Permafrost Methane Time Bomb

The thing about all this carbon that's stored in the earth means that this was at time all in the atmosphere in the first place. There was life then. There will be life afterwards. With or without civilized mankind is really a small detail that is really only important to one species. Leave the apocalypse predictions to the looney nuts.

 

We don't have to make apocalyptic predictions to tell about a trend or a fact.
It's very useful to talk about this things!
Opinion makers have done the opposite, and we can watch Germany drop nuclear plants in a 10 years time without noone pointing out the consequences.

 

If Mankind had it to do over again, we may have chosen not to poke a hole in the side of Spaceship Earth. Now alls we can do is hope the leak is not so bad, and maybe add a few bandaids.

 

Life will go on, on the earth regardess. It will probably look quite different than it does today. Humans? Who knows.

And don't forget the other elephant in the room. Rising ocean acidification due to CO2, along with the potential with just a bit more ocean warming, of massive releases of methane from methane hydrite captured in sea water.

Personally, I think we are screw already,

Icarus

 

Nonetheless, best case scenario, mankind will be disrupted for a few generation, a new population steady state will be set and we'll be used to what we're born into.
http://priuschat.com/forums/environ...ou-just-get-used-climate-youre-born-into.html

Worst case scenario, humans become future fossil fuels for insects that evolve intelligence. What would that be? Irony? Justice? Karma? or the makings of a future James Cameron movie?

 

I thought worst case was solient green in 2022.

 

Isn't that just what trees do in the forest?

 

Here's a new article on this. It adds new information, not in the previous article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/s...-permafrost-fuels-climate-change-worries.html

 

That would be evolution. AKA 'survival of the fittest', though we generally misconstrue it to mean that the biggest and strongest will win, but it means something more along the lines of being able to fit in best with the rest of the environment. Which doesn't really describe humanity all that well. We may yet become intelligent, but it's not looking as promising as it once did. The future isn't what it used to be.

 

what was that impact ... extra fur? More eyeballs? arthritis? I must have missed the part where;
A ) genetic change was shown to directly relate to a natural temperature rise
B ) genetic change wouldn't have otherwise happened

I don't mean to sound faithless, but it'd be nice to sprinkle a few more solid facts in the mix.

The bright spot in all this? The next time our Yellowstone caldera blows a 30 mile diameter hunk of real estate into the atmosphere, it'll cool things back down to a nice frosty temperature up north ... just like it did last time. I like to see things from the optimist's viewpoint.


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See guys -- the denialists were right all along -- climate change is natural!
Well, at least if you ignore what triggered the permafrost dissolution in the first place.

 

According to the article I referenced, the organic matter in the permafrost has been dated to 30,000 years in some locations and 40,000 years in other locations. In the above discussion about climate change, temp, evolution, and so forth, let's keep that in perspective for the organic matter in the permafrost. However, for the methane that is seeping up, I'm hypothesizing that it's coming up from BELOW the permafrost; which would be from an earlier period. The most recent ice age occurred from about 110,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. The organic matter in that permafrost was deposited during the last ice age. In other words, that matter was Not deposited during a warm period of the ice age cycles; and therefore the organic matter that created the methane (below the permafrost organic matter) has not been CO2 in the atmosphere since BEFORE humans emerged from Africa - which occurred at 60,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence.

The oldest homo sapiens skull ever found is 120,000 years old, and was found in a cave near the Klasies River Mouth, in South Africa. 120,000 years ago is BEFORE the most recent ice age. Humans had already evolved from Neanderthals before the most recent ice age. And, the previous warm period was about 2 degrees F (about 1 degree C) warmer than today's (2011) average temperatures, taken from sediments in ice cores at Vostok in Antarctica.

*I do not proclaim to be an expert in this subject, but I have spent a good amount of time studying it.

(A little note on what Hill mentioned: Humans originated in central Africa, which isn't exactly the coldest place on earth, and thick fur is not a necessity. It has been hypothesized that humans shed their fur/hair so that fleas, ticks, and other parasites could not live on us. It is possible that humans with thicker fur/hair had more parasites and died more frequently than humans with less fur/hair, and through time, bare skin humans were naturally selected for. I do have a degree in biochemistry, and this is the widely-accepted theory on why humans do not have fur like other mammals)

 

lol cyclopathic. Yes this will cause great evolutionary pressure if it happens. Since many of the current species have already survived past warming, the heat itself won't cause the destruction. Agriculture and development has segmented habitats so animals can not range to more appropriate conditions, so this might be a bigger killer. Man has tools such as air conditioning and ability to modify crops, so man is likely to be less effected than other species.

I find it highly unlikely that agw will cause a rapid time bomb, but if it is going to happen, I agree it may already be too late to stop it. If it does happen, the earth doesn't go back to a previous state and reset, it continues to move in the new direction.

 

They didn't have facebook or trucks. Its much harder to destroy knowledge when its in the cloud, and its harder to starve if you can get food from far away. Man with his technology is like the cochroach, the species will survive, but some will aways argue that they suck and all should be destroyed

This has happened before according to the ice record, with catastrophic consequences for many species. What I am saying is I find the evidence of it happening now not compelling. Yeah one of those damn california cops pulled me over for speeding on my bicycle coming down a big hill, not even a mountain. I was completely safe and in control then, but other times I like to go past the edge. I've been able to survive all my wrecks, even though some want to slow me down. But agree the fates may have already determined a much hotter future.

But of course in every generation there are those that will say that we have passed the point of no return. Schrodinger's cat may already be dead, but you won't know until you open the box. Unlike quantum mechanics though which is in theory must stay probabilistic, science may be able to determine what will happen with this methane. People like to be scared that's why they watch horror movies I'm sure that is why these stories of asteroids or tidal waves or methane bursts sell so well.