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Methane Hydrates and Whole Earth Collapse
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The following is a chapter from my book not yet available. It discusses fighting the oil and gas industry in trying to stop the future rush to ever
more offshore extraction of methane hydrates. Though Japan is the only country that claims to be now in the process of extracting MH for commercial
operations, extraction has most likely been going on for sometime in the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly other sites around the world. The O&G industry
knows that tight gas (shale etc) produced through fracking is not going to last much longer, and the offshore extraction of MH holds unlimited
prospects as well as the potential straw that will break the camels back. ON EDIT: Sorry about the formatting, I keep forgetting ATS changes it
Methane Hydrates and Whole Earth Collapse
The story of methane hydrates is an incredible story, and for me the most fascinating story of all. It is also the most important story of our times. Gas locked up in ice under intense pressure with the potential to wipe out life as we know it. Methane is the one thing on earth that can, (and probably will someday) kill all life on this planet. Methane is the hidden dragon, the monster in disguise, and we had better start taking it serious or we'll be saying too late that it's getting too late.
This is what we know. Everything that our government and industry is saying about methane is a lie. It is a lie that methane is 23 times more powerful than CO2. In truth it's at least 100 times more powerful, and probably much more. It is also a lie to call it a bridge to renewables, and the biggest lie of all, that it is clean fuel and better for the environment than oil or coal. All of this is nothing more than industry doublespeak, the same type of illogic reasoning that they've used for years to confuse people and get toxic projects past review. They're playing a numbers game like a con man plays a shell game.
Once we get past the lies and the propaganda that was formulated in corporate think tanks to prepare the world for calling methane the fuel of the future, the dangers that lay ahead become obvious.
When they use the figure 23 times more powerful than CO2, they are speaking about it's degraded state, or non-existent state, 100 years from now. Methane only lasts 10 to 15 years in the atmosphere before degrading into CO2 and water vapor. It's true that the CO2 and water vapor left after methane degrades are also greenhouse gases (GHG), and their effect will be felt for many years, but talking about it's potency long after it's degraded, especially when one considers that we may only have 10 years left to turn things around before we go off the edge, isn't important.
I have never seen a figure given for the 1 and 5 year periods. The closest scientific data I've seen is for 10 years after release at which time it is over 100 times more powerful than CO2. If you extend the graph line back to day one it increases substantially, over 200 times when first released into the atmosphere. But it doesn't really matter the exact figure, as all we need to know in this mad dash towards extinction is that methane is far worse than CO2, and being released all over the planet in ways not recorded.
Calling it a clean fuel that's better for the environment and can be seen as a bridge to renewables is another world class con job. First, as Obama's lust for fracking has shown, they have no intention of slowing down the extraction of methane, and in fact are retooling the entire transportation fleet and infrastructure used by both the military and government to run on natural gas, and encouraging other countries to do the same.
Second, when methane is burnt it produces slightly less CO2 than oil, and half that of coal. But it's not the burning stage that produces the greatest harm. It's the methane that is released beforehand, while still in gas form, and over 100 times more powerful than CO2.
Unlike oil or coal, methane is a gas that is constantly escaping during extraction, transportation and storage stages in amounts that stagger the mind. From the second oil or gas drilling reaches a certain depth methane is being released into the atmosphere. If they hit a pocket of gas under pressure, they get what's called a kick, a gas surge that releases a large amount of methane. If the kick gets out of control and a blowout occurs, the amounts of methane released can be off the charts.
After drilling and fracking, if only oil is being sought, the gas that comes up is usually flared off. These flares run continuously, and reduce the amount of methane escaping, but all gas isn't ignited, and estimates vary over a wide range as to how much methane enters the atmosphere from the well and unburnt flare gas.
If the well is for natural gas, the gas is usually stored and then transported via pipeline. During this stage the methane is constantly leaking out and in most cases it's cheaper to let the leaks continue than to fix them. Since methane is invisible and odorless, no one knew the difference until recent years when specialized equipment, an FLIR camera that could capture a visible gas cloud, became available. There are now hundreds of videos on the net that show gas clouds pouring out from storage facilities, compressor stations, pipelines etc. Fugitive emissions that have been poisoning the atmosphere for years, while government regulators kept us in the dark while refusing to admit the full extent of the problem.
Climate scientists have been pointing out for sometime the importance of quantifying the amount of leakage from fugitive emissions before declaring natural gas a bridge fuel. Now they are waving huge red flags, screaming for us to pay attention, trying to make us aware that we are doing the worst thing possible by switching to methane.
The reason for their anxiety is because research has shown that even small leakage rates would negate any benefits in the switch from coal. A 2011 study concluded;
….”unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change”.
A 2012 study found that if the total leakage exceeds 3.2% “gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time.”
If the entire system leaked a small amount here, a small amount there, you might be able to stay under 2%. That is, however, not the case. Not only are FLIR videos showing us that massive amounts are leaking from transport and storage infrastructure, we are now seeing emissions everywhere, even places and stages we didn't think were emitting.
These latest findings are the reason scientists are worried sick as two recent research projects show that the amount of gas being released as fugitive emissions is way past 3.2%, and far worse than anyone estimated.
Methane Hydrates and Whole Earth Collapse
The story of methane hydrates is an incredible story, and for me the most fascinating story of all. It is also the most important story of our times. Gas locked up in ice under intense pressure with the potential to wipe out life as we know it. Methane is the one thing on earth that can, (and probably will someday) kill all life on this planet. Methane is the hidden dragon, the monster in disguise, and we had better start taking it serious or we'll be saying too late that it's getting too late.
This is what we know. Everything that our government and industry is saying about methane is a lie. It is a lie that methane is 23 times more powerful than CO2. In truth it's at least 100 times more powerful, and probably much more. It is also a lie to call it a bridge to renewables, and the biggest lie of all, that it is clean fuel and better for the environment than oil or coal. All of this is nothing more than industry doublespeak, the same type of illogic reasoning that they've used for years to confuse people and get toxic projects past review. They're playing a numbers game like a con man plays a shell game.
