Don't panic: Arctic methane emissions have been going on for ages

It's not quite as black and white as that.

This survey shows that methane emissions have been occurring for a long time from "at least some" of these outlets.

That's not a complete refutation of Dr Euan Nisbet's suggestion that sea temperature rises might release large volumes of methane, it just means that most likely the methane that is being released right not is not a result of human activity and Nisbet's initial suggestion as to the timing of this effect was not correct.

As the press release says the outlets they looked are active either as a result of a longer term temperature rise or due to seasonal warming / cooling cycles in the area.

So they still tie methane release to sea temperatures and don't have any data yet on the acceleration (which may be zero or negative, of course) of methane release in the area.

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Also worth noting that contrary to suggestions that certain doom was prophesied Nisbet originally said "the danger of a thermal runaway caused by methane release from permafrost is minor, but real" - not the scariest ever.

Re: One word.

Nope - I ate a banana yesterday, and its colder today than it was yesterday so you are wrong.

I now expect Lewis to write an article saying' Alarmist suggestion that bananas will fry earth disproved - no need to panic, it's not a melt down, or if it is it doesn't matter, much'

The fact is that a cursory reading of the literature would show that while concerns have been raised over oceanic methane, quantitatively permafrost melt associated releases have been considered more significant, and even these are quite small compared to releases from temperate and tropical agriculture.

Lewis' 'wack a mole' analogy works perfectly - as long as you remember its a game, and that the man who took your money controls which mole pops its head out.. Just rename ity to 'wack a straw man'.

Re: One word.

You clearly don't understand science, Lee.

Science progresses through conjecture and refutation. You imply that simply because some conjectures have been refuted, we should stop coming up with ideas.

Have a little read up on Karl Popper's work: it's quite important.

Re: What about the permafrost?

"I thought the concern over methane releases was from defrosting areas of the permafrost?"

It is, mostly. The catastrophic events, such as pulse releases of methane, seemed to have been mainly talked about in a precautionary way in the responsible scientific community - at least as far as i've seen. There are the usual bits of nonsense bandied about by the usual suspects, especially (and _not_ IMO 'occasionally untrained activists or journalists' as Mr. Page would like one to believe) from the media and certain groups, e.g some members of AMEG.

Methane emissions seem to have been tracking wetland release quite closely, so the increase of wetland due to perma-frost melting in the sub-Arctic is worth keeping an eye on.

NOAA has been reported little rise in Arctic methane for quite some time now, and the effect of warming on hydrate emission is expected to be slight in the near future. There are also the suspected methane deposits in Antarctica but, as most of the ice loss is in the West and the pontential methane stores are in the East, this is not expected to have any significant effect just yet.

Re: Hold on...

Mike wins one critical thinking point.

Re: The Life Of Brian

So this storm, is it a new thing or do storms occur every year? If they occur every year it doesn't really affect the record. If it is a new thing is it one more thing to worry about that new storms increase sea ice melt?

Re: The Life Of Brian (@ Steve Crook)

A few decades ago, most of the ice in the Arctic Sea had a thickness of 4/5 meters, and couldn't be affected much by storms. Cracks in the ice would be filled/welded in no time, due to the big amount of ice present (thermal inertia+lateral pressure+inertia). The thinner the ice gets, the bigger and more permanent the effects of a storm on said ice are. So nowadays, with most of the surviving sea ice being 1 meter thick...

It could also be argued that the strength of that storm has been caused -at least partially- by more availability of open water, which transfers energy to the atmosphere.

Re: Oh dear.

Most, if not all, of the mass extinction events in Earth's history are correlated with significant changes in ocean circulation driven by continental drift. In particular, really hot periods seem to be associated with having an open water channel around the equator. Right now there is the little thing called Africa in the way. The only significant threat to Africa in the short term is the likelihood that it will rift (North-South) at some point in the next few million years.

To return to the whack-a-mole analogy, we may have several reasons to fear a mass exinction is coming (habitat loss, pollution, ...) but actually I don't think that climate change is one of them. I just wish the so-called environmentalist movement would stop crying wolf over climate (and let the climatologists learn their subject without mass media coverage of every publication) and concentrate on the major ecological problems that seem both beyond dispute and within our ability to fix (like habitat loss and pollution).

I see what you did there to Lewis' whack a mole analogy

Chemistry, innit? As for mining all that goody methane hydrate, it won't be necessary for some time. There seems to be enough shale gas around to keep us going for a millennium without having to get our feet wet. But in a thousand years, it will be well worth their while, as there seems enough of the stuff to keep them going for oh probably 10,000 years.

Re: Author confirmed, article ignored

Isn't it strange how anyone you disagree with is stupid.

Did it not occur to you that you might be the stupid one.

Kindly keep your personal insults to yourself.

You do no one trying to have a debate (you do know what a debate is, do you) any good by trashing the person rather than the facts - as are thought to be known so far!