will be secret for long.

I worked in the "information gathering" field for a few years. Even in my time capabilities were scary.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

26. They are causing global warming -w/ Laser and Microwave technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSGprwJx_zs
Air Force Research Lab's Directed Energy Directorate


Google "STAR WARS IN IRAQ" or watch the documentary on the link in my post below

[eowyn_of_rohan]

29. I saw a satellite photo a few months back -showed a grid-like melt pattern in the Arctic ice

and to me, it did not look natural. I don't know where I found the photo, and Google maps doesn't show the image I saw.

[alfredo]

44. Lasers are amplified light. I don't see where they'd make much difference

[Nihil]

25. Hmmm

Want to check how they would have obtained their seismic profiles
while prospecting in the Arctic?

If you wanted to, you could very easily disguise the right type of
explosion (conventional of course, not nuclear) ...

[alfredo]

55. If you mimic a seismic event in an area that doesn't have any, people

would get suspicious.

[Nihil]

58. I wasn't clear ...

Someone prospecting for gas and/or oil under the sea bed
will set off a sequence of *small* underwater explosions
and monitor the pattern of reflections in order to
determine the boundaries of the underlying strata.
The output of integrating all of those reflections is a
seismic profile which can then be used with existing
geological maps to identify areas of interest due to
their shape and substance.

e.g. (at random from the net)


or




There is no doubt that such seismic surveys have been
taking place in the ever-expanding area of navigable
Arctic Ocean (hence the growing political territoriality
concerns).

These underwater explosions are severe enough to kill
whales, dolphins, fish, etc. but are *not* on the scale
of nuclear or even large HE (and definitely not on the
earthquake level).

They *do* however involve the transmission of multiple
shockwaves through the upper layers of the seabed and
this could well have affected the structure of already
unstable clathrates and their comparatively thin coating
of uncompacted sediments.

I was being too obtuse in my earlier post but I was meaning
that the "explosions" that could have damaged the sea-bed
weren't necessarily part of anyone's Evil Plan For World
Domination (tm) but simply an unfortunate (hah!) side-effect
of the surveys driven by the greed for fossil fuel.
(Gee "unfortunate" ... what an understatement!)

:hi:

[alfredo]

64. I was thinking as an old spook, not a geologist. Nobody could get away

with a diabolical plan to nuke or "death ray" the polar caps. In my day sensors were quite good at detecting and sorting out what kind of shaking was going on. All these years later I'm sure huge advances have been made.

BTW, knowing how "good" we were back then (cold war) could make a person paranoid and depressed if they thought about it enough.

[yardwork]

21. They don't have to do anything like that. Global warming is doing it for them.

Global warming, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is melting the ice fields enabling tankers to get more fossil fuels to be sold at record high prices for record high profits. It's all good for bushco.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

23. Are they using microwave technology to cut through ice? - LOOK

So I started googling...one thing leads to another and finally,

HERE IT IS! I KNEW IT

SPACE-BASED LASER BEING USED TO DELIBERATELY CUT MASSIVE ANTARCTIC ICE

Look at this BBC video
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7313200/7313260.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1#

VIDEO SHOWS PERFECT 45 MILE LONG STRAIGHT-LINE CUTS AND PERFECT RIGHT ANGLE CUTS

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message526589/pg1

(Quotes from discussion board) Someone is mis-using extremely powerful, SPACE-BASED military weapons to intentionally alter the amount of ice melting into the oceans.

If this continues, the massive amounts of fresh water ice being deliberately cut - which later later melt into the sea - will cause a "critical desalination" of ocean waters, leading to a massive shift in the gulf stream and sudden, dramatic change in planetary weather similar to what was seen in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow."

"Global Warming" is actually being caused through mis-use of government weapons - not by normal human activity. Government is intentionally doing this and they are putting all of us at grave risk.


..."Space based MASER. - This was a microwave cutting device in action. The microwave cuts far far faster than the LASER systems, and has the added bonus of being almost invisible to the naked eye.