Once we get past the lies and the propaganda that was formulated in corporate think tanks to prepare the world for calling methane the fuel of the future, the dangers that lay ahead become obvious.
When they use the figure 23 times more powerful than CO2, they are speaking about it's degraded state, or non-existent state, 100 years from now. Methane only lasts 10 to 15 years in the atmosphere before degrading into CO2 and water vapor. It's true that the CO2 and water vapor left after methane degrades are also greenhouse gases (GHG), and their effect will be felt for many years, but talking about it's potency long after it's degraded, especially when one considers that we may only have 10 years left to turn things around before we go off the edge, isn't important.
I have never seen a figure given for the 1 and 5 year periods. The closest scientific data I've seen is for 10 years after release at which time it is over 100 times more powerful than CO2. If you extend the graph line back to day one it increases substantially, over 200 times when first released into the atmosphere. But it doesn't really matter the exact figure, as all we need to know in this mad dash towards extinction is that methane is far worse than CO2, and being released all over the planet in ways not recorded.
Calling it a clean fuel that's better for the environment and can be seen as a bridge to renewables is another world class con job. First, as Obama's lust for fracking has shown, they have no intention of slowing down the extraction of methane, and in fact are retooling the entire transportation fleet and infrastructure used by both the military and government to run on natural gas, and encouraging other countries to do the same.
Second, when methane is burnt it produces slightly less CO2 than oil, and half that of coal. But it's not the burning stage that produces the greatest harm. It's the methane that is released beforehand, while still in gas form, and over 100 times more powerful than CO2.
Unlike oil or coal, methane is a gas that is constantly escaping during extraction, transportation and storage stages in amounts that stagger the mind. From the second oil or gas drilling reaches a certain depth methane is being released into the atmosphere. If they hit a pocket of gas under pressure, they get what's called a kick, a gas surge that releases a large amount of methane. If the kick gets out of control and a blowout occurs, the amounts of methane released can be off the charts.
After drilling and fracking, if only oil is being sought, the gas that comes up is usually flared off. These flares run continuously, and reduce the amount of methane escaping, but all gas isn't ignited, and estimates vary over a wide range as to how much methane enters the atmosphere from the well and unburnt flare gas.
If the well is for natural gas, the gas is usually stored and then transported via pipeline. During this stage the methane is constantly leaking out and in most cases it's cheaper to let the leaks continue than to fix them. Since methane is invisible and odorless, no one knew the difference until recent years when specialized equipment, an FLIR camera that could capture a visible gas cloud, became available. There are now hundreds of videos on the net that show gas clouds pouring out from storage facilities, compressor stations, pipelines etc. Fugitive emissions that have been poisoning the atmosphere for years, while government regulators kept us in the dark while refusing to admit the full extent of the problem.
Climate scientists have been pointing out for sometime the importance of quantifying the amount of leakage from fugitive emissions before declaring natural gas a bridge fuel. Now they are waving huge red flags, screaming for us to pay attention, trying to make us aware that we are doing the worst thing possible by switching to methane.
The reason for their anxiety is because research has shown that even small leakage rates would negate any benefits in the switch from coal. A 2011 study concluded;
….”unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change”.
A 2012 study found that if the total leakage exceeds 3.2% “gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time.”
If the entire system leaked a small amount here, a small amount there, you might be able to stay under 2%. That is, however, not the case. Not only are FLIR videos showing us that massive amounts are leaking from transport and storage infrastructure, we are now seeing emissions everywhere, even places and stages we didn't think were emitting.
These latest findings are the reason scientists are worried sick as two recent research projects show that the amount of gas being released as fugitive emissions is way past 3.2%, and far worse than anyone estimated.
edit on 21-3-2015 by zworld because: (no reason given)
After years of our government avoiding this type of data and pretending all was fine, NOAA finally led a scientific mission in the Uintah Basin
gas field in Utah near the Colorado border to identify air pollutants. They were looking for methane emissions. Other researchers were
carrying out work at the same time looking for VOCs. What these projects revealed is nothing short of shocking. Methane and VOC emissions
were off the charts.
On 12 separate occasions they monitored methane release in the field and found fugitive emission rates between 6% and 12%. Researchers actually measured higher emissions on other days, but atmospheric conditions during those flights “gave the data more uncertainty.” Colm Sweeney, who led the methane study’s aerial component, stated that;
“We were expecting to see high methane levels, but I don’t think anybody really comprehended the true magnitude of what we would see.”
The levels of VOCs was equally disturbing, if not more so. Researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder conducted a two year study and found that volatile organic compounds like benzene, toluene, xylene and others existed in amounts that were equivalent to what would be emitted by 100,000,000 automobiles, or about one third of all the vehicles in America. Yet this was found in a small, rural, and sparsely populated area with few roads and only one industry, fossil fuel extraction.
All of the methane and VOCs that the 10,000 oil and gas wells leak out blow east with the winds, and pocket on the eastern flank of the basin, where the small town of Vernal is experiencing an epidemic of stillborn babies.
At the same time this data were being produced, independent research from gas fields in Pennsylvania that were actively being drilled, but not being fracked or flowing back, showed similar rates of methane leakage as the Uintah Basin, suggesting that methane leaks were universally far worse than estimated. Since the EPA considers fugitive emissions from the drilling stage to be negligible, the Pennsylvania finding is even more troubling than the Uintah Basin finding. For many years it was suspected that flow-back and transport were the main causes of fugitive emissions. The drilling stage, and post fracking production stage, when no fracking or flow back was occurring, was expected to be a very minor component of leakage amounts. So minor that some registries didn't even include it in release estimates.
