How serious are earth's problems

[Tide]

Ivan,

Do you even know what pedestrian means in the context used?

So much for my "Ivan has a sense of humor" theory. Lighten up, dude - it was a JOKE - in case you still don't get it! :)

 

[Amp1]

Ok

Interesting slides Andre, however, IMO should humans try to use or move the clathrate this would trigger disassociation resulting in slides and also releaseing enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere which would cause possibly the consequences this thread is addressing.

One thing I saw that supports a few of my contentions is that they are 10 times more powerful as GH gases.

 

[Andre]

Oh that adiction to catastrofilic fantasy.

The Storegga slide was caused by the clathrate decomposition, not the other way around. This started around 11-12,000 years ago while the Storegga slide was the result of the rupture of the sediments following the clathrate decomposition. The real cause of the clathrate decompostion according to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=V-WA-A-W-E-MsSAYZW-UUW-U-AAWEVYVEZY-AAWDUZCDZY-BVVCBYYVU-E-U&_rdoc=2&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6V9Y-4FG2XBV-1&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_cdi=5911&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3058d893c218c35c5c817d82144346fe was a dramatic local increase in sea bottom water temperature of some 7 degrees Celsius, which we shall take foir granted at the moment.

Even if drilling activities would trigger a land slide, it will not let the clathrate gun go off because the temperature versus pressure conditions remain at conditions for clathrate to be stable.

And if you search for methane- CH4 not being a powerful GHG you'll probably find a dozen hits or so. Because it aint so. CO2 is a few times more powerful than CH4. The reason why it is alleged to be some 20 or so times more powerful is related to the degree of saturation. CO2 effect is rather saturated and adding more CO2 hardly affects the greenhouse gas effect. CH4 numbers are very low and not yet saturated. So a little increase has more effect. But if you would calculate it for equal numbers CO2 is much more powerful. Also saturation for CH4 occurs much faster than for CO2.

However in case of a massive oceanic clathrate event, the greenhouse gas effect is the least of your worries because it will be more than compensated for by a dramatic increase of cloud cover and precipitation. This happened also at the end of the Ice age when the clathrate decompostion of the Storegga slide area ended the bone-dry Younger Dryas, 11,600 years ago, causing the soaking wet Pre Boreal, the start of the current Holocene epoch.

 

[WhiteWolf]

lol, I've tried to explain to people that carbon dioxide was much more of a potent greenhouse gas then methane, but no one seems to ever want to believe me...sigh...

 

[Andre]

Ive tried to explain to people that carbon dioxide was much more of a potent greenhouse gas then methane...

me too