Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Institute of Science in Society ocean series:
Oceans in Distress /
Oceans and Global Warming /
Oceans: Carbon Sink or Source? /
Acid Oceans /
Abrupt Plankton Shifts /
Global Warming and Plankton /
Plus: Undersea gas could speed global warming – study /
Warmer waters disrupt Pacific food chain
Undersea gas could speed global warming – study / NASA’s goals delete mention of home planet / Researchers link wildfires, climate change / Global warming, not just heat wave
Green groups warn against moving methane hydrates from beneath seabed
Marine sediments in the northern Gulf of Mexico are likely too warm and salty to hold the amount of methane gas hydrates – a potential energy resource – originally thought to exist in the ocean floor there.
Thought-provoking comments from an alert Newfoundland reader, following on from the ‘methane-burps’ fears covered previously. Could suitably placed wind turbines reduce climate mixing, slow the warming of arctic regions, and so avoid catastrophic methane emissions from thawing tundra?
The Uncle John’s 2005 voyage is part of a wider effort to better understand methane hydrate. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has funded the Gulf of Mexico Joint Industry Project, a 4-year, $13.6 million, cost-shared effort to develop technologies that locate and safely drill through or near the hydrate.
An investigation team reports that gas hydrates could become a source of natural gas within a few years
If we trigger this runaway release of methane, there’s no turning back. No do-overs. Once it starts, it’s likely to play out all the way.
A worst-case scenario of climate change from the possible future release of submerged methane hydrates predicts catastrophic warming in the atmosphere and rising sea level similar to conditions that preceded the last ice age
For the first time, an international research program involving the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey has proven that it is technically feasible to produce gas from gas hydrates. Gas hydrates are a naturally occurring “ice-like” combination of natural gas and water that have the potential to be a significant new source of energy from the world’s oceans and polar regions.
Predictions of imminent oil shortages have been made throughout the 20th century. Although all previous predictions have been false, in recent years a new generation of predictions based on the Hubbert model have become ascendant and attracted media attention.