If the leakage rates are this high for activities not even included in release estimates, how much are we really releasing, and why aren't we running around screaming and shouting to find out the truth before it's too late. We're going to fry the planet asap by switching to methane if these results are true. This information should be sending shockwaves through mainstream America.
Instead it isn't even being reported. That is the level of power that the fascist money changers like BP, Exxon and the rest of the O&G gang, have in our society. On their command, the entire world is being retooled to run on methane, new wells are going in every few minutes, all of which is being allowed to happen without proper environmental review because it's supposedly going to help reduce global warming.
How can such madness exist. Fewer environmental controls; more pollution producing contaminated water, earth and air; destruction of the family farm and other family values; and in the end all of it is worse for the atmosphere, increasing global warming exponentially. And they know. All of them. Governments. Corporations. They're just too busy this week to care.
And now for an even scarier thought, we must also consider that the original estimates made for gas leakage during the other stages of production, (transport, use etc), are also far below the real numbers that are being emitted, similar to recent findings in the gas fields. From the second the drill hits deep earth to when a match finally lights the burner on a stove, methane is escaping in mass, especially when one considers that our transport system consists of old and rotting pipes, compressor stations, storage tanks and trucks, and billions of connections that have been shown to release clouds of gas as captured by FLIR. If leakage rates are similar to the gas field rate of roughly 10%, that would make using methane many times worse than using coal, and we would be encouraging abrupt climate change.
Then we need to consider what might be occurring worldwide, and the fact that leak rates from natural gas extraction and use are probably similar, or even greater, than rates found in America. Especially in countries with few regulations in place, and gypo operations abounding.
All of a sudden we are talking about a massive GHG input, one that our government, the people that are supposed to be protecting us from harm, could care less about. The few studies that have been done are not even the tip of the iceberg, and our government is showing no interest in researching fugitive emissions any further, unless forced to by us. They'll talk a good game maybe, but then drag their feet for years while nothing gets accomplished and we move ever closer to the edge.
Though we'll never know the true extent of methane that has escaped into the environment from gas blowouts and fugitive emissions, I am convinced that it's a staggering amount, far beyond what we estimate at this time. At the very least it has been one of the primary causes of the warming that has been occurring, and today it continues to push us ever closer to the point of no return, as the damage being done today will continue to increase for many years as ever greater amounts of methane are being pumped into the atmosphere.
The fact that government and industry leaders are aware of our situation and yet are still glorifying methane and pushing for an expansion of gas extraction and exportation, is just too hard to come to grips with. It makes no sense, and can only be seen as the doings of either lunatics, or a consortium with something up their sleeve, and both options are scary.
Methane Hydrates Over Time
So back to the vast store of methane that exists as MH in the oceans. Ocean methane comes from two sources. One is gas escaping from deep underground caused by rock as it heats up in the mantle. The other is caused by organic material deposited on the seafloor, either ocean life, or that which enters the ocean from land, leaves, soil, woody debris, etc. that is then converted by microbes into methane. This latter is called biogenic methane. If the methane is produced at a certain range of temperature and pressure where the water is cold enough and there is enough pressure to squeeze the methane 164 times, ice will form around the methane molecule, encasing it under this intense pressure. Think of our oceans as containing a massive block of sandy ice that circles every continent. That is what the seafloor consists of, sand, silt, ice and above all, methane, both frozen and free, in massive quantities under intense pressure.
On 12 separate occasions they monitored methane release in the field and found fugitive emission rates between 6% and 12%. Researchers actually measured higher emissions on other days, but atmospheric conditions during those flights “gave the data more uncertainty.” Colm Sweeney, who led the methane study’s aerial component, stated that;
“We were expecting to see high methane levels, but I don’t think anybody really comprehended the true magnitude of what we would see.”
The levels of VOCs was equally disturbing, if not more so. Researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder conducted a two year study and found that volatile organic compounds like benzene, toluene, xylene and others existed in amounts that were equivalent to what would be emitted by 100,000,000 automobiles, or about one third of all the vehicles in America. Yet this was found in a small, rural, and sparsely populated area with few roads and only one industry, fossil fuel extraction.
All of the methane and VOCs that the 10,000 oil and gas wells leak out blow east with the winds, and pocket on the eastern flank of the basin, where the small town of Vernal is experiencing an epidemic of stillborn babies.
At the same time this data were being produced, independent research from gas fields in Pennsylvania that were actively being drilled, but not being fracked or flowing back, showed similar rates of methane leakage as the Uintah Basin, suggesting that methane leaks were universally far worse than estimated. Since the EPA considers fugitive emissions from the drilling stage to be negligible, the Pennsylvania finding is even more troubling than the Uintah Basin finding. For many years it was suspected that flow-back and transport were the main causes of fugitive emissions. The drilling stage, and post fracking production stage, when no fracking or flow back was occurring, was expected to be a very minor component of leakage amounts. So minor that some registries didn't even include it in release estimates.
If the leakage rates are this high for activities not even included in release estimates, how much are we really releasing, and why aren't we running around screaming and shouting to find out the truth before it's too late. We're going to fry the planet asap by switching to methane if these results are true. This information should be sending shockwaves through mainstream America.
Instead it isn't even being reported. That is the level of power that the fascist money changers like BP, Exxon and the rest of the O&G gang, have in our society. On their command, the entire world is being retooled to run on methane, new wells are going in every few minutes, all of which is being allowed to happen without proper environmental review because it's supposedly going to help reduce global warming.
How can such madness exist. Fewer environmental controls; more pollution producing contaminated water, earth and air; destruction of the family farm and other family values; and in the end all of it is worse for the atmosphere, increasing global warming exponentially. And they know. All of them. Governments. Corporations. They're just too busy this week to care.
