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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Lurking in a lake half a mile beneath Antarctica's icy surface, methane-eating microbes may mitigate the release of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as ice sheets retreat.
A new study published in Nature Geoscience traces methane's previously unknown path below the ice in a spot that was once thought to be inhospitable to life. Study researchers sampled the water and sediment in Antarctica's subglacial Whillans Lake by drilling 800 meters through ice for the first time ever. Next they measured methane amounts and used genomic analyses to find that 99 percent of methane released into the lake is gobbled up by microbes.
These tiny microorganisms may have a big impact on a warming world by preventing methane from seeping into the atmosphere when ice sheets melt, said Brent Christner, a University of Florida microbiologist and co-author on the study.
"This is an environment that most people look at and don't think it could ever really directly impact us," Christner said. "But this is a process that could have climatic implications."
Additional coverage at the NSF (National Science Foundation), who funded the research team.
Journal Reference: Alexander B. Michaud, John E. Dore, Amanda M. Achberger, Brent C. Christner, Andrew C. Mitchell, Mark L. Skidmore, Trista J. Vick-Majors, John C. Priscu. Microbial oxidation as a methane sink beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Nature Geoscience, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2992
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:27PM (3 children)
And that's still part of the Pascal's wager argument. There's this infinite cost to something that supposedly has a positive probability of happening and then, better safe than sorry.
You can be on the "better safe than sorry" side with being on the "better safe than infinite sorry"
The assumption that poverty eradication is somehow hampered by the cost of "global warming safety" is mildly amusing to me - I'll consider it seriously when I'll see the ratio between defence spending [wikipedia.org] and economic assistance spending [washingtonpost.com] a bit more balanced - as it stays now is something 23:1 in favour of defence (which defence should be a "better safe than sorry" cost. Unfortunately, it's far from "defence only" character, as it has the "actively make others sorry" component even when the others weren't aggressive against US)
Even if there are problems, the cost of resolving them is finite. As also finite is the cost of adopting a less fossil-fuel intensive lifestyle.
Bottom line: I'm not speaking about infinite costs, thus I still assert that "better safe than (finite) sorry" applies better to my position.
Which is to say, both sides will need to live with the other's "truth", as both sides have hypotheses which aren't hard-scientific demonstrable.
That would be relatively simple to find, if they are so common, right? So, if they are so common, I think they'll get discovered in my lifetime... any time now... heck I think they should already have been discovered by now.
But again, they may not exist or not have a high enough efficiency, otherwise we weren't be seeing concentrations in some regions reaching up to 100 times normal levels. [wikipedia.org]
.
Or maybe those micrones don't have all the necessary conditions to... ummm... reach exponential growth stage?
Like, not enough oxygen dissolved in water for the entire amount of methane present there? Even at 99% efficiency, without enough oxygen a microbe can only do that much. Given the estimation of not less than 1,400 Gt of carbon locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, compute what amount of oxygen is necessary to oxidize it, what amount of water can carry that oxygen (solubility of oxygen at 0C - max - is 0.07g/kg), assume a coefficient of transport efficiency (how much oxygenated water really reaches the clathrate under the sea bed), a dynamic of water circulation (flux of water per sq.m of sea floor, per second) and estimate the amount of time the existing methane could be oxidized by 99% efficient microbes (ignoring new methane genesis).
BTW - degradation of methane in atmosphere is abiotic [wikipedia.org] (thanks $DEITY for this - if a bacteria can oxidize methane, it will oxidize easier one's lungs). And once the methane in atmospheric, it hardly get dissolved back in the sea water, be it only for the fact that it has a lower density than air and will raise up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 03 2017, @10:32PM (2 children)
Human extinction, which you've used as the basis for your decision-making, is an infinite sorry event.
It's also based in fact. We have in no particular order, Germany's Energiewende, the US corn ethanol subsidies, and the poorly designed carbon emission credit markets of Europe. All have demonstrated propaganda rationalization based on global warming, poor execution, and substantial negative effects on the poorest people - sometimes worldwide.
Lungs aren't made of methane. They are very resistant to oxidation for several reasons (wet, vicious immune system, made of chemicals that don't oxidize as readily as methane does).
Economic assistance doesn't actually do that much. It's basically support for corruption in other countries. Defense on the other hand can prevent being taken over by another country or other military power. For example, Iraq's existence hasn't been threatened by climate change, but it has been taken over once by the US and almost again by Iran and ISIS at different points in the past 40 years. You can point to numerous parties in living memory that have lived and sometimes died by the effectiveness of their militaries.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 04 2017, @12:52AM (1 child)
Your choice for the assgned price, not mine.
I can speak for US corn ethanol subsidies, I'm not aware of the details.
About Germany's Energiewende, it decreased Germany's dependence on Russian gas at the very least (which is a good thing in my books). It also helped reducing their CO2 emission and made them more sustainable.
About the "poorly designed emission credit markets" - I don't think I remember somebody dying or becoming destitute because of them (by contrast, the "defense" activities of US did result in deaths and destruction. If you call this "poverty eradication" you probably have the very special choice for the "eradication" meaning).
No, they are made of substances much easier to degrade than methane (lower binding energy) - anything able to derive energy from methane will make an easy work from the substances in the lungs.
If you are doing it the wrong way, yes. There was a time (and I only can remember that single time) when economic assistance actually helped - you can go over specific differences that made the Marshall Plan work in contrast with the current situation, this kind of analysis is quite common for raising hypotheses as the first step in getting explanations.
Let me put it in civil terms: let's agree to disagree on this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 04 2017, @02:55AM
Ok, but why bring it up in a "better safe than sorry" argument, if it's not intended to be the dominant cost of the argument?