Ocean gas hydrates could trigger catastrophic climate change

[G_j]

Gas prices a burden? :rofl:

I receive new stories such as these almost everyday.

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http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0906-gas_hydrates.html

Ocean gas hydrates could trigger catastrophic climate change
mongabay.com
September 6, 2005

Global warming will cause gasses trapped beneath the ocean floor to release into the atmosphere according to research <1> presented at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society <2>. The impact could initiate a catastrophic global greenhouse effect.


Mark Maslin, Senior Reader in Geography at University College London and a senior researcher for the London Environmental Change Research Centre, looked at the impact of increasing global temperatures on ‘gas hydrates’ such as methane that exist in solid deposits at the bottom of the ocean and in permafrost on land <3><4>. According to Dr. Maslin, such a temperature rise could destabilize these deposits and trigger a massive release of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. This would result in a further rise in global temperatures and in doing so, would initiate the release of even more gas hydrate causing a runaway greenhouse effect. Gas hydrates from total reserves could contain up to 10 times the current amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

"The destabilization of gas hydrates is likely to be a serious hazard in the near future due to the effects of global warming," says Dr Maslin. "Research already exists to suggest that the release of hydrates increased global temperature 18,000 years ago, and we now face a similar threat as our global temperature continues to rise."

Rapid climate change is of particular concern to scientists because it could significantly impact human agriculture, cause changes in sea levels and flood low-lying cities, and produce stronger storms and hurricanes. Late last month an atmospheric scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a study in Nature that found hurricanes have grown significantly more powerful and destructive over the past three decades. Kerry Emanuel, the author of the study, warned that since hurricanes depend on warm water to form and build, global climate change might increase the effect of hurricanes still further in coming years. Just last week Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States. The damage from the hurricane was blamed less on climate change than on its destructive path and the loss of protective ecosystems like wetlands and forests around New Orleans.


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http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-09-05T182136Z_01_MOL565920_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-HUNGER-DC.XML

Climate change raises risk of hunger - scientists

Mon Sep 5, 2005 7:21 PM BST

By Patricia Reaney

DUBLIN (Reuters) - About 50 million more people, most of them in Africa, could be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to climate change and reduced crop yields, scientists predicted on Monday.

Roughly 500 million people worldwide already face hunger but rising levels of greenhouse gases could make the problem worse.

"We expect climate change to aggravate current problems of the number of millions of people at risk of hunger, probably to the tune of 50 million," said Professor Martin Parry of the Hadley Center of the UK Meteorological Office.

"The greatest proportion, about three-quarters of that number, will be in Africa."

Parry told the British Association science conference that it would take huge reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases -- about 20 times those required by the Kyoto Protocol -- to avoid the additional risk of hunger.


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[Deja Q]

1. Damn. So much for harvesting them to fuel converted car engines with.

:crazy:

:(

[charlie]

2. Couple of good methane belches

and it's back to the stone age.

Methane prime suspect for greatest mass extinction

[daninthemoon]

3. There was an excellent show a few weeks ago (Discovery?),

that suggested the best explanation for the Permian exctinction, the biggest ever, was directly the result of volcaninc global warming which released methane from the ocean beds.

[LiberalEsto]

5. New biofuel - tall grass

This appeared in RawStory earlier today but is no longer on their main page. I'd post a link if I could find it.

Can you imagine growing this in your own yard? No more lawn mowing - and you could grow your own fuel. In addition, this potentially could eliminate the use of lawn chemicals and fertilizers that are killing places like the Chesapeake Bay.

Grass hailed as potential source of clean energy
By Patricia Reane

Reuters

Tue Sep 6,12:50 PM ET

A tall, decorative plant that can be grown in Europe and the United States could provide a significant amount of energy without contributing to global warming, scientists said on Tuesday.

(snip)
Field trials of the grass called Miscanthus in Illinois showed it could be very effective as an economically and environmentally sustainable energy crop.

"If about 8 percent of the land area (of the state) was given over to this grass, and assuming only half of those yields were obtained, we would obtain enough dry matter to generate the total electricity used by of the state if Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago," Professor Steven Long told a science conference.

(snip)
"As the plant grows it is drawing carbon dioxide out of the air. When you burn it you put that carbon dioxide back, so the net effect on atmospheric CO2 is zero," Long explained.

"

[slor]

6. Do not forget about good old Hemp...

and it pulls the most CO2 of the plants.

[opihimoimoi]

4. The prevailing evidence shows BushCo wants the effects of Global Warming

as a means of population reduction through FAMINE....this way, they don't the blame, and they get the oil...and the Power to RULE the World....