And now for an even scarier thought, we must also consider that the original estimates made for gas leakage during the other stages of production, (transport, use etc), are also far below the real numbers that are being emitted, similar to recent findings in the gas fields. From the second the drill hits deep earth to when a match finally lights the burner on a stove, methane is escaping in mass, especially when one considers that our transport system consists of old and rotting pipes, compressor stations, storage tanks and trucks, and billions of connections that have been shown to release clouds of gas as captured by FLIR. If leakage rates are similar to the gas field rate of roughly 10%, that would make using methane many times worse than using coal, and we would be encouraging abrupt climate change.
Then we need to consider what might be occurring worldwide, and the fact that leak rates from natural gas extraction and use are probably similar, or even greater, than rates found in America. Especially in countries with few regulations in place, and gypo operations abounding.
All of a sudden we are talking about a massive GHG input, one that our government, the people that are supposed to be protecting us from harm, could care less about. The few studies that have been done are not even the tip of the iceberg, and our government is showing no interest in researching fugitive emissions any further, unless forced to by us. They'll talk a good game maybe, but then drag their feet for years while nothing gets accomplished and we move ever closer to the edge.
Though we'll never know the true extent of methane that has escaped into the environment from gas blowouts and fugitive emissions, I am convinced that it's a staggering amount, far beyond what we estimate at this time. At the very least it has been one of the primary causes of the warming that has been occurring, and today it continues to push us ever closer to the point of no return, as the damage being done today will continue to increase for many years as ever greater amounts of methane are being pumped into the atmosphere.
The fact that government and industry leaders are aware of our situation and yet are still glorifying methane and pushing for an expansion of gas extraction and exportation, is just too hard to come to grips with. It makes no sense, and can only be seen as the doings of either lunatics, or a consortium with something up their sleeve, and both options are scary.
Methane Hydrates Over Time
So back to the vast store of methane that exists as MH in the oceans. Ocean methane comes from two sources. One is gas escaping from deep underground caused by rock as it heats up in the mantle. The other is caused by organic material deposited on the seafloor, either ocean life, or that which enters the ocean from land, leaves, soil, woody debris, etc. that is then converted by microbes into methane. This latter is called biogenic methane. If the methane is produced at a certain range of temperature and pressure where the water is cold enough and there is enough pressure to squeeze the methane 164 times, ice will form around the methane molecule, encasing it under this intense pressure. Think of our oceans as containing a massive block of sandy ice that circles every continent. That is what the seafloor consists of, sand, silt, ice and above all, methane, both frozen and free, in massive quantities under intense pressure.
As the ages go on, and more and more organic material is deposited, the old layers are buried ever deeper. As they get buried
deeper in the strata the temperature goes up. At some point the temperature increases beyond the zone required for the methane to remain
frozen, causing the MH at the bottom of the bed to dissociate (melt), releasing the methane. This methane is then
trapped under the overburden of MH and sand/silt above it, remaining under intense pressure looking for a way to the surface of the seafloor.
I call these pockets of free gas “relic hydrates”, pressurized gas that was once hydrated. I believe they can be found all over the earth, including on land, as much of the land mass on earth today was once under the oceans. For millions and millions of years the temperature and pressure for creation of MH have been in the right range in a location that is now part of a land mass. When these ancient MH beds are buried deep enough, they returned to a free gas state, and there they sit.
These pockets of relic hydrates under intense pressure are deep underground around the globe, and have been the oil industries worst nightmare since day one. They never knew when they would drill into one, producing a kick that often led to a blowout and untold amounts of methane escaping into the atmosphere, sometimes causing fireball explosions and killing lives.
For over a hundred years the human race has been drilling deep enough into the earth to encounter these explosive gas formations, with the results always the same, massive amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere. If a blowout occurs, they can last for days and even months depending on the size of the gas reservoir and whether or not the well collapses (bridging) and plugs itself.
There are many videos on the internet showing a gas blowout occurring, both on land and offshore. If you have never seen one of these it is worth the experience to get an idea of the vast amounts being expelled. Some form explosive cloud banks as big as a football stadium, and hundreds of feet high, gas escaping at a ferocious pace. One in particular, the offshore Actinia blowout in the 90s, shows what happens when the expulsion is caused by MH dissociating and free gas being released.
There have been thousands upon thousands of these blowouts through the years, some big, some small, some quickly contained, some never contained. The end result of this atmospheric onslaught is what we have today, increased global warming and smog.
And yet all of this pales in light of the potential amount of methane that could be released from run away ocean warming, and the damage it would inflict on this planet. If the MH begins to dissociate in mass, we got big problems. Problems that don't have a solution. And at this point in time it appears that the MH is indeed beginning to dissociate in mass.
The Great Dying
And how big of a problem would run away ocean warming really be. It's all happened before, most likely more than once, and it's game over. The worst event is called “the Great Dying”, when 90% of life was erased from the planet in geologically speaking a very short time. Originally it was thought to have taken up to 10 million years for the die-off to be complete. Now the science is better understood and it points to a recovery period lasting 10 million years, and not the die-off. Except for a handful of terrestrial species, the actual die-off is now thought to have occurred in less than 10,000 years, with the possibility that it occurred in less than 1,000 years, especially for marine life.
For life to end that abruptly in the way that it did, and keep it from returning to normal for millions of years, there is really only one explanation for the Great Dying, instantaneous methane, CO2 and hydrogen sulphide release and overload worldwide. And there is only one way that could have occurred, by volcanic activity or some other form of warming that can overheat the ocean quickly enough to cause the methane hydrates to dissociate over vast areas quickly.
The scientific community has long argued the possible causes of the Great Dying, but nothing ever fit the pieces when considering the geologic and isotopic records. Then in the 80s and early 90s, with the discovery, and then worldwide exploration of MH, we learned how vast the store of methane was in our oceans, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.
The story of the Great Dying, at least a basic version I believe to be true, and one slowly being accepted by the scientific community, is this.
