Of particular interest to geoengineers in this paper is the comment that warming penetrates into hydrate sediments in a time-delayed but irreversible fashion. Once a warming pulse is transmitted into the sediment, later cooling does not prevent the eventual heating and dissociation of the clathrates in the sediments.
It is therefore clear that we have a window for geoengineering, after which a particular sediment block is inevitably doomed. If it is a large block, then serious climate change is committed - regardless of the overlying temperature. An ice covering may assist in the retention of the released methane, but released it ultimately will be. We urgently need to constrain the errors and uncertainties in this process. A On 13 April 2011 09:39, John Gorman <[email protected]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Veli Albert Kallio <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 12, 2011 8:56 PM > *Subject:* RE: Scientists should communicate: the methane time bomb > > This Royal Society paper on role of methane is instrumental and anyone > involved in methane debate should read it. > > Kr, Albert > > > From John Gorman > > A very interesting paper. The first thing that caught my eye was; > > Harvey & Huang (1995) carried out a detailed evaluation of the potential > impact of > > clathrate destabilization with global warming. Clathrate stability depends > crucially > > and very nonlinearly on the amount of warming: less than 4 > *◦*C warming means that > > comparatively little clathrate is released; however, when warming is 10 > *◦*C, large > > amounts of methane are liberated.(page 603) > > > > reassuring if one has the figure of 0.7 deg C in mind but very worrying if > one realises that Arctic amplification means that we are almost at 4 deg in > the arctic now and 2 deg global avaeage means eight or ten degrees in the > arctic and Antarctic. (one pager Arctic Amplification attached) > > > > More later. > > > > john gorman > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
