Big Bad Methane Bubbles

There is a lot of focus on the greenhouse gas CO2 but not nearly as much being said about methane. It is far more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 and it has more than doubled since 1800.



Samples from ice cores in the Arctic and Antarctic are showing that the rising levels are approximately exponential which is very dangerous. Methane is present in bogs in the taiga regions of planet earth and is being liberated there by global warming. Agriculture donates quite a lot and believe it or not, farting cows especially. Methane is present in the oceans as bubbles probably made by methanogenic bacteria and by melting methane ice. Particularly troubling and that is the methane ice on the sea bed.

Methane ice is called methane clathrates and it is stable as long as the bugs that make it are stable and temperature or pressure are not changed and it isn't made to bubble up into the ocean. It is a globally vast potential fuel source and the Soviets are presently extracting from two sites. If the oceans warm, these ice beds have the potential to bubble up and add to the troubles of global warming. it is in my view a potential tipping point source. A point of no global temps return heat source and runaway heat.

We need to know much much more about them and what makes and keeps their stability before we mess with them. Unfortunately, sea temps are already on the rise as we know from El Nino and La Nina. Massive methane surges from volcanism have been suggested as a cause of dramatic warming in past earth history. Lets stop farting around like cows and get the program happening with methane. A scientist I spoke with at NOAA who studies this stuff says he believes that many of the bubbles in the Pacific Ocean are from past melted clathrates.