It began with the biggest volcanic eruption of all time, somewhere in Siberia. The age of the lava flows has been dated to the beginning of the Permian mass extinction. The initial eruptions were far beyond anything we can imagine, and sent a massive quantity of sulphates into the atmosphere. Geologic records also show that these volcanic eruptions produced large ash clouds around the world, and were silica-rich, and thus explosive. The combination of the aerosols and ash clouds in the atmosphere must have lowered global temperatures drastically and quickly.
This volcanic activity and instant cooling had three immediate effects. First, these eruptions sent massive amounts of material into the ocean to be converted into methane. Second, it killed a fair amount of plant life, especially in the temperate zones, that was then washed into the sea, and also converted into methane. And third, it caused the oceans to cool and the zone of methane hydrate stability to increase exponentially.
Once the cooling got going, it also caused a period of glaciation. As the glaciers grew, the ocean levels began to drop, reducing pressure on the MH beds recently formed, and beginning the process of shrinking the MH stability zone.
Then the cooling ended abruptly. As the dust cloud cover began to recede, a warming trend began, and the volcanoes were again to blame. They had put out massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere during the eruptions, and then, over a period of time, lava in quantities that would bury an area the size of the entire US. When the dust cloud cover lessened and the sun came back, these caused a warming trend to take off. This warming trend was then kicked into high gear by the addition of methane that came from the lava melting the permafrost and then reaching the oceans and melting the hydrates.
Due to the amounts of methane trapped in the ocean and permafrost before the warming trend began, and the quick rise in ocean and land temperature, it didn't take long to release the lions share of the methane and cook the earth. Once the feedback loop begins (methane melting> causing more warming> causing more methane melting> etc) it doesn't stop on it's own. It is a self feeding system that will continue until something causes a cool down to begin. And during the Great Dying that didn't happen for millions of years.
The worst loss of life was in the oceans, where 96% of all marine life went extinct. Especially hard hit were those species which require oxygen for survival, or form hard shells or skeletons.
I call these pockets of free gas “relic hydrates”, pressurized gas that was once hydrated. I believe they can be found all over the earth, including on land, as much of the land mass on earth today was once under the oceans. For millions and millions of years the temperature and pressure for creation of MH have been in the right range in a location that is now part of a land mass. When these ancient MH beds are buried deep enough, they returned to a free gas state, and there they sit.
These pockets of relic hydrates under intense pressure are deep underground around the globe, and have been the oil industries worst nightmare since day one. They never knew when they would drill into one, producing a kick that often led to a blowout and untold amounts of methane escaping into the atmosphere, sometimes causing fireball explosions and killing lives.
For over a hundred years the human race has been drilling deep enough into the earth to encounter these explosive gas formations, with the results always the same, massive amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere. If a blowout occurs, they can last for days and even months depending on the size of the gas reservoir and whether or not the well collapses (bridging) and plugs itself.
There are many videos on the internet showing a gas blowout occurring, both on land and offshore. If you have never seen one of these it is worth the experience to get an idea of the vast amounts being expelled. Some form explosive cloud banks as big as a football stadium, and hundreds of feet high, gas escaping at a ferocious pace. One in particular, the offshore Actinia blowout in the 90s, shows what happens when the expulsion is caused by MH dissociating and free gas being released.
There have been thousands upon thousands of these blowouts through the years, some big, some small, some quickly contained, some never contained. The end result of this atmospheric onslaught is what we have today, increased global warming and smog.
And yet all of this pales in light of the potential amount of methane that could be released from run away ocean warming, and the damage it would inflict on this planet. If the MH begins to dissociate in mass, we got big problems. Problems that don't have a solution. And at this point in time it appears that the MH is indeed beginning to dissociate in mass.
The Great Dying
And how big of a problem would run away ocean warming really be. It's all happened before, most likely more than once, and it's game over. The worst event is called “the Great Dying”, when 90% of life was erased from the planet in geologically speaking a very short time. Originally it was thought to have taken up to 10 million years for the die-off to be complete. Now the science is better understood and it points to a recovery period lasting 10 million years, and not the die-off. Except for a handful of terrestrial species, the actual die-off is now thought to have occurred in less than 10,000 years, with the possibility that it occurred in less than 1,000 years, especially for marine life.
For life to end that abruptly in the way that it did, and keep it from returning to normal for millions of years, there is really only one explanation for the Great Dying, instantaneous methane, CO2 and hydrogen sulphide release and overload worldwide. And there is only one way that could have occurred, by volcanic activity or some other form of warming that can overheat the ocean quickly enough to cause the methane hydrates to dissociate over vast areas quickly.
The scientific community has long argued the possible causes of the Great Dying, but nothing ever fit the pieces when considering the geologic and isotopic records. Then in the 80s and early 90s, with the discovery, and then worldwide exploration of MH, we learned how vast the store of methane was in our oceans, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.
The story of the Great Dying, at least a basic version I believe to be true, and one slowly being accepted by the scientific community, is this.
It began with the biggest volcanic eruption of all time, somewhere in Siberia. The age of the lava flows has been dated to the beginning of the Permian mass extinction. The initial eruptions were far beyond anything we can imagine, and sent a massive quantity of sulphates into the atmosphere. Geologic records also show that these volcanic eruptions produced large ash clouds around the world, and were silica-rich, and thus explosive. The combination of the aerosols and ash clouds in the atmosphere must have lowered global temperatures drastically and quickly.
This volcanic activity and instant cooling had three immediate effects. First, these eruptions sent massive amounts of material into the ocean to be converted into methane. Second, it killed a fair amount of plant life, especially in the temperate zones, that was then washed into the sea, and also converted into methane. And third, it caused the oceans to cool and the zone of methane hydrate stability to increase exponentially.
Once the cooling got going, it also caused a period of glaciation. As the glaciers grew, the ocean levels began to drop, reducing pressure on the MH beds recently formed, and beginning the process of shrinking the MH stability zone.