The only trace seen is if it excites atoms in the air at high altitude, and then you may see a greeny / blue 'path'."

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. What you are describing would be secret use of military tech to STOP

global warming.

A sudden infusion of fresh water into the upper Gulf Stream would shut down the thermohaline circulation, causing a sudden cooling of Northern Europe, Canada and the Arctic, which would expand the polar ice, thus acting as a counter to global warming, and re-trapping the primeval methane beds in the tundra and under the Arctic.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

28. I don't believe that is the true, intended end result of all they are doing with

lasers and masers in the Arctic and Antarctic regions

[RaleighNCDUer]

30. Well, whatever they may THINK they are doing, if it's the republicans

doing it they WILL fuck it up.

[Xenotime]

37. Ain't that the fucking truth.

[Tab]

38. That's the ANTARCTIC

Wrong end of the planet.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

40. gee- silly me to think what is being done in the ANTARCTIC could also be done in the ARCTIC!

Boy - glad you are there to point out the obvious.

[dysfunctional press]

45. you finally put two words together correctly..."silly me"

:rofl:

[eowyn_of_rohan]

47. screw you

i remember you, hmmm. i think i remember who some of your friends were too.

[Tab]

48. Well, the OP was about the arctic

Of course if it could be done in one place it could be in another, but you presented it as proof of the arctic where the methane is. Just wanted to make it clear to anyone who didn't watch the video itself.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

50. I was saying it appears technology exists, and may be in use, that can destroy ice fields

period.

[NickB79]

66. The second link is hilarious, because even the most of the conspiracy nuts there don't buy it

I love this reply the most though:

"I remember an old movie, Real Genius I think, with Val Kilmer, where they were making a laser weapon to be fitted to the space shuttle or something. Looks like that laser could have done this if it were real, and it most likely is."

If we start seeing houses full of popcorn, that confirms it's space lasers :rofl:

[freedomnorth]

70. LOL

:popcorn: :rofl:

[bananas]

67. "A LASER BEING?!?!?!?! WE'RE ALL TOAST!!!!!"

lol, one of the comments over there.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

71. hate to push this to the top but it wont go away & i'm embarrassed

wish I could make this post go away -meant BEAM, not being. embarrassed I went off the deep end. Googled myself silly over this. Still I wouldn't put it past them to use microwave (or laser) technology to melt ice or destroy earth and rock, to get at oil reserves or anything else they could make $$$ from.
i'm usually not quite this dumb. really.
:think:

[eowyn_of_rohan]

31. Actually, it appears THEY may be causing global warming with laser/maser tech

unlike the fossil fuel burning, which "we" are partly responsible for, this one is ALL their fault.

[NickB79]

35. It's the American dream

Ignore the BILLIONS of tons of CO2 that have been pumped into the atmosphere every year for decades, and instead blame it on "them", a scary super-secret military/government conspiracy. Hooray, we delude ourselves into thinking we're not to blame, so there's no guilt when we motor around in our gas hogs.

I guess the gradual warming trend we've seen for the past CENTURY now started as a result of secret MASER-equipped log cabin satellites being launched into orbit by Abe Lincoln as a way to drown the South during the civil war :eyes:

[eowyn_of_rohan]

39. Look at whatever part of it you choose

But I don't see any reason to deny either. And before you ridicule this, or the people who believe it is true, you ought to do a little reading. There are plenty of facts on this subject out there, not just conspiracy theories.

[cobalt1999]

61. Tinfoil loon. n/t

[eowyn_of_rohan]

63. thank you. I wear it proudly these days.

[Greyskye]

32. That was a good book, btw.

FWIW.

[Fumesucker]

46. If your taste runs to dystopian hard SF, yep it was a good book.

Definitely not for everyone.

