Posted on 07/20/2006 4:08:30 AM PDT by Pharmboy
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
Remarkable and unexpected support for this idea occurred when divers and scientists from UC Santa Barbara observed and videotaped a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor. It happened in an area of gas and oil seepage coming out of small volcanoes in the ocean floor of the Santa Barbara channel –– called Shane Seep –– near an area known as the Coal Oil Point seep field. The blowout sounded like a freight train, according to the divers.
Atmospheric methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is the most abundant organic compound in the atmosphere, according to the study's authors, all from UC Santa Barbara.
"Other people have reported this type of methane blowout, but no one has ever checked the numbers until now," said Ira Leifer, lead author and an associate researcher with UCSB's Marine Science Institute. "Ours is the first set of numbers associated with a seep blowout." Leifer was in a research boat on the surface at the time of the blowouts.
Aside from underwater measurements, a nearby meteorological station measured the methane "cloud" that emerged as being approximately 5,000 cubic feet, or equal to the volume of the entire first floor of a two-bedroom house. The research team also had a small plane in place, flown by the California Department of Conservation, shooting video of the event from the air.
Leifer explained that when this type of blowout event occurs, virtually all the gas from the seeps escapes into the atmosphere, unlike the emission of small bubbles from the ocean floor, which partially, or mostly, dissolve in the ocean water. Transporting this methane to the atmosphere affects climate, according to the researchers. The methane blowout that the UCSB team witnessed reached the sea surface 60 feet above in just seven seconds. This was clear because the divers injected green food dye into the rising bubble plume.
Co-author Bruce Luyendyk, professor of marine geophysics and geological sciences, explained that, to understand the significance of this event (which occurred in 2002), the UCSB research team turned to a numerical, bubble-propagation model. With the model, they estimated methane loss to the ocean during the upward travel of the bubble plume.
The results showed that for this shallow seep, loss would have been approximately one percent. Virtually all the methane, 99 percent of it, was transported to the atmosphere from this shallow seep during the blowout. Next, the scientists used the model to estimate methane loss for a similar size blowout at much greater depth, 250 meters. Again, the model results showed that almost all the methane would be transported up to the atmosphere.
Over geologic time scales, global climate has cycled between warmer, interglacial periods and cooler, glacial periods. Many aspects of the forces underlying these dramatic changes remain unknown. Looking at past changes is highly relevant to understanding future climate changes, particularly given the large increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere due to historically recent human activities such as burning fossil fuels.
One hypothesis, called the "Clathrate Gun" hypothesis, developed by James Kennett, professor of geological sciences at UCSB, proposes that past shifts from glacial to interglacial periods were caused by a massive decomposition of the marine methane hydrate deposits.
Methane hydrate is a form of water ice that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure, called a clathrate hydrate. According to Kennett's hypothesis, climatic destabilization would cause a sharp increase in atmospheric methane –– thereby initiating a feedback cycle of abrupt atmospheric warming. This process may threaten the current climate, according to the researchers. Warmer ocean temperatures from current global climate change is likely to release methane currently trapped in vast hydrate deposits on the continental shelves. However, consumption of methane by microbes in the deep sea prevents methane gas released from hydrates from reaching the ocean surface and affecting the atmosphere.
Bubbles provide a highly efficient mechanism for transporting methane and have been observed rising from many different hydrate deposits around the world. If these bubbles escape singly, most or all of their methane would dissolve into the deep-sea and never reach the atmosphere. If instead, they escape in a dense bubble plume, or in catastrophic blowout plumes, such as the one studied by UCSB researchers, then much of the methane could reach the atmosphere. Blowout seepage could explain how methane from hydrates could reach the atmosphere, abruptly triggering global warming.
Thus, these first-ever quantitative measurements of a seep blowout and the results from the numerical model demonstrate a mechanism by which methane released from hydrates can reach the atmosphere. Studies of seabed seep features suggest such events are common in the area of the Coal Oil Point seep field and very likely occur elsewhere.