Then the cooling ended abruptly. As the dust cloud cover began to recede, a warming trend began, and the volcanoes were again to blame. They had put out massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere during the eruptions, and then, over a period of time, lava in quantities that would bury an area the size of the entire US. When the dust cloud cover lessened and the sun came back, these caused a warming trend to take off. This warming trend was then kicked into high gear by the addition of methane that came from the lava melting the permafrost and then reaching the oceans and melting the hydrates.
Due to the amounts of methane trapped in the ocean and permafrost before the warming trend began, and the quick rise in ocean and land temperature, it didn't take long to release the lions share of the methane and cook the earth. Once the feedback loop begins (methane melting> causing more warming> causing more methane melting> etc) it doesn't stop on it's own. It is a self feeding system that will continue until something causes a cool down to begin. And during the Great Dying that didn't happen for millions of years.
The worst loss of life was in the oceans, where 96% of all marine life went extinct. Especially hard hit were those species which require oxygen for survival, or form hard shells or skeletons.
This one two punch can only be explained via methane release. A major expulsion of methane would have caused widespread anoxia and
acidification. First, anoxia kills oxygen dependent species while allowing anaerobic organisms like sulfate-reducers and methanogens to
flourish, producing more methane as well as hydrogen sulfide. And second, acidification stops calcification from occurring.
Where anoxia and acidification were pervasive they would have been the likely cause of the marine extinction, and it would have happened
pretty fast.
Land animals faired a bit better, losing somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent of their diversity. But recovery for them still took millions of years, most likely due to the importance of healthy oceans to the rest of the world.
And Now For The Really Scary Part
It's happening again. And this time it's not a volcano, it's humans causing the rise in ocean temperatures. And when I say it's happening again I'm not trying to be an alarmist, I am freaked out by the knowledge I've acquired.
It started around 2004/2005. Scientists began studying gas bubbles coming from both melting permafrost and MH in shallow waters offshore North America, Russia and the Arctic Ocean. The first rumblings to reach America came from Katey Walter and Terry Chapin, scientists from Alaska, and Sergey Zimov, a scientist from Russia. They researched melting permafrost gas bubbles that came up through frozen lakes in the far north. These bubbles under the ice could be punched open and lit, with sometimes explosive results. Pictures of Katey getting blown back from a large flame exploding from the lake, and people roasting hot dogs on a frozen lake, were found on the net and went viral. It almost seemed comical, and nothing to be alarmed about. Unless you read their research.
“methane flux from thaw lakes in our study region may be five times higher than previously estimated.....thawing permafrost along lake margins accounts for most of the methane released from the lakes, and estimate that an expansion of thaw lakes between 1974 and 2000, which was concurrent with regional warming, increased methane emissions in our study region by 58 per cent.” (Methane Bubbling From Siberian Thaw Lakes As A Positive Feedback To Climate Warming, Nature 443, 71-75 (7 September 2006) )
At the same time ever increasing small ocean plumes began to show up off the east and west coasts of the US. That is troubling in and of itself as well, because both coasts have major MH formations that stretch hundreds of miles and thousands of feet thick in some places.
But it was the Arctic expulsion from the seafloor itself that started producing dread in the scientific community. I mean real dread. You have to see some of the press conferences and taped interviews with the scientists involved in the research to understand how they feel about current events. I can read emotions fairly well, but can still miss a lot of stuff being that I'm autistic. However, the scientists in the interviews left no room for doubt that they were deeply troubled. Scared. Like Noah just before the rains hit, but with no boat built yet.
That's when I grew frightened as well. It wasn't play time any more. We were on a rapidly rushing river heading for a 1000 foot waterfall with no way to turn or stop. How should one respond, I'm not sure.
In the Arctic Ocean off Russia, scientists have been researching methane release from the seafloor, and tracking methane plumes for over ten years now. At first it was a few sporadic small plumes. Then the plumes grew denser and bigger. Then bigger. Then they exploded in size, from tens of meters as described below, to half a mile wide in just a few years. The following quotes are from Dr. Semiletov, one of the lead scientists;
“Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter.....It’s amazing. I was most impressed by the sheer scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them.......Some of the plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere - the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal.”
In late 2013, Natalia Shakhova, Semiletov and others released data showing that the amount of methane coming from the Russian Arctic waters was much more than previously estimated, in amounts that were staggering, and water temperatures were still going up. And on November 9, 2013, the highest atmospheric methane levels ever recorded, 2662 ppb, occurred. At that point in time it was obvious to most scientists involved in these projects that we were going were no human had ever gone before. We were on the verge of runaway methane release, and the scientific community needed to alert the rest of the world to the dangerous situation that we were facing, one that couldn't be swept under the rug. Unfortunately swept under the rug is exactly what happened.
Instead of igniting the scientific community into real action, it ignited only controversy. False front (FF) websites, sites that were designed to spread disinformation while pretending to be scientifically concerned like RealClimate.com, attacked the fears others were expressing, claiming that there was no serious release of hydrates occurring, and even if there was it wouldn't amount to much and we could all go back to sleep. Other sites buried the news about Shakhova's research results giving them the air of unimportance.
The way to tell the difference between a shill or FF site during this debate was the avoidance of the term 'methane hydrate'. The FF sites almost never used the full term, substituting 'subsea permafrost', 'marine permafrost', 'offshore methane deposits', 'offshore hydrate formations', 'relic hydrates' and other phrases used in place of 'methane hydrates'. And the reason they don't use the actual term MH is simply because the PTB don't want their fuel of the future, methane hydrates, given a black eye.
The reason they keep it from looking bad is because it's too big a prize. Unlike fracking (which they know will eventually be banned), harvesting, processing, storage and shipment of MH will be done far offshore with no way to document environmental degradation. It's a 1000 year supply out of the public eye dream come true for them and they don't want it spoiled.
