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Author Topic: 'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?  (Read 6268 times)

viddaloo

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'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?
« on: September 01, 2014, 04:33:53 AM »
I stumbled over this interview while Google News–googling for 'august sea ice'. I've heard rumours of this 'gun' and 2007 before, but never seen any substance or even a summary of what is actually meant by that. Seems the Guy is finally talking now, to Dorsi Lynn Diaz of The Examiner.



Climate change and the methane crisis: An interview with Dr. Guy McPherson
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Neven

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Re: 'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2014, 10:10:50 AM »
The little I've seen/read of McPherson, led me to conclude that he is too extremely alarmist. Things are bad enough as they are. Exaggerating only helps the deniers/delayers setting up easy strawmen.
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viddaloo

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Re: 'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2014, 10:28:25 AM »
Yup, I'm also a skeptic, or at least an agnostic! The way I see it you'll have all kinds of people today and in the following years who'll be championing the methane 'cause', and some of them are bound to be either working for the other side or otherwise playing right into their hands. That's why I rather do what I always do: I look at the facts. I read books, I do the maths, I watch Tyson's «Cosmos II» over again; in short: I apply what resembles what a professional would call scientific method. After all, this isn't about personalities, but hard science.
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viddaloo

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Re: 'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2014, 01:17:23 PM »
Another interview (Sep 10th) on the Clathrate gun: mp3.

Accompanying blog post (with transcripts).

PS: Next week's podcast will have counter arguments, so tune in for that!
« Last Edit: September 16, 2014, 02:06:37 PM by viddaloo »
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AbruptSLR

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Re: 'Clathrate gun fired' back in 2007?
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2015, 01:20:30 AM »
The linked (2014) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory research presentation, cites that methane emissions from Arctic Ocean clathrates (methane hydrates) could have a major impact on the Earth System.

Philip Cameron-Smith (2014): "The Impact of Methane Clathrate Emissions on the Earth System"

http://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/presentations/impact-methane-clathrate-emissions-earth-system

Abstract: "Methane is locked in ice-like deposits called clathrates in ocean sediments and underneath permafrost regions. Clathrates are stable under high pressures and low temperatures, so in a warming climate, increases in ocean temperatures could lead to dissociation of the clathrates and release methane into the ocean and subsequently the atmosphere. This is of particular importance in the shallow parts of the Arctic Ocean, since clathrates are expected to start outgassing abruptly, especially at depths of around 300 m. We will present a sensitivity analysis of the atmospheric impact of methane emissions using multi-century steady-state simulations with a version of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) that includes atmospheric chemistry. Our simulations include a plausible release from clathrates in the Arctic that increases global methane emissions by 22%, as well as a scenario with 10 times those clathrate emissions. The CESM model includes a fully interactive physical ocean, to which we added a fast atmospheric chemistry mechanism that represents methane as a fully interactive tracer (with emissions rather than concentration boundary conditions). The results indicate that such Arctic clathrate emissions (1) increase global methane concentrations by an average of 38%, non-uniformly; (2) increase surface ozone concentrations by around 10% globally, and even more in polluted regions; (3) increase methane lifetime by 13%; (4) alter the interannual variability in temperature, surface methane, surface ozone, and methane lifetime, and (5) show modest differences in surface temperature and methane lifetime compared to simulations in which the clathrate emissions are distributed uniformly."
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