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Warm
water flowing through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean
From
Harold Hensel
via
Facebook
"The
warmer water going through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic
Ocean has been worried about for a long time.
Now it is happening.
The fears are apparently being realized.
Huge amounts of frozen
methane are on the sea floor in the area of the East Siberian and
Laptev Seas.
This is the research area of Shakova and Semiletov from
the International Arctic Research Center based at the University of
Alaska.
What they have said about this area would apply.
Malcolm
Light has provided extensive maps of this area. His analysis would
apply as well.
The warm water is apparently one of the big factors in
thawing the methane hydrates. The permafrost has kept a cap on the
methane below. As it thaws out it starts leaking like a sieve. Ice
has sealed the fractures in the earth's crusts that have plugged the
route to the surface of methane from large reservoir's of mantle
methane.
Large sudden bursts of methane could occur as the plugs thaw
out. As methane comes up it can get into a runaway methane feedback
loop.
There are so many variables that any prediction of a time frame
would be a huge guess. Shakova & ,Semiletov say the "free"
methane which is in gas form could come up at any time. We are not
talking about thousands or hundreds of years."
Too bad we can't educate people about the differences between a "belief" & a scientific "theory". For example, I don't 'believe in" evolution, I accept it as the best explanation of who we are & how we got to where we are & how everything else is related to us. It looks like the runaway greenhouse has started, it's too late to stop it & our "leaders" will not do anything to reduce carbon emissions so things will continue to get worse. I hope you don't live on the east coast or in the prairie states because it looks like another nasty winter is heading your way. Where I'm at, it's sunny & warm.
ReplyDeleteAye, lassie, 'tis the crux of the conundrum ye have so astutely posed. Far, far too many of 'our' fellow humans incessantly, perhaps exclusively, conflate belief for knowledge or reason, none of which in any way implies understanding. This is the confounding factor that can not, will not, be resolved and leads us all onward to an event utterly unprecedented in the past 4.5 billion years on this rock.
DeleteIt's also a case of the difference between computer-based models (which people are very attached to) and actual observations being done by Shakhova, Semiletov et al and SWERUS.
ReplyDelete