In this week's issue of the New Yorker there's a cartoon titled, "The All-Crisis Network." 6 am - 9 am is The World in Crisis; 9 am - 11 am America in Crisis; 5 pm - 6 pm The Environment in Crisis; 6 pm - 7 pm Religion in Crisis...I'm beginning to feel like readers of this blog may be purveyors of doom. If so, I've got more bad news for you. Yippee!
Scientists are about to hang out at the American Geophysical Unionand they'll be talking about methane hydrates. These are icelike deposits of methane gas buried under permafrost under the sea floor. As the oceans warm, that permafrost melts. Scientists worry--and scientists aren't given to needless worrying, I'm told-- that these deposits could melt soon and release a massive cloud of methane gas.
That would heat the Earth with a jolt. As the first methane hydrates released their gases, eerily bubbling up through the ocean's surface, the atmosphere would begin to heat up, further heating the ocean and in turn melting more frozen methane hydrates.
Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and scientists believe it played a role in the sudden climate shifts in the Earth's history. This scenario prompts me to think of a rather smelly pot of boiling water and in it the Earth quietly spins going from green and blue, to brown, to black.
[via Salon.com]
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