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In this visualization, the Gulf Stream is seen as the dark red current coming into the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico.
A changing Gulf Stream off the East Coast has destabilized frozen methane deposits trapped under nearly 4,000 square miles of seafloor, scientists reported Wednesday. And since methane is even more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas, the researchers said, any large-scale release could have significant climate impacts.
Temperature changes in the Gulf Stream are "rapidly destabilizing methane hydrate along a broad swathe of the North American margin," the experts said in a study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
Using seismic records and ocean models, the team estimated that 2.5 gigatonnes of frozen methane hydrate are being destabilized and could separate into methane gas and water.
It is not clear if that is happening yet, but that methane gas would have the potential to rise up through the ocean and into the atmosphere, where it would add to the greenhouse gases warming Earth.
The 2.5 gigatonnes isn't enough to trigger a sudden climate shift, but the team worries that other areas around the globe might be seeing a similar destabilization.
USGS
Methane hydrate samples
"It is unlikely that the western North Atlantic margin is the only area experiencing changing ocean currents," they noted. "Our estimate ... may therefore represent only a fraction of the methane hydrate currently destabilizing globally."
The wider destabilization evidence, co-author Ben Phrampus told NBC News, includes data from the Arctic and Alaska's northern slope in the Beaufort Sea.
And it's not just under the seafloor that methane has been locked up. Some Arctic land area are seeing permafrost thaw, which could release methane stored there as well.
An expert who was not part of the study said it suggests that methane could become a bigger climate factor than carbon dioxide.
"We may approach a turning point" from a warming driven by man-made carbon dioxide to a warming driven by methane, Jurgen Mienert, the geology department chair at Norway's University of Tromso, told NBC News.
"The interactions between the warming Arctic Ocean and the potentially huge methane-ice reservoirs beneath the Arctic Ocean floor point towards increasing instability," he added.
For thousands of years, permafrost has trapped Siberia's carbon-rich soil, a compost of Ice Age plant and animal remains. But global warming is melting the permafrost and exposing the soil, causing highly flammable methane to seep out. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
He also noted, however, that "one of the big unknowns is the magnitude of rapid methane escape from the ocean floor, and how natural filter systems react and affect the future ocean, its environment and the climate."
Relate: Thawing Arctic permafrost is releasing methane
Another unknown is what caused the Gulf Stream changes, said Phrampus, an earth sciences PhD candidate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
"Multiple events can play a factor, such as changing sea level or an addition of cold/fresh water from the north," Phrampus said, adding he was hopeful that the changes might be "reversible under their own influence."
But, he added, "we need more data to resolve this, and we are currently investigating this process."
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Leave a Comment:
and OBAMA is full of EXCREMENT ... which is mostly METHANE as a solid ...
You didn't feel that way when he introduced you to your wife when you were friends back in Kenya.
I know when there is a sizable methane release in the room it has an impact.
These stories are wack!
If the oceans rise, at least i will be closer to the beach!
Tap it and sell it to the Chinks and the Russkies ... said another way ... DRILL BABY DRILL ...
You are a nasty poster. They are people, not those names you think are funny.
Pontifex, you need to lay off the budweiser. Your retardation is showing.
I give up. Bye! (No one can save the human race from themselves.) - Rick Carter
And we continue to see just how feckless our governmental leadership is, and just how blind/short sighted the majority of the public are. We continue to feed that which will destroy us without a thought. Perhaps the human race is pre disposed to extinction. Maybe good riddance.
here here bob!
OF COURSE!
Just weeks after it was released that global warming stopped 16 years ago, and that it was even supported by West Anglia (the leading hoaxsters), we now have a new issue to worry about.
Umm....ya...well you see...we understand that the amount of ice in antarctica is more than ever recorded...but see...methane...ya...that's right...um...methane...it is worse. And even though our computer models are wildly inaccurrate (because we keep feeding wrong data to perpetuate our lies), our NEW and IMPROVED computer models show methane to be a bigger deal.
CUT METHANE EMISSIONS. HOLD IN YOUR FARTS!
ahhh hell, don't sweat it. Obama will destroy this earth before this does.
you do realize the amount of gasses released from a single volcanic eruption surpasses all man made gasses since the industrial revolution right?
Methane hydrate hardly constitutes a "man made gas".
Na, only someone with more than 2 connected brain cells understands that. They're hard to find here.
Nope again wrong, collectively we release more CO2 than the single volcano. That's the science, the science and the technology derived from it you accept every day just by using this miraclous thing called the internet, but apparently that's good science, the other is bad science because it conflicts with your beliefs, all science that conflicts with your beliefs is bad science right?