[earth mom]

6. Why oh why didn't Al Gore run this year?

:argh:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. (Insert immature fart joke here)

______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

[maxrandb]

41. I thought this was a story

that they had found Cheney's secret underground bunker.

[DustyJoe]

53. I didn't know

Sea Cows were flatulent.

[nolabels]

8. They were reporting on this a couple of years ago but nobody listened

Nobody has the exact causes why things like those four ice-ages came about but i bet this gives some big clues also.
This living breathing earth that we inhabit may swallow our cultures and many of us faster than we thought possible :scared:

[glinda]

42. I took a class in 1983

and knew about this possibility then which was according to the NASA, Profs and Specialists than ran the class, a high possibility. No one has done a damn thing and they knew about it a long time ago.

[nolabels]

51. Part of the 'born again' agenda, ignore details because some book..

will save peoples souls from consequences. I dislike having to be agnostic, but it's the only thing i can believe in. There has been a turning away from science for religious reasons as far back as the early seventies when i was in high school. Probably earlier even, but i just remember all the droves of those 'born again's' sitting around campus in the their bible study groups. They all seemed brainwashed then, traveling around in their own little world. They all also seem to not have progressed very much, the only thing that seems different now is they seem more militant, thinking war and killing is okay if it gets things to what they imagined is some just end. It may be a big cult, but it's still just a cult.

Just my 2 cents why science sometimes science takes a back seat and things get ignored :shrug:

[glinda]

54. The Class Had

roughly 400 students in it. It was given once a year because it was extensive. I am sure in part you are absolutely right but another part is just people thinking someone else will be able to do something about it as they try to find work, have a family, etc......

[nolabels]

57. Yea, a flaw in my character there

Sometimes i can be arrogant, unsympathetic hard-ass when i think something needs to be getting done but isn't. It also kind of makes me hard-worker that never enjoyed or did well at supervising others. I often figure if needed to get done i will find time to do it myself. Thanks for pointing that out about other people too, guess it's time for me to lighten up :-)

[LakeView1]

10. New energy source or doom?

There is also a huge deposit of methane hydrates off the coast of the Carolinas. There have been talks about how to "mine" this resource. But there are some dangers associated with messing around with the stability of the ocean floor so near the coastline.

[dipsydoodle]

11. some dangers ?

Yes I suppose you could call risk of break up of the continental shelf "some danger"

[nolabels]

33. Probably would bring a whole new meaning to "Shake and Bake"

:scared:

[Barrett808]

12. Welcome to DU, Lake!

I'd say the greater danger is destabilizing the methane hydrates themselves...methane is usually considered to be some 23 times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

[unc70]

56. Probably cause nothing worse than 15-20ft tsunami with no warning

I just posted about this risk yesterday at wral.com as an extra reason not to drill for gas and oil off NC.

About 10 years ago, scientists at Woods Hole discovered that the continental shelf off NC was much more fragile than was previously known and much more likely that escaping gas or some other natural or man-made event would trigger a massive undersea landslide resulting in a 15-20 ft tsunami with almost no warning to those in its path. Depending on the size and location of the landslide, it could affect almost anywhere on the east coast. The greatest risk is to the NC and VA coasts and up the Cheapeake Bay. A large event might destroy large sections of the Outer Banks and expose the Pamlico Sound (a lagoon), turning it into an exposed bay; this has happened twice in the last 5,000 years.

The Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle-Pamlico are the two largest estuaries in the country, and nearly all marine life in the western Atlantic depend on them for survival. So do most of the waterfowl.

BTW When growing up near the coast, I remember the excitement (and the noise) when they drilled exploratory wells on a neighbors farm.

[Ilsa]

13. Isn't there also concern that ancient forms of bacteria or viruses could be released?

It could be something very old and difficult to battle. I remember reading that one strain of ancient bacteria could survive 1,000 times the radiation needed to kill a human being.

I thought I read that somewhere, but maybe it was tied to science fiction.