The authors explain that these results show that an important piece of the global climate puzzle may be explained by understanding bubble-plume processes during blowout events. The next important step is to measure the frequency and magnitude of these events. The UCSB seep group is working toward this goal through the development of a long-term, seep observatory in active seep areas.
### Note to Editors:
Contact: Gail Gallessich gail.g@ia.ucsb.edu 805-893-7220 University of California - Santa Barbara
Ira Leifer can be reached at 805-893-4931at ira.leifer@bubbleology.com Bruce Luyendyk can be reached at 805-893-3009 at luyendyk@geol.ucsb.edu UCSB diver Shane Anderson (who witnessed the blowout) is available at 805-893-2873 anderson@lifesci.ucsb.edu
A short video of the underwater methane blowout is available. Contact Gail Gallessich at 805-893-7220 gail.g@ia.ucsb.edu
Ocean Fart ping list...
Fart in my general direction to get on or off this list...
But seriously folks, did any part of the MSM pick this interesting story up?
Oops. Scuse me. I was hoping nobody would notice.
La-dee-da Please send Al down there to plug the hole...with himself.
I lack the sense of humor I guess, but I'm sure there is a Ted Kennedy joke in here somewhere.
Maybe this is how MSM members are created?
Well, I hope Rush sees this thread...
It would not be a very big leap from pollutant to natural resource in the case of methane.
(With picture)
This can go both ways. The release of massive amounts of methane from the ocean would result from a slight warming of the ocean. The effect would be a positive feedback loop releasing even more green house gasses into the atmosphere exponentially exacerbating the problem.
Thus, the rise in CO2 concentration may have now warmed the oceans enough to accelerate the release of this methane.
Despite the apparent gloating on this thread (with certainly more to come), this is actually quite a scary thing in its worst-case scenario implications.
It would be more than ironic if whales were the cause of global warming (along with baby seals and spotted owls).
OOOOhhhh, shut that door!
A few years ago there was an article in Science News Magazine about the amount of oil seeping naturally into the Gulf Of mexico, it was astronomical. The article stated how there was a natural cycle and that the bacteria, etc consumed the seepage.
Care to cite your source?
Oil present too? Polution by Nature? Were the pelicans down there oil coated? Oh the humanity.
Well I guess all things can be quite scary in worst case scenarios which is why they are worst case scenarios. I just can't hide under my bed every day because of worst case scenarios which perhaps explains some of the apparent gloating.
Bush's Fault
I assume he's still searching for a source or this was just another hit and run.
Good morning ping.
For you? Of course:
Here are a few:
http://www.resa.net/nasa/ocean_methane.htm http://ioc.unesco.org/iocweb/co2panel/HighCO2results/AbstractBook.pdf http://www.geo.vu.nl/~renh/methane-pulse.html http://www.hydrogen.co.uk/h2_now/journal/articles/3_Methane.htm http://healthandenergy.com/methane_hydrate.htm http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v33_2_00/methane.htm
That should be a start
From the article:
According to Kennett's hypothesis, climatic destabilization would cause a sharp increase in atmospheric methane –– thereby initiating a feedback cycle of abrupt atmospheric warming. This process may threaten the current climate, according to the researchers. Warmer ocean temperatures from current global climate change is likely to release methane currently trapped in vast hydrate deposits on the continental shelves.
These 'Earth farts' have also been used to explain the mysterious sinking of ships that are caught above them.
If there is a positive feedback, why didn't it get released the last time the earth was warm? Or the time before that, and before that, etc.
There *must* be a negative feedback mechanism else the climate would not have been stable enough for life to have survived for billions of years.
You are correct, it does.
If any process depends on large numbers of uncorrelated random events it follows Gaussian distribution laws.
If instead climate were hypersensitive to sporadic individual erruptions of anything due to imaginary unlimited nonlinear feedbacks, the past history of temperature would spike all over the place on tiny time scales. Instead it is a line for eons at a time.