Not like it happens whether you believe in it or not, but hey I'm sure believing I can fly will keep me from dying when falling.
Oh to back it up, USGS site could have found it yourself.
If this continues there will never be another ice age.
And there will be a lot less ships lost a sea mysteriously too. Bye bye Bermuda triangle.
Call Al Gore to save us from Climate change and Man Bear Pig..
In the 1970s, scientists were freaking out about global cooling. But oops, they were WRONG. So tired of enviro-Nazis shoving this pseudo-science down our throats.
That is because according to the natural cycles or trends, our Earth really should be cooling. But that is ONLY true if you TOTALLY ignore human influences. The fact that our Earth really should be cooling according to these natural cycles tells you just how serious and profound those adverse human influences are! - Rick Carter
Rick, A-2566217 just made his or her point... Thank you.
Scientists in the 1970's were NOT freaking out about an impending ice-age! There was a very small group that said an ice-age was possible, BUT the overwhelming majority of scientists were predicting what is happenning now.
The problem is the media got hold of the ice-age story and ran with it without checking the facts. The story was later retracted, but as you can see it's held on ever since. Now, people such as yourself, are claiming scientists are wrong because of what they supposedly did back then...which they didn't.
Try doing yourself a favor and actually read about what really happened back then and why the story persists to this day!
URANUS' atmosphere consists mostly of METHANE ... Proving God has a sense of humor ... get it URANUS / METHANE ... ever light a fart?
OBAMA blames BUSH and President-Elect ROMNEY
You have to stop snorting methane.
Ah, never mind. With your head that far up your ass, you can't help but breathe it.
If Republicans are elected this cycle, kiss it all goodbye.
But,but, but O’bumma promised we’d be leaders in environment friendly energy technologies.
We have to convince everybody that we need it before we can develop it. Global
warming is something we can solve. He said so!!! Somehow he figured out how to
push a string. All you have to do is smear on some BS and let it dry. Unfortunately
when someone really does come up with a technology that could provide CHEAP
clean energy, they shut them up. See 60 minutes on the Bloom Box. Try Google
too.
Obama tried but the big business he gave the money to laughed all the way to the bankruptcy court... How much ended up in Dems pockets???
With all of this methane leaking out of the ocean depths on the east coast,watch D.C. disappear in a flaming ball on December 21st,2012
This problem was caused by a You Tube Video that ticked off the Muslims ... so said Jay Carney White House press Secretary this afternoon stating the administration's assessment of the situation.
How do we know OBAMA is LYING? He is moving his lips ... and his ears get Big ... Big Ears Obama ... Lying sack of METHANE EXCREMENT ...
You know whats next dont you. Dogs and Cats Living together. you know Mass Hysteria.
Id go harvest it but my puck up truck is being painted. Dern Gun Rack scratched it when the beer cans went flying trying to dodge a smart car with 2 smart guys in it.
Obama is selling the USA an EXCREMENT SANDWICH ... and tells the American electorate it tastes good ... but we ain't that dumb to believe Nope and Blame twice in four years.
The Russky's ought to pay Igor or whatever his name is, to go around chopping more holes in the ice and light the Earth's primordial farts on fire with his Russian knockoff of a Bic lighter. Everybody wins, Igor satisfies his inner firebug, Russia gets to manufacture more knockoff lighters,..the libs can all shut up for a while and us normal folk get to enjoy some silence,...well at least until the libs find the next grave 'crisis'.
Sound good?
Don't worry ... OBAMA says he has a plan ... but it will take millions of taxpayer dollars re-directed to some of his communist cronies in bogus Green Energy companies.
I'm glad you hate him so much. It means you won't live long after he wins the election.
Sigh, he isn't socialist, nor liberal, he talks a big talk but tends to go moderate, this from a person who wishes he would be more liberal, and actually do things like single payer health care.
His actions haven't dictated socialism, and not even close to communism do you even know what communism is?, or is it just a word to you?
NEWS FLASH!! President Obama today blamed it on Bush!
Though the worlds top scientists have studied the phenomenom and declared the problem is all the hot air coming from the white house, the current president insists it is all Bush'd fault and that Dick Cheney conspired with Haliburton to warm the ocean floor to bring discredit upon the current administration. Liberal wackos have been crying that the tuna along the eastern seaboard are racist for leaving town and not supporting the president.
END of FLASH!
Can we harvest it and use it for fuel?
cookie; Well,.........we could, but then how could we stir up a lot of trouble, get everybody worried over nothing and destabilize the West?
Cookie, your idea makes too much economic sense,...go on now get outta here see!