Arctic Ocean methane seeps accelerating

Methane release still could have happened, but been slow enough to be taken up by ocean buffers. In that case its release might simply show up as an acceleration of atmospheric CO2 accumulation.

 

Utterly inconsequential...see:

The Reference Frame: Methane and warming

 

ok, so the next big push would be undersea methane sequestration?

 

Having now been entertained by AGW denialists for close on to five years, I find their arguments so predictable I've pretty much lost interest.

Here is the the one we will hear in about three years: "Runaway global warming is CLEARLY natural -- even your own biased, corrupt scientists admit it, just like we have been saying all along! Thank god we didn't listen and waste money on CO2 restrictions three decades ago, or we wouldn't have *any* money now to spend on combating the droughts and emerging infectious diseases.

'corrupt scientist': errr, but we could have prevented this period of positive feedback loops if we had intervened earlier.

Denialist: Got any empiric proof ? Didn't think so.

 

Uh, yeah, sure I'm going to take that seriously. Here's an illustration from that article.



I mean, sure, I read the articles that you reference. But this seems to be a new low. Aside from the factual errors in this reference, you really expect me to take that seriously?

Howzabout this, instead:



The methane number, with the indirect effects, is about half the size of the C02 number.

Methane matters a lot. And at least some of the sources could be relatively cheaply controlled.

And those who grasp the basic science even a little bit can see a significant risk from large increases in natural sources of methane emissions.

Denialists seem to find it endlessly entertaining that methane is the main constituent of farts. Cow farts, they say (incorrectly, it's methane from enteric bacteria -- cow burps, really.) Here, human farts.

Well, it's an old Icelandic saying: Every man likes the smell of his own farts.

That said, maybe at some point it will be possible to move beyond the sophomoric and actually discuss the science. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

 

Realclimate has a nice posting on arctic methane, as of 3/6/2010. They continue to downplay the possibility for rapid warming from rapid arctic methane release. They aren't even willing to say that the recently observed methane releases are necessarily a new phenomenon, at least not yet.

RealClimate: Arctic Methane on the Move?