[Fumesucker]

43. That would be the under-the-ice lakes in Antartica, lake Vostok being the largest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok

Lake Vostok (Russian: восток, "east") is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Earth's southern-most continent — Antarctica. It is located at 77° S 105° E, beneath Russia's Vostok Station, 4,000 meters (13,000 ft) under the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet. It is 250 km long by 50 km wide at its widest point, thus similar in size to Lake Ontario, and is divided into two deep basins by a ridge. The water over the ridge is about 200 m (650 ft) deep, compared to roughly 400 m (1,300 ft) deep in the northern basin and 800 m (2,600 ft) deep in the southern. Lake Vostok covers an area of 15,690 km² (6,058 mi²). It has an estimated volume of 5,400 km³ (1,300 cubic miles) and consists of fresh water.

[IndianaGreen]

16. There is methane trapped in the permafrost

and as that melts due to global warming, large amounts of greenhouse gases will be released.

[Barrett808]

18. Indeed, the latest estimate of the permafrost carbon store is *twice* that in the atmosphere

So, over a teraton. And that permafrost is melting at an accelerating rate...

[Uncle Joe]

17. This is bad news.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html

"Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane."

Some scientists also link a massive release of Methane to the greatest extinction on Earth of all time, that being the Permian; in which at least 95% of all life died out.


Thanks for the thread, edwardlindy.

Kicked and recommended.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Yet another "Great Dying" methane event?

The last one was a m-f-er.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=582

If so, well, been nice knowing ya.
:hi:

[Xithras]

49. One good thing about a P/T style extinction event.

The latest estimates are that the extinction cycles were rather long. A 60, year build up to the first extinction pulse, 4 million years of drought and desolation, and then one more massive extinction pulse that killed most of the remaining life off. If that repeats, everything we know will have eroded away to dust long before we hit the peak die-off.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

59. Thanks! That brightens my previously gloomy outlook

I figured the whole planet would suddenly smell like a fart, and then we all die.

I was hoping to visit Paris before I check out. Maybe I'll get there before the atmosphere becomes methane.

:hi:

[Xithras]

65. I've been to Paris. Some parts of it smell like a fart anyway

;)

By the way, there was a typo in my other post. That should read "60,000 year buildup", but for some reason the last three zeros were ommitted.

Global warming is certainly capable of killing off all life on Earth, but even a catastrophic methane release would take tens of thousands of years to do its work.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

69. This is excellent news

I can just go over to Zug Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island.

Close my eyes, smell the air, and I'm on Ile de la Cite (accent marks and such are not my forte)

I'll save all kinds of money this way.

:hi:

I had imagined that the global warming caused all the frozen methane to turn the seas into froth, and all the trilobytes to point fingers at each other saying "who cut the cheese?", just before they croaked.

[truthisfreedom]

34. If we can't collect it, we'd do well to burn it off. Every methane molecule is 20 times worse than

a CO2 molecule as greenhouse gas.

[lonestarnot]

36. Damn is she gona blow?

[dipsydoodle]

60. This isn't a Sarah post

:rofl:

[Blue_Tires]

52. don't show this to Crichton and the others who still maintain

global climate change is some sort of liberal greenie fearmongering ponzi scheme...

[Blue_Tires]

62. ttt

[kestrel91316]

68. K&R

[freedomnorth]

72. K&R

[hatrack]

73. AGU - Origin Of Pingo-Like Features On The Beaufort Sea Shelf (Re. Methane Hydrates)

Origin of pingo-like features on the Beaufort Sea shelf and their possible relationship to decomposing methane gas hydrates

Charles K. Paull and William Ussler III

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute,
Moss Landing, California, USA

Scott R. Dallimore

Natural Resources Canada,
Sidney, British Columbia, Canada

Steve M. Blasco

Natural Resources Canada,
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

Thomas D. Lorenson

U.S. Geological Survey,
Menlo Park, California, USA

Humfrey Melling

Fisheries and Oceans Canada,
Sidney, British Columbia, Canada

Barbara E. Medioli and F. Mark Nixon

Natural Resources Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Fiona A. McLaughlin

