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.
Who knew there were so many cows under the Arctic Ocean? We had better have a government-funded study to look into this. Of course, we already know that this is man-made warming. Then again, which came first, the methane release or the melting ice? Wait, how is it the melting of the ice that is causing “sub-sea†methane to be released. The methane being released is BELOW the ocean floor, you know…down deep in the cold and dark of the bottom of the sea. It doesn’t seem to matter to the release of the methane below the seabed if the ice floating on top of the sea is melting. It would seem to me that the methane release is independent of the ice retreating and in fact may be causing the ice to retreat or contributing to it’s retreat.
Ocean temperature also varies with depth. In general, the temperature falls as the depth increases. The warm surface waters extend to depths of about 500 feet (150 metres) in the tropics, and about 1,000 feet (300 metres) in the subtropics. Below the surface waters, the temperature drops rapidly, forming a layer called the thermocline. The thermocline varies in thickness, from about 1,000 feet (300 metres) to 3,000 feet (910 metres). Below the thermocline, the water cools more slowly. Close to the deep-sea floor, the temperature of the ocean ranges between 34 and 39 °F (1 and 4 °C) (Eliav, Weiss.)
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0115522/article.php?qs_article_id=26&qs_language=EN&qs_section=NA
The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is 1038 m (3410 ft).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean
The Arctic seabed is below the thickest thermocline. It is completely dark and very cold. I fail to see how MMGW or even natural global warming could be the [i]cause[/i] of the release of methane from the seafloor. I could easily see how the release of methane from the seafloor could contribute to the causes of global warming. But then again, we are currently experiencing global cooling due to the low level of cyclical solar activity. Perhaps God is sparing us another ice age, despite our hubris about MMGW.
The ice on the surface and the permafrost on the bottom–on the continental shelf, not the depths–are both melting because the water is getting warmer. It is getting warmer because the air temperature in the Arctic has warmed by over 4C. Whether one believes that this is human-caused or not, it is an observable fact. As the ice melts, less sunlight is reflected into space by white ice and more is absorbed into the dark water, raising its temperature further and causing more melting. As the permafrost melts, more methane is released into the atmosphere, accelerating the greenhouse effect and further raising global temperatures.
At some unknown point, a tipping point is reached that could cause an extremely rapid rise in temperatures. Melting sea ice has a negligible effect on sea levels, but if the nonfloating ice in Greenland and Antarctica should disappear (exposing more dark ground to absorb yet more heat), the sea level rise would be quite dramatic as could the inevitable disruption to the patterns of ocean currents and global climate.
This is not just a theoretical possibility… dramatic sea temperature rises probably due to methane-ice melting are fairly certain to have caused several prior mass extinctions in geological history. These events happened within a matter of at most centuries, but it took up to millions of years to restore equilibrium. Again, one could reasonably believe that the current warming episode is not human-caused, but still believe that avoidable carbon emissions are a contributing factor. It is certainly something that we need to keep an eye on.
Please direct me to a credible source of information stating that sea temperatures below the thermocline are increasing.
In point of fact, measurements for the past 5 years, done by no less entity than NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory using buoys that can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature, clearly and empirically demonstrate that [b]there has been no warming of the global oceans.[/b] In fact, “There has been a very slight cooling…”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
So, if methane release from the Arctic seabed were caused by warmer water some 3,400 feet below the surface, then one would presume that the demonstrable fact of global ocean cooling would have reduced those emissions. That does not seem to be the case, does it?
BTW, why is it that the MMGW crowd are only concerned with Western carbon emissions and don’t seem to give a fig about China and India?
I am not drinking the Kool-Aid today, thank you.
[blockquote]…dramatic sea temperature rises probably due to methane-ice melting are fairly certain to have caused several prior mass extinctions in geological history.[/blockquote]
I’ll be darned, all that happened without a single car or factory. Amazing!
Could it be that massive oil and gas deposits are outgassing? Large leakages of gas are also present in the deep Gulf of Mexico.
Maybe Al Gore not only invented the internet, but also invented a time machine, and has a facimile of his gigantic greenhouse warming house located under the ocean somewhere.
It’s possible. After all any global warming must be our fault, right?
Hey, I didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night but I DID once see this scenario on MEGADISASTERS on the History Channel and I did my Master’s thesis on Methanogenesis, am I over-qualified to comment?
Climate change, it’s natural!