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posted by martyb on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the ignore-at-your-own-peril dept.

Siberian Times states that thousands of bulging methane gas bubbles have been located in Siberia. These are thought to explode to form the giant craters found in the area. Scientist say it's thawing permafrost releasing methane caused by elevated temperatures. Article contains amazing pictures.

Similar observations have been made around the Arctic regions. This is a cause for concern as methane is a potent greenhouse gas creating a positive feedback loop; there is potential for a chain reaction.


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  • (Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday March 25 2017, @04:52PM (2 children)

    by Sulla (5173) on Saturday March 25 2017, @04:52PM (#484125) Journal

    Build a nuclear plant with the sole purpose of making OH and C radicals to pump into bubbles to break down the methane, or feed methane destroying micro-orgs into them to make lesser greenhouse gasses. Burning them would also work to decrease the immediate effect of methane release into the atmosphere.

    I recently looked up atmospheric methane on wiki and they have a fun chart showing ice age happenings alongside atmospheric CO2 and Methane concentrations. If the pattern repeats for I think the fifth time, we are right at the edge of a glaciation event.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday March 25 2017, @06:31PM (1 child)

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday March 25 2017, @06:31PM (#484154)

    I dug up that chart [wikipedia.org].

    Your conclusion of an impending glaciation are unsupported. The horizontal red line is "current" (for when the chart was made) temperatures. Present CO2 and Methane concentrations are unprecedented. That fact is easy to miss since it happened in such a short period on the geological time scale.