If the MSM was to mention the research, which it seldom did, it was only in passing and methane hydrates were never blamed, and seldom mentioned. At best they were referred to in the sense that it was someones theory somewhere but others disagree, and then they'd go into length about why others disagree. The most important news story of this century, and it fizzled into nothing. Even as feedback loops begin to be initiated this information is still unknown to the masses.
Land animals faired a bit better, losing somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent of their diversity. But recovery for them still took millions of years, most likely due to the importance of healthy oceans to the rest of the world.
And Now For The Really Scary Part
It's happening again. And this time it's not a volcano, it's humans causing the rise in ocean temperatures. And when I say it's happening again I'm not trying to be an alarmist, I am freaked out by the knowledge I've acquired.
It started around 2004/2005. Scientists began studying gas bubbles coming from both melting permafrost and MH in shallow waters offshore North America, Russia and the Arctic Ocean. The first rumblings to reach America came from Katey Walter and Terry Chapin, scientists from Alaska, and Sergey Zimov, a scientist from Russia. They researched melting permafrost gas bubbles that came up through frozen lakes in the far north. These bubbles under the ice could be punched open and lit, with sometimes explosive results. Pictures of Katey getting blown back from a large flame exploding from the lake, and people roasting hot dogs on a frozen lake, were found on the net and went viral. It almost seemed comical, and nothing to be alarmed about. Unless you read their research.
“methane flux from thaw lakes in our study region may be five times higher than previously estimated.....thawing permafrost along lake margins accounts for most of the methane released from the lakes, and estimate that an expansion of thaw lakes between 1974 and 2000, which was concurrent with regional warming, increased methane emissions in our study region by 58 per cent.” (Methane Bubbling From Siberian Thaw Lakes As A Positive Feedback To Climate Warming, Nature 443, 71-75 (7 September 2006) )
At the same time ever increasing small ocean plumes began to show up off the east and west coasts of the US. That is troubling in and of itself as well, because both coasts have major MH formations that stretch hundreds of miles and thousands of feet thick in some places.
But it was the Arctic expulsion from the seafloor itself that started producing dread in the scientific community. I mean real dread. You have to see some of the press conferences and taped interviews with the scientists involved in the research to understand how they feel about current events. I can read emotions fairly well, but can still miss a lot of stuff being that I'm autistic. However, the scientists in the interviews left no room for doubt that they were deeply troubled. Scared. Like Noah just before the rains hit, but with no boat built yet.
That's when I grew frightened as well. It wasn't play time any more. We were on a rapidly rushing river heading for a 1000 foot waterfall with no way to turn or stop. How should one respond, I'm not sure.
In the Arctic Ocean off Russia, scientists have been researching methane release from the seafloor, and tracking methane plumes for over ten years now. At first it was a few sporadic small plumes. Then the plumes grew denser and bigger. Then bigger. Then they exploded in size, from tens of meters as described below, to half a mile wide in just a few years. The following quotes are from Dr. Semiletov, one of the lead scientists;
“Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter.....It’s amazing. I was most impressed by the sheer scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them.......Some of the plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere - the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal.”
In late 2013, Natalia Shakhova, Semiletov and others released data showing that the amount of methane coming from the Russian Arctic waters was much more than previously estimated, in amounts that were staggering, and water temperatures were still going up. And on November 9, 2013, the highest atmospheric methane levels ever recorded, 2662 ppb, occurred. At that point in time it was obvious to most scientists involved in these projects that we were going were no human had ever gone before. We were on the verge of runaway methane release, and the scientific community needed to alert the rest of the world to the dangerous situation that we were facing, one that couldn't be swept under the rug. Unfortunately swept under the rug is exactly what happened.
Instead of igniting the scientific community into real action, it ignited only controversy. False front (FF) websites, sites that were designed to spread disinformation while pretending to be scientifically concerned like RealClimate.com, attacked the fears others were expressing, claiming that there was no serious release of hydrates occurring, and even if there was it wouldn't amount to much and we could all go back to sleep. Other sites buried the news about Shakhova's research results giving them the air of unimportance.
The way to tell the difference between a shill or FF site during this debate was the avoidance of the term 'methane hydrate'. The FF sites almost never used the full term, substituting 'subsea permafrost', 'marine permafrost', 'offshore methane deposits', 'offshore hydrate formations', 'relic hydrates' and other phrases used in place of 'methane hydrates'. And the reason they don't use the actual term MH is simply because the PTB don't want their fuel of the future, methane hydrates, given a black eye.
The reason they keep it from looking bad is because it's too big a prize. Unlike fracking (which they know will eventually be banned), harvesting, processing, storage and shipment of MH will be done far offshore with no way to document environmental degradation. It's a 1000 year supply out of the public eye dream come true for them and they don't want it spoiled.
If the MSM was to mention the research, which it seldom did, it was only in passing and methane hydrates were never blamed, and seldom mentioned. At best they were referred to in the sense that it was someones theory somewhere but others disagree, and then they'd go into length about why others disagree. The most important news story of this century, and it fizzled into nothing. Even as feedback loops begin to be initiated this information is still unknown to the masses.
The bottom line is this. The Arctic Circle represents a vast store of carbon in both methane hydrates and permafrost, and has been
warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It also has atmospheric levels of methane that are double the rest of the planet, and the
levels are rising much faster than CO2, especially in higher elevations of the atmosphere, >30,000 feet, where it appears a
lot of the methane is ending up.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Ice cover in the Arctic Circle has been drastically reduced over the last 35 years. This is not only causing heating due to the loss of the cooling effect of ice itself, ice is an incredibly efficient reflector of solar radiation. When it covers a body of water it reflects most of the solar radiation back out into space, adding an even greater cooling effect, (known as the albedo effect). Thin sea ice reflects 50% to 70% of the incoming heat, and thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90%. On the other hand, the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiative heating and absorbs the rest. As the ice recedes further each year, and the waters warm, more and more methane from methane hydrate beds will be released.