Fisheries and Oceans Canada,
Sidney, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

<1> The Arctic shelf is currently undergoing dramatic thermal changes caused by the continued warming associated with Holocene sea level rise. During this transgression, comparatively warm waters have flooded over cold permafrost areas of the Arctic Shelf. A thermal pulse of more than 10°C is still propagating down into the submerged sediment and may be decomposing gas hydrate as well as permafrost. A search for gas venting on the Arctic seafloor focused on pingo-like-features (PLFs) on the Beaufort Sea Shelf because they may be a direct consequence of gas hydrate decomposition at depth. Vibracores collected from eight PLFs had systematically elevated methane concentrations. ROV observations revealed streams of methane-rich gas bubbles coming from the crests of PLFs. We offer a scenario of how PLFs may be growing offshore as a result of gas pressure associated with gas hydrate decomposition.

EDIT


Figure 2. Schematic drawing outlining PLF and moat formation (M) associated with gas hydrate decomposition. (a) Cross-section of the permafrost-bearing Arctic seafloor (SF) (previously <−10°C) after being transgressed by Arctic Ocean water (<−1°C). As the subsurface warms, the top of the gas hydrate stability zone will move downward. Warming results in gas hydrate decomposition in a gradually thickening zone (brown), releasing gaseous methane into the sediments (yellow). Bubble formation associated with this phase change will create overpressured conditions. (b) Shows how material may flow (red arrows) both laterally and vertically in response to overpressure. Displaced sediments rise upward to form the PLF and allow the gas to vent (VG). As the pressure is dissipated through both the transfer of solids and degassing, subsidence in the area immediately surrounding the PLF (black arrows) creates the moat. Enhanced TIF <9.9 MB>

<18> We propose that gas release and bubble formation associated with decomposing gas hydrates at depth causes expansion of the sediment matrix that drives the upward extrusion of sediment to form the PLFs. Decomposition of intra-permafrost methane hydrate can supply substantial quantities of methane gas that generate large localized over-pressures. At the pressure and temperature conditions at the top of the gas hydrate stability field, gas hydrate will decompose into water ice and gas. Because ice has essentially the same density as gas hydrate, any gas released during decomposition will create gas expansion voids and create local over pressures. Substantial overpressures will not be maintained because they will exceed the mechanical strength of shallow sediments. As pressures build within subsurface horizons, gas is forced through weaknesses in the overlying permafrost layers (Figure 2). Extruded material builds up on the seafloor to form the PLF. The observed amount of vertical displacement of the PLFs implies that material moves laterally within the over-pressured horizons to these zones of weakness, then upward to the seafloor. The source of the displaced material and pressure to drive the vertical expansion may extend over a much larger area than the PLF itself. As sediment migration and gas venting proceeds, subsurface volume losses ultimately result in the collapse and formation of moat basins around the sites of sediment expulsion (Figure 2).

EDIT

<22> Upon warming caused by transgression, dissociation of intra-permafrost gas hydrate would first occur at the top of the methane hydrate stability field at temperatures substantially less than zero degrees Celsius. In the environment where the gas hydrate is dissociating, decomposing gas hydrate, free gas, and freshwater ice co-exist. For liquid water to occur immediately above the gas hydrate stability zone, substantial quantities of salt or other physical-chemical inhibitors are required. The occurrence of freshwater ice in the PLFs argues against the existence of brines in these sediments.

<23> Industry coring has confirmed that at Admirals Finger PLF, high ground ice contents extend to at least 40 m below the surface. With 30% volumetric ice fraction, the freezing of ground water within a gasified sediment fabric can account for approximately 12 m of heave at the sea floor. Because the relief of many PLFs is more than 12 m, additional material movement is needed to satisfy mass balance and the age of the material.

No link, subscription service