Fun Facts to Know and Share
A follow-up to a previous post:
"It is against [the] background of global warming that a methane catastrophe will take place. A methane catastrophe consists of a sudden and massive release of continental margin methane within a short period of time. It is abrupt because it is initiated by a major submarine landslide, which can happen in a matter of hours, or by the venting of vast quantities of free and dissociated methane over a period of decades. These events take place in a geological eyeblink. Additional slumping and/or venting can continue for centuries to millennia.
The amount of methane that can be released is massive. Based upon a seafloor temperature increase of 5°C , it is estimated that about 2000 billion metric tons (Gt) of methane could be released (Hornbach, 2004). (That is one-fifth of the estimated 10,000 Gt of methane hydrate in the world's continental margins.) There is a simple way to put this amount of methane into perspective: it contains more than 2 1/2 times the amount of carbon as in the atmosphere. In addition, methane, it is essential to recall, is over twenty times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Though this methane would quickly be oxidized -- to carbon dioxide -- in the atmosphere, even its short-term presence would deliver a stunning jolt of heat to the planet. The derivative carbon dioxide would maintain that heat over the long-term.
A methane catastrophe, therefore, is an abrupt surge of greenhouse gas that could make mere carbon dioxide warming of the planet pale to insignificance. It can utterly overwhelm the natural heat regulatory system of the Earth, which operates in a much more gradual way, and on a much more protracted time scale. Its quantity is so massive that there is no remedial action that people will be able to take to mitigate it except in the most superficial way. Once a methane catastrophe begins, its consequences for the planet and its inhabitants, human and other, will be appalling, and we will be able to do nothing except wait it out.
We are on our way toward such a methane catastrophe."
KILLER IN OUR MIDST: Methane Catastrophes in Earth's Past and Near Future
Also... Equine Doo Wop
"It is against [the] background of global warming that a methane catastrophe will take place. A methane catastrophe consists of a sudden and massive release of continental margin methane within a short period of time. It is abrupt because it is initiated by a major submarine landslide, which can happen in a matter of hours, or by the venting of vast quantities of free and dissociated methane over a period of decades. These events take place in a geological eyeblink. Additional slumping and/or venting can continue for centuries to millennia.
The amount of methane that can be released is massive. Based upon a seafloor temperature increase of 5°C , it is estimated that about 2000 billion metric tons (Gt) of methane could be released (Hornbach, 2004). (That is one-fifth of the estimated 10,000 Gt of methane hydrate in the world's continental margins.) There is a simple way to put this amount of methane into perspective: it contains more than 2 1/2 times the amount of carbon as in the atmosphere. In addition, methane, it is essential to recall, is over twenty times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Though this methane would quickly be oxidized -- to carbon dioxide -- in the atmosphere, even its short-term presence would deliver a stunning jolt of heat to the planet. The derivative carbon dioxide would maintain that heat over the long-term.
A methane catastrophe, therefore, is an abrupt surge of greenhouse gas that could make mere carbon dioxide warming of the planet pale to insignificance. It can utterly overwhelm the natural heat regulatory system of the Earth, which operates in a much more gradual way, and on a much more protracted time scale. Its quantity is so massive that there is no remedial action that people will be able to take to mitigate it except in the most superficial way. Once a methane catastrophe begins, its consequences for the planet and its inhabitants, human and other, will be appalling, and we will be able to do nothing except wait it out.
We are on our way toward such a methane catastrophe."
KILLER IN OUR MIDST: Methane Catastrophes in Earth's Past and Near Future
Also... Equine Doo Wop
posted by Useless Eaters at 9:52 PM
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