Millions of tonnes of the potent greenhouse gas methane have apparently begun leaking from the seabed beneath wide areas of the Arctic Ocean, the British Independent reported on September 23.
Scientists on board the research ship Yakov Smirnitsky recently finished taking precise measurements of methane along Russia’s entire northern coastline. Conducted under the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, the research revealed methane concentrations as much as 100 times background levels, with the largest anomalies tens of thousands of square kilometers in extent.
“We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below”, researcher Dr Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University told the British Independent in an email. “It is obvious that the source is the seabed.”
In some places, the gas was evidently bubbling from the sea floor in volumes too great to be dissolved by the surrounding water. Echo-soundings detected “methane chimneys” reaching all the way to the surface.
Positive feedback cycle reached. Kyoto was way too little, way too late.
We're screwed. Time to hunker down and start considering national NZ survival in the face of a world losing, say, half its population.
2 comments:
Excellent article. I have heard of one of the Nordic countries, can't remember which one, but thier solution is to build homes that will float when the time comes. When will that time come...? Hope it's not too soon. I live in the Pacific NorthWest of US, and as multiple seers of Ancient times predict, we will be underwater, but earthquakes were supposed to be the reason. No doubt, this methane problem will be part of the problem as well.
I enjoy your posts over at Dana's, and enjoy that there are more Libs fighting the good fight against the corporate BSers pump, and the Righties swallow and regurgitating apparatus operation.
I'm especially glad you have knowledge of the economic situation. That is a subject I tend to easily become befuddled with, although, I listen to Thom Hartmann on the radio, and am beginning to become a little more knowledgable, recognizing that keeping poor people poor is the real problem, and them spending money is the solution.
Read John Ralston Saul's "The Doubters Companion", or start following Paul Krugman's columns, blu.
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