Climate change does not matter

[Dr Mordrid]

Sorry, Doc, you haven't got a clue about what you are talking. Here are some FACTS, scientifically proven, widely published and absolutely indisputable.

4. Clathrates
Again, clathrates have been there "for ever". There is no reason to suppose that emissions of CH4 or CO2 from this source have changed since the year dot.....

The above is proven science, not hypothesis.

Obviously you're not aware (or admitting) that methane hydrate seeps have been implicated in ending most ice ages and exist to a lesser extent today, so going into denial about their role during interglacial warming periods sounds a bit silly given it's 10x the greenhouse gas CO2 is.

Methane seep output can be influenced by many things including changes in Earths orbit that cause ocean warming plus they're highly unstable to begin with, meaning undersea quakes and landslides can cause large, and mostly undocumented, methane releases.

Another factor is that as these deposits grow they eventually reach a tipover point where they spontaneously erupt, releasing their methane. Examples of this are often seen in the Blake Ridge area off our SE coast, with some blooms large enough to sink ships.

Additionally methane releases are way up from tundra areas, which could indicate a natural methane feedback loop that is more influential than any CO2 factors.

Of course methane can react with O2 in the atmosphere to produce CO2, making one wonder about chicken/egg scenarios as regards the rise in both starting 200 years ago.

Yes people have a role in warming, but stating definitively the extent of that role is premature given the limitations of our knowledge and the degree to which the Earth has warmed in the past without our help.

[Brian Ellis]

Obviously you're not aware (or admitting) that methane hydrate seeps have been implicated in ending most ice ages and exist to a lesser extent today, so going into denial about their role during interglacial warming periods sounds a bit silly given it's 10x the greenhouse gas CO2 is.

Methane seep output can be influenced by many things including changes in Earths orbit that cause ocean warming plus they're highly unstable to begin with, meaning undersea quakes and landslides can cause large, and mostly undocumented, methane releases.

Another factor is that as these deposits grow they eventually reach a tipover point where they spontaneously erupt, releasing their methane. Examples of this are often seen in the Blake Ridge area off our SE coast, with some blooms large enough to sink ships.

Additionally methane releases are way up from tundra areas, which could indicate a natural methane feedback loop that is more influential than any CO2 factors.

Of course methane can react with O2 in the atmosphere to produce CO2, making one wonder about chicken/egg scenarios as regards the rise in both starting 200 years ago.

Yes people have a role in warming, but stating definitively the extent of that role is premature given the limitations of our knowledge and the degree to which the Earth has warmed in the past without our help.

Sorry, but you confirm the aphorism that a little learning is a dangerous thing.

Firstly, methane is NOT 10 x the GWP of CO2. It varies from about 20 to about 50, probably averaging about 30-35. It depends on the concentration of hydroxyl group radicals. In a desert region it is low and in a tropical rainforest or at sea, it is high. CH4 does not react with oxygen at low temperatures; it would require a) a concentration of at least 3% and b) a source of ignition for such a reaction to be primed. At ~5% it becomes explosive. The breakdown mechanism is hydrolysis, not oxidation.

Your supreme error, showing you spout forth without thinking, is your chicken and egg theory. How on earth do you think that methane at 800-1750 ppb and one carbon atom could produce rises in CO2 levels, also with one C atom, of 120 ppm. You are 2½ orders of magnitude askew.

And how do you think that a spontaneous breakdown of methane clathrates on a section of sea bed would compare with the average annual emissions of 530 million tonnes of CH4 that are released annually? Methane has a density at 0°C of 0.555 g/l, so this quantity is equivalent to about a billion m3. In actual fact, the total estimated quantity of clathrates in ALL the seas is only of the order of 1,000 million tonnes, just equivalent to 2 years annual emissions from all sources, so the maximum release from any one bed (there are about 50 known or probable methane clathrate sites in the world). I agree that clathrates are unstable and can spontaneously release captured methane under certain conditions in a kind of chain reaction but this would be limited to relatively small areas of contiguous clathrate deposits, typically no more than about 1 km2, as far as is known.

So, please, can we have more science and less politically-motivated or emotional claptrap, born out of ignorance of the issues? You just lose credibility when you make some of the statements you do.

[Gurm]

Brian,

While we all have great respect for your knowledge... you write like a stuffed-shirt ivory-tower intellectual.

You're saying that 100 decoliters of fluoroethylated meta-ethers are more dangerous than 5.776 garbonzo-tonnes of uranium enriched fart vapor. That's like comparing apples and oranges, man!

You're not going to win any arguments by spewing statistics that may or may not correlate to one another. Nobody's going to do the math to see if you're right or not (even if they can convert garbonzo-tonnes to decoliters and then do the concentration ratios for meta-ethers and fart vapor)!

[Umfriend]

And this is a fine illustration of the extremely tuff position the climate-scientists are in: Non one will seriously read and try to check their scaremongering statistics but all will eagerly accept comforting statistics that they do not understand either. Just goes to show: how much proof do you need? There is no answer to that question for most. (And it strikes me how much easier it apparantly is to convince people of the existence of a god than of human fueled global warming. geesh).

[SpiralDragon]

me... i am not so woried.... about the planet that is...

mother nature has a way of taking care of her self... and one of those ways involves .... extinction....

[Gurm]

And this is a fine illustration of the extremely tuff position the climate-scientists are in: Non one will seriously read and try to check their scaremongering statistics but all will eagerly accept comforting statistics that they do not understand either. Just goes to show: how much proof do you need? There is no answer to that question for most. (And it strikes me how much easier it apparantly is to convince people of the existence of a god than of human fueled global warming. geesh).

Well when you have a bunch of environment scientist nerds saying the sort of thing I just posted, and then you have some friendly smiling politicos saying "no no, we understand the problem and those guys are crazy" - Joe SixPack is going to (sadly) believe the politicians.

[Umfriend]

Thank you for that clarification. I think that is indeed what I said and addresses exactly the issue I have with demand for "more proof" like made by Mehen.
The problem is however that if the "bunch of environment scientist nerds" would try to stoop to "some friendly smiling politicos"'s level, they'd still not be believed because they are bringing [b]bad[/i] news (and would be required to deliver "proof"....).

[DukeP]

Brian,

While we all have great respect for your knowledge... you write like a stuffed-shirt ivory-tower intellectual.

Which for us other stuffed-shirt, ivory-tower intellectuals is a great comfort.

There is the problem of explaning complex scenarios in laymans terms. At times, it just shouldnt be done.

And heres the problem #1 with democracy: EVERYBODY gets a vote - even if the vote is on a subject that is, infact, near impossible to explain and that requires at least a couple of months of study to understand.

I think Brian did a great job in explaining _some_ of the parameters of global warming, without overdue use of technical terms.

Its NOT an easy job - Ive just tried to teach the same problem to 100+ young adults. THe successrate is still being debate, btw.

~~DukeP~~