The World Is Doomed!

The number 5 story in a list of the "most under-reported news stories"
of the last year...

is that a massive area of peat bogs in Siberia, the size of Germany and
France together, is thawing - apparently irreversibly - because of a
rise in temperatures likely due to global warming... and will release
*billions* of tons of methane - a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere.

This was from a story in August in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18725124.500

I don't know why it only made #5 on the list...

Here too:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08...iberia_threat/

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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"John Savard" wrote in message
...
The number 5 story in a list of the "most under-reported news stories"
of the last year...

is that a massive area of peat bogs in Siberia, the size of Germany and
France together, is thawing - apparently irreversibly - because of a
rise in temperatures likely due to global warming... and will release
*billions* of tons of methane - a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere.

This was from a story in August in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18725124.500


oh joy..."Methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide."

In article ,
Terrell Miller wrote:

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
The number 5 story in a list of the "most under-reported news stories"
of the last year...

is that a massive area of peat bogs in Siberia, the size of Germany and
France together, is thawing - apparently irreversibly - because of a
rise in temperatures likely due to global warming... and will release
*billions* of tons of methane - a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere.

This was from a story in August in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18725124.500


oh joy..."Methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide."



As I recall, at one point something similar was proposed
as a mechanism for the Permian/Triassic extinction (which makes the
more famous K/T extinction look like a minor reorg). The most recent
article I read (which is not to say that it is correct) blames
the Siberian Traps. Of course, there's no reason one couldn't
argue that it was combination of Very Bad Things that causes
the largest known mass extinction. In fact, if it took a combination
of VBT to cause a ME, it would explain why they are comparatively
rare.

Personally, I'm a flood basalts are really, really bad
for the environment kinda guy, the sort who points out how
both the K/T and P/T had massive, massive amounts of volcanism
going on, while quickly changing the subject when the lack of
an extinction event associated with the Ontong Java flood basalts
(which cover about 1% of the surface of the Earth) comes up.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

James Nicoll wrote:
Personally, I'm a flood basalts are really, really bad
for the environment kinda guy, the sort who points out how
both the K/T and P/T had massive, massive amounts of volcanism
going on, while quickly changing the subject when the lack of
an extinction event associated with the Ontong Java flood basalts
(which cover about 1% of the surface of the Earth) comes up.

Some Googled references suggest Ontong Java is under water. Perhaps
basalt extruded under water cooled so quickly as to mostly trap gas
(that's thought to have been the killer in the P-T extinction and may
have been a contributing factor in the K-T extinction) inside the rock
before it can diffuse out?

--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

In article ,
Russell Wallace wrote:
James Nicoll wrote:
Personally, I'm a flood basalts are really, really bad
for the environment kinda guy, the sort who points out how
both the K/T and P/T had massive, massive amounts of volcanism
going on, while quickly changing the subject when the lack of
an extinction event associated with the Ontong Java flood basalts
(which cover about 1% of the surface of the Earth) comes up.

Some Googled references suggest Ontong Java is under water. Perhaps
basalt extruded under water cooled so quickly as to mostly trap gas
(that's thought to have been the killer in the P-T extinction and may
have been a contributing factor in the K-T extinction) inside the rock
before it can diffuse out?

Or maybe some secondary factor (not necessarily the same one
for each event) is needed to push things over into a true extinction
event. I found a list of flood basalts and associated faunal events.
Of the eleven or so, these were the ones where the flood volcanism
seems to have overlapped with the faunal event:

Flood Basalt Faunal Event

Ethiopia Early/late Oligocene
Deccan Cretaceous/Tertiary
Madagascar Turonian/Coniacian
Serra Geral/Etendeka Hauterivian/Valanginian
Antarctica Aalenian/Bajocian*
Siberian Permian/Triassic

* Some doubt as to the age of the event in Antarctica and thus whether
this belongs on the list.

Two of these are big: the K/T and the 900 pound gorilla of mass
extinction, the End Permian, where some shockingly high % of species
died out. K/T has that impact crater as well. Makes me wonder what
else was happening at the end of the Permian.

--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 21:56:50 -0500, "Terrell Miller"
wrote, in part:
"John Savard" wrote in message
...

The number 5 story in a list of the "most under-reported news stories"
of the last year...

is that a massive area of peat bogs in Siberia, the size of Germany and
France together, is thawing - apparently irreversibly - because of a
rise in temperatures likely due to global warming... and will release
*billions* of tons of methane - a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere.

This was from a story in August in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18725124.500

oh joy..."Methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide."

To put things in perspective, currently, human activity is estimated as
introducing up to 600 million tons of methane gas into the atmosphere,
up to 85 million tons of which comes from farm animals. Methane is
believed, at present, to contribute about 18 percent of the greenhouse
effect; while it is more potent than carbon dioxide, there is much more
carbon dioxide, making it the number 1 greenhouse gas.

Billions of tons of methane, if released over several years, might just
significantly increase greenhouse gases (by, say, 20%) or double them,
depending on how many billions we're talking about.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:02:23 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Billions of tons of methane, if released over several years, might just
significantly increase greenhouse gases (by, say, 20%) or double them,
depending on how many billions we're talking about.

The article indicated it was potentially hundreds of billions, call it
a couple orders of magnitude more than human emissions. With a big
positive feedback. It strikes me that this sort of mechanism could be
part of the explanation for the observed CO2 spikes found in ice
cores. IOW, catastrophic warming of the Northern Hemisphere could be
imminent, even if human-initiated fossil fuel combustion is not only
not the mechanism, but not even the trigger of the mechanism.

-- Roy L

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:28:49 GMT, wrote, in part:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:02:23 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Billions of tons of methane, if released over several years, might just
significantly increase greenhouse gases (by, say, 20%) or double them,
depending on how many billions we're talking about.

The article indicated it was potentially hundreds of billions, call it
a couple orders of magnitude more than human emissions. With a big
positive feedback. It strikes me that this sort of mechanism could be
part of the explanation for the observed CO2 spikes found in ice
cores.

I see in this article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatecha...546824,00.html

an estimate that there could be up to 70 billion tons of methane
involved.

I could imagine, in a Hollywood movie, an earnest ecologist played, say,
by Danny de Vito, explaining his concern with a line like:

"This is really major! It's bigger than 800 years of cow farts!"

in a zany comedy perhaps concerning a plot to move the artificial snow
machines from every ski hill in America to Siberia...

IOW, catastrophic warming of the Northern Hemisphere could be
imminent, even if human-initiated fossil fuel combustion is not only
not the mechanism, but not even the trigger of the mechanism.

It would seem that human activity is very likely to be the trigger,
because that is the one "wild card", the one variable that has never
been a part of Nature until human technology recently became so powerful
and human populations so large.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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The truth is most often under-reported if reported at all. Thus being
No.5 on the list isn't so bad.

Try to find an honest story on the artificial albedo loss that's
causing Earth to cook. Apparently energy-in isn't supposed to match
energy-out.

Try to find an honest story about Venus, or even about our moon.
Instead, our NASA is keeping as far away from the truth as can be
expected.
-
Brad Guth

John Savard wrote:

The number 5 story in a list of the "most under-reported news stories"
of the last year...

is that a massive area of peat bogs in Siberia, the size of Germany and
France together, is thawing - apparently irreversibly - because of a
rise in temperatures likely due to global warming... and will release
*billions* of tons of methane - a greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere.

This was from a story in August in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18725124.500

I don't know why it only made #5 on the list...

Here too:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08...iberia_threat/

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
_________________________________________
Usenet Zone Free Binaries Usenet Server
More than 140,000 groups
Unlimited download
http://www.usenetzone.com to open account


You better go jump off a bridge before it's too late!