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Global Warming going faster than ever?

I can tell you right now with 100% confidence that it's a scam. Read Michael Crichton.
 
Crow T R0bot said:
http://earthsky.org/earth/scientists-discover-vast-methane-plumes-escaping-from-arctic-seafloor

Posted (mostly) without comment, but if I understand the concept of Feedback Loops right, I take it we're past the point of no return?:(
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We don't even know if this is unusual or whether it has always happened.

But I can assure you alarmism and apocalyptic predictions about stuff we don't understand very well or have little experience of has always happened, and will always continue to happen. That's nothing new.
 
Shouldn't this be in the Science, Mathematics, and Technology section?

Anyway, I for one don't think we should jump off the horse just because we think there might be a noose around our neck.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
Shouldn't this be in the Science, Mathematics, and Technology section?
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Already enough threads in that section devoted to these types of topics anyway (pretty much universally devoid of any actual scientific discussion, as well)

Frozenwolf150 said:
Anyway, I for one don't think we should jump off the horse just because we think there might be a noose around our neck.
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It's okay, there is no horse.
 
In my opinion the the part that plays a social or political role to be discussed is mitigation, not AGW itself. In other words, the science that shows AGW to be happening is very robust and getting stronger every year. Only fools deny that. However, the questions of what we as a society should do about it are hotly debated.

As far as this particular methane release and its potential effect, yes that is a discussion for the science forum. Either way it will be a delayed effect though. Warming the whole planet isn't like boiling a pot of water. It takes time, and methane breaks down naturally from exposure to sun and oxygen in the atmosphere and by methanotrophic microbiology. So the science question is how fast and is it fast enough to counter the release rate?? That I don't know.

What I do know is that ~40% or more of the planets terrestrial ecosystems are degraded substantially by unsustainable and hugely destructive agricultural practices. So even if normally natural processes could potentially take care of methane releases like this, it in no way automatically means they can now.
 
While this may or may not prove true (or unusual) it is fairly certain that the thawing of permafrost is releasing vast quantities of methane trapped within it, and reactivating the decomposition of centuries-old vegetation.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
In my opinion the the part that plays a social or political role to be discussed is mitigation, not AGW itself. In other words, the science that shows AGW to be happening is very robust and getting stronger every year. Only fools deny that. However, the questions of what we as a society should do about it are hotly debated.

As far as this particular methane release and its potential effect, yes that is a discussion for the science forum. Either way it will be a delayed effect though. Warming the whole planet isn't like boiling a pot of water. It takes time, and methane breaks down naturally from exposure to sun and oxygen in the atmosphere and by methanotrophic microbiology. So the science question is how fast and is it fast enough to counter the release rate?? That I don't know.

What I do know is that ~40% or more of the planets terrestrial ecosystems are degraded substantially by unsustainable and hugely destructive agricultural practices. So even if normally natural processes could potentially take care of methane releases like this, it in no way automatically means they can now.
Click to expand...

I've pointed out elsewhere, the issue has more to do with politics than science.
 
Crow T R0bot said:
http://earthsky.org/earth/scientists-discover-vast-methane-plumes-escaping-from-arctic-seafloor

Posted (mostly) without comment, but if I understand the concept of Feedback Loops right, I take it we're past the point of no return?:(
Click to expand...

Don't worry too much. This sort of "news" are now part of July and August schedule.

For instance, take a look at the graphic with the "dragon breath", and extra 200 parts per thousand million-volume. Extend that in a way exaggerate manner to the whole Arctic and the whole altitude range; you'll have some 35 million tons of extra methane, with the warming potential of all the yearly GHG emissions of Canada, for instance.

And we even know that it wasn't the case. Why? Because methane doesn't react so quickly -half of it will still be there some 11 years after the moment of the "burp"-, and we know that the methane concentration dropped to the previous level in that place and the rest of the world wouldn't notice.

This methane-gun hysteria also comes from not knowing the methane cycle itself. Most people think that methane in clathrates is like fossil coal, something that was formed in an evolutionary pause of a hundred million years and is lying dormant there for us to do business or feel menaced. In fact methane in clathrates is formed and released constantly and most of the methane -that one which is not bubbling in the article's photo but dissolved- will be clathrates again in Winter. Of course, we are in a period of global warming -a man made one, no matter what a lot of uneducated hacks and opinators want to believe here- so we are to experience more release than formation, and that is a positive feedback in the climate system, but nothing that should be changing dramatically the game.

The real methane-gun might exist in deep clathrate deposits that may destabilized once ocean temperatures have risen 5°C at a 500-metre depth. I don't remember the exact value but that temperature is currently rising some 0.07°C per decade, so once the moment arrives, the immoral humans -most of the species in every era- have to be really stupid to not have the technology necessary nor the will to avoid such danger.

So, let's get back to ocean acidification, declining fisheries and changing climate patters, which are the real problem one generation ahead, together with fighting deep ignorance and wild pride of those self-serving epistemololgical hedonists that swarm around, being that the mission of whatever these fora are finally called.
 
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