Runaway global warming has arrived!

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StrongTurd

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I've been watching this methane bubble situation for a couple of years now but according to the ongoing research in northern Siberia we could very well be headed for calamitous extinction in coming decades.

Methane discharges in the permafrost break-up process in the Arctic pose a threat to the entire terrestrial climate, Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, reported.

"Yet another...expedition is currently at work in the Arctic, along with ours. The expedition members are exploring the Lena River mouth, where we discovered abnormally high concentrations of methane last year.

"...researchers have already carried out 47 studies and confirmed as follows: the concentration of methane in water and the atmosphere increases at a rapid pace, which is indicative of the break-up of permafrost on the shelf of Arctic seas," Semiletov said.

Over the last year, a large international expedition that included oceanologists from Russia, Canada, the US, Britain, and Germany had explored the entire Arctic coast and detected high concentrations of methane that exceeded the norm 1,000-fold. Researchers' opinion is that this may be connected with the disintegration of gas hydrates at the sea bottom, owing to a rise in the temperature of water and the atmosphere.
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Yes, you heard right, A THOUSAND TIMES higher than normal.

Here's a very detailed link for those looking for more background to this methane hydrate time bomb:

http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy%20punctuation%20marks%20morrison.htm

Here's a short extract:
Deep-sea hydrates consist of a lattice of ice crystals packed with bubbles of methane gas. Locked in by cold abyssal currents generated by the sinking of dense saltwater in icy polar seas, they remain frozen and stable. But whenever rising temperatures thaw the polar icecaps to any significant degree, the fresh melt-water pools on the surface, inhibiting the driving mechanism that runs the global circulation system. There is now strong evidence to suggest that on some occasions in the recent past those huge gyres shut down entirely.

When this occurred, the hydrates disintegrated, releasing their methane into the atmosphere in a series of gigantic ‘burps’. Some of these methane burps appear to have been large enough to raise the global temperature by 5–10°C.

This appears to have been the case about 55 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary when the release of some 1,200–2,500 gigatons of hydrate methane generated a sea-temperature rise of 4°–5°C, triggering a mass extinction of marine species. The global temperature spike of 8°–10°C that occurred at this time appears to have been vastly greater and more abrupt than could possibly have been generated by the gradual rise in atmospheric CO2 that preceded it.
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Keep in mind that a 5 degree rise in average atmospheric temperature will in all likelihood cause the collapse of civilization and the possible extinction of humans and you've got an idea of the scope of the problem.

Still, by the time we start suffocating in methane you'll still have people denying climate change. Unfortunately there's nothing that we can do about this anymore. It does not matter if global climate change was caused by human activity or not; this is a runaway train with no brakes.
 
Interesting hypothetical scenario of what could conceivably happen as soon as 2012:

Scientists at the International Marine Methane Hydrates Research Institute at the University of Hawaii calculated that one teraton, a million times a million, of methane will be released into the atmosphere over the next year or two. The early Eocene, 55 million years ago, experienced a similar event, resulting in a temperature rise of about 16 degrees Fahrenheit across the now populated regions of the world.

Humanity at large, and most of life, would cease to exist within a century, providing a short period to develop solutions for survival, the only rational one being to leave Planet Earth...
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The Venus Syndrome

There's a new story published today on Scientific American's website that also discusses this phenomenon:

Now new research published in Nature Geoscience shows that such frozen Arctic soil holds nearly twice as much of the organic material that gives rise to planet-warming greenhouse gases as previously estimated.

"When the air temperature rises two to three degrees, the Arctic tundra would switch from a carbon sink to a carbon source," says soil scientist Chien-Lu Ping of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "The greater the carbon stores, the greater the impact it causes," including even faster warming in the already changing Arctic.
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This is a good example of a positive feedback loop. Warmer temperatures caused by global climate change cause thawing of Arctic permafrost. This releases vast quantities of methane. Methane, being a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 causes even more global warming. More global warming causes more permafrost to melt and so on and so on.
 
The problem is there are so many "OMFG we're all screwed" scares these days (mad cow, killer flus, holes in the ozone, y2k etc, etc. ) that turn out to be not all that threatening that we'll never be able to tell what to take seriously.

Global extinction sells advertising.
 
2012 is the magic date. The last time it was 2000, before that it was 1993/4.

Discovery is full of these doomsday scenarios - either a beam of gamma radiation from a dying star wipes out all life, or we get hit by a comet, or methane caught in deep ocean pockets errupts to the surface and ignites, or earth changes magnetic field or earth shifts on its axis, etc.
 
PeterCH said:
2012 is the magic date. The last time it was 2000, before that it was 1993/4.

Discovery is full of these doomsday scenarios - either a beam of gamma radiation from a dying star wipes out all life, or we get hit by a comet, or methane caught in deep ocean pockets errupts to the surface and ignites, or earth changes magnetic field or earth shifts on its axis, etc.
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yep even holy books haz dooms days :D
 
Yep... (in a little girl's voice with a strong British accent) "You're all going to DIE down here..." (Resident Evil 1)

But we surely knew that anyway. If you worry you are going to die. If you don't worry you are still going to die. or did you really think that you- dear sir - of all 6billion on earth you were immortal!!!. So why worry?

Afterall , with referral to a previous thread, humans are so clever they will be able to side step the impending disaster. NOTT!!!
 
Nature needs to do a little constant culling, with some periodical mass culling. As PeterCH mentioned elsewhere, we have a few billion years to become spacefarers, before the sun expands and swallows us. I bet we do it in the next 20-50 years. Whereby spaceships with artificial gravity and life sustaining biospheres, enable limitless travel.

Humanity knows it needs to get off the rock.
 
Lightscribe said:
Nature needs to do a little constant culling, with some periodical mass culling. As PeterCH mentioned elsewhere, we have a few billion years to become spacefarers, before the sun expands and swallows us. I bet we do it in the next 20-50 years. Whereby spaceships with artificial gravity and life sustaining biospheres, enable limitless travel.

Humanity knows it needs to get off the rock.
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I'll bet that economic hardships and subsequent civil war in the next 50 years will make your dream impossible. Not to mention that we have not invented warp speed yet. But I'd love to see it though. " Into infinity ....and ...beyond!! Buzz Lightyear.
 
Well I got my canoe, so Im ready for global warming floods
 
We're all going to die NOW....no....NOW...wait....NOW. Gonna die NOW..doh...NOW...serious this time NOW!
 
well... you know what they say about all this doomsday things, you only have to be correct once :D
 
Freeusnow said:
I'll bet that economic hardships and subsequent civil war in the next 50 years will make your dream impossible. Not to mention that we have not invented warp speed yet. But I'd love to see it though. " Into infinity ....and ...beyond!! Buzz Lightyear.
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Speed is not the issue. Self sustainability, is.

Gravity, for a variety of biological reasons, is.

Time...well, only the least will be left behind...Lets work at not being the least...
 
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