The great out pouring of methane from hydrates in the Arctic follows the same curve as the loss of ice cover as seen in the graph below. The ever tightening circle is called the “Arctic Death Spiral”, and for good reason. (If the graph is in black and white, color coding is lost). The line closest to the center is the month of September, when peak melt occurs. In 35 years the September sea ice volume has gone from 17,500,000 square km, to less than 5,000,000 square km, with a slight rebound last year. Areas of open ocean now being heated through the summer months are also the same areas that are emitting methane from hydrates dissociating, and though there was a slight rebound in cover in the summer of 2013, the massive expulsions that summer were most likely influenced by the 2012 mega melt.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Ice cover in the Arctic Circle has been drastically reduced over the last 35 years. This is not only causing heating due to the loss of the cooling effect of ice itself, ice is an incredibly efficient reflector of solar radiation. When it covers a body of water it reflects most of the solar radiation back out into space, adding an even greater cooling effect, (known as the albedo effect). Thin sea ice reflects 50% to 70% of the incoming heat, and thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90%. On the other hand, the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiative heating and absorbs the rest. As the ice recedes further each year, and the waters warm, more and more methane from methane hydrate beds will be released.
The great out pouring of methane from hydrates in the Arctic follows the same curve as the loss of ice cover as seen in the graph below. The ever tightening circle is called the “Arctic Death Spiral”, and for good reason. (If the graph is in black and white, color coding is lost). The line closest to the center is the month of September, when peak melt occurs. In 35 years the September sea ice volume has gone from 17,500,000 square km, to less than 5,000,000 square km, with a slight rebound last year. Areas of open ocean now being heated through the summer months are also the same areas that are emitting methane from hydrates dissociating, and though there was a slight rebound in cover in the summer of 2013, the massive expulsions that summer were most likely influenced by the 2012 mega melt.
Wow ! This is a lot to soak in...will read a few times. Will be back to reply again.
originally posted by: zworld
The levels of VOCs was equally disturbing, if not more so. Researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder conducted a two year study and found that volatile organic compounds like benzene, toluene, xylene and others existed in amounts that were equivalent to what would be emitted by 100,000,000 automobiles, or about one third of all the vehicles in America. Yet this was found in a small, rural, and sparsely populated area with few roads and only one industry, fossil fuel extraction.
That paragraph shocked me the most.
Now this is some seriously good doomporn. Almost all based on emotional responses and vague facts and not logic and science. Why must it be the
government/companies lying to us such as the power of methane over CO2 ? Could it actually be scientific fact ? This Earth as not as fragile as some
would make it. All this happening has happened before most without human intervention . Sad .
originally posted by: angryhulk
That paragraph shocked me the most.
Me too. When I first read it in a Bloomberg article I thought for sure it was a typo.
The following is from the Concerned Health Professionals of New York comments on the proposed ban on fracking. Its the best discussion of the dangers from fracking Ive found. It includes many of the studies used in my chapter.
concernedhealthny.org...
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in Utah’s heavily drilled Uintah Basin led to 39 winter days exceeding the EPA’s eight-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standards level for ozone pollutants the previous winter. “Levels above this threshold are considered to be harmful to human health, and high levels of ozone are known to cause respiratory distress and be responsible for an estimated 5,000 premature deaths in the U.S. per year,” according to researchers at the University of Colorado. Their observations “reveal a strong causal link between oil and gas emissions, accumulation of air toxics, and significant production of ozone in the atmospheric surface layer.” Researchers estimated that total annual VOC emissions at the fracking sites are equivalent to those of about 100 million cars.
The original data comes from
Helmig et al 2014. Highly elevated atmospheric levels of volatile organic compounds in the Uintah Basin, Utah. Environmental Science & Technology, 48(9), 4707-4715. doi: 10.1021/es405046r
and can be downloaded from
catskillcitizens.org...
edit on 22-3-2015 by zworld because: (no reason given)
the whole earth IS NOT going to collapse....it might however become a non-human planet...most of the flora and some of the fauna will survive, but man
is determined to commit enviornmental suicide, and there isn't enough uber-wealthy people in this world that want to change that. I won't see it
because of my age, and my 27 year-old son will start to feel the "pinch"...but when it comes to his children and grandchildren, it's going to
become a lot tougher to handle.
a reply to: jimmyx
I could have said whole earth biological collapse, but the idea remains the same. An end to life as we know it.
You raise an important point, one that doesnt get enough attention. Two or three generations from now life will be drastically different from even the polluted state its in currently. If those people (like the Koch bros) that claim to hold family values dear while denying AGW for moneys sake were to actually believe in family values they would be up in arms trying to change things, instead of looking for more ways to make their own personal lives richer.
I could have said whole earth biological collapse, but the idea remains the same. An end to life as we know it.
You raise an important point, one that doesnt get enough attention. Two or three generations from now life will be drastically different from even the polluted state its in currently. If those people (like the Koch bros) that claim to hold family values dear while denying AGW for moneys sake were to actually believe in family values they would be up in arms trying to change things, instead of looking for more ways to make their own personal lives richer.
originally posted by: here4this
Now this is some seriously good doomporn. Almost all based on emotional responses and vague facts and not logic and science. Why must it be the government/companies lying to us such as the power of methane over CO2 ? Could it actually be scientific fact ? This Earth as not as fragile as some would make it. All this happening has happened before most without human intervention . Sad .
The 'Earth' isn't fragile, but human life certainly is.
originally posted by: here4this
Now this is some seriously good doomporn.
Thank you and I agree. And all I had to do to create this excellent doomporn was state the truth. Scary huh? And FyreByrd is right, the Earth will survive no matter what, but humans are incredibly fragile, and unable to survive in an ever more polluted world. At this point the only hope we have to end doomporn is to end our dependence on fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, on diverting rivers and draining aquifers, on burying the earth under layers of asphaltene, etc etc etc. Unless the human race makes a 360 from how it now lives, the porn part will end, and we will be left with only doom.
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