Imaginary feedbacks in systems models are the leading cause of illiterate pseudoscience idiocy in our time. Club of Rome, population bomb, limits of growth, etc. Every particle of it completely wrong every single time.
Most feedbacks in natural processes are heavily damped compared to the original driver. A typical case is a dozen different ones each of scale .1 to .01 of the original, of random sign. They add modest noise, they do not make the world blow up when one more molecule of something is added.
Just how does escaping methane warm the ocean? If anything, it may have a cooling effect. Most trapped methane is in the form of methane hydrates, basically a methane ice. When there is a release, the ice comes into contact with the water in the area, tranferring heat into the ice, making it into a gas, which is then released (with the heat) into the atmosphere.
There were at least 5 massive extinctions and one, at the end of the Permian period which nearly wiped out the ocean.
Wikepedia gives a brief overview and oceanic methane being released in a positive feedback loop is one of the theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event
Moreover, given the fairly wide range of temperatures and species on Earth, even fairly dramatic shifts in climate would not eliminate all life. However there is clear evidence that quite often very large percentages of terrestrial life has been snuffed out and then slowly replaced over millions of years.
.
Emphasis on apparent. I don't think it's gloating as much as an optimistic acceptance of the inevitable.
Well said. I am optimistic that technology will help us adapt and survive regardless of whether global warming is man-made, a natural occurence or a combination of both. Where is the liberals' faith in evolution?
Prevent methane escapes. Allow oil companies to drill offshore California.
Doesn't matter...it is still Bush's fault!
DUCKS!
Whoa! Scary stuff...maybe that's what caused that cruise ship to list 30 degrees the other day.
Remarkable and unexpected support for this idea occurred when divers and scientists from UC Santa Barbara observed and videotaped a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor. It happened in an area of gas and oil seepage coming out of small volcanoes in the ocean floor of the Santa Barbara channel
The Santa Barbara Channel has had oil seeps from before the time of Juan Cabrillo (1542), when he described the rocks as black with oil. The Chumash indians used to tar the bottoms of their boats with it. The seeps are the primary cause of egg shell thinning of Pelicans on Annacappa.
The best way to deal with the problem is to drill and releive the pressure by removing the oil and gas.
That would hold true for the ice trapped methane at deeper depths, but the event observed, and reported in the article, was in a shallow area, and was from a seep in the ocean floor.
An Earth methane fart.
So the question is: What are the levels of methane in the atmo? And to what extent are those levels due to these types of releases?
What?!!! You mean to tell me that this is a natural phenomenon? I thought it was Bush's fault!
;o)
You are right, of course.
We were just getting off topic a bit. But not so much as to constitute a rules violation. It was a legitimate tangent.
Cheers.
ERF
Not really. This is just another previously unknown "source/sink" phenomenon that will affect planetary climate. New ones are discovered about once a month.
A completely unconsidered possibility is that the release of methane is driven (indirectly) by the sun. It is known that the sun's magetic field has increased signficantly. We know that the interior of the earth is an electrical conductor, and that large electrical currents circulate in it. Finally, we know that the earth is moving in the sun's magnetic field. Basic physics says that there HAS to be an increase in those internal electric currents (i.e. resistance heating). Does this heating drive an increase in vulcanism?? Does this heating warm the ocean floor in areas where the earth's crust is thinner (driving off more methane)?? Nobody knows, and AFAIK, nobody has even asked the questions.
Be careful what you wish for. Notice how the article tries to tie in this mechanism being caused by the current "manmade" global warming.
A true inconvenient truth for albore...........
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All right! Which one of you guys did it?
Sorry, but we're going to have to turn you
in to the gas patrol. Don't you be going down
and turning on gases.
>>>>"It would be more than ironic if whales were the cause of global warming (along with baby seals and spotted owls)"<<<<
Dang, and all this time I've blamed it on Barking Tree Frogs
TT
Methane gas. Anyone recall the scifi book Denver Is Missing..........
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