Monday, January 2, 2012

Methane Clathrate Bomb Detonating?

The Methane Clathrate Bomb may be detonating in earnest. Last summer scientists undertook an emergency research cruise in Arctic waters off of Siberia. They found methane emissions from the sea floor - methane clathrates, or methane frozen inside balls of ice - that were as much as 30x bigger than those found just two years earlier. Fields of methane bubbling up from the Arctic sea floor as side as a kilometer, or 0.6 miles, wide. Over half a mile wide!

I will complete this post later, but chew on these images:

November 2010 atmospheric methane:

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/ARCTpolar2010.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg

Nobember 2011 atmospheric methane:

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/ARCTpolar2011.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg