A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening In Siberia
source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,547976,00.html
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- JanforGore
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Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?
It's always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure -- could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world, off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
In the permafrost bottom of the 200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons.
It's always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure -- could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world, off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
In the permafrost bottom of the 200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons.
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- groups:
- Green, Earth and Science
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- tags:
- Green, Earth and Science, Environment, Climate Change, 7 more
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oppesi
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We are smart, so let determine a way to use the long-stored methane gas instead of all the different gas that we use now, that are causing the global warming, that is if it to does not cause an increase in the problem after it is burned.
- 4 years ago
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oppesi
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Angelique
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We're screwed!!! :(
- 4 years ago
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Angelique
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stephenthomson
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This report needs to be put on Bush's desk with a little post-it note that says "DO SOMETHING, YOU IDIOT!"
- 4 years ago
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stephenthomson
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JanforGore
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So, we are warming the Earth by using fossil fuels, which is in turn melting permafrost that is releasing methane into the atmosphere which is causing more warming. We humans sure do know how to mess it up right don't we?
- 4 years ago
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JanforGore
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JanforGore
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More on methane and its affect on our planet.
- 4 years ago
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JanforGore
