Papers

1. -01 Cameras Reveal Methane and Other Gases (EarthWorksAction.org)
   "Communities living near oil and gas operations often are exposed to air pollution that can cause serious health problems. However, the energy industry claims there is no proof, and, as a result, the impacts are often discounted as 'anecdotal.' The Citizens Empowerment Project aims to outfit citizens with the tools they need to document the pollution that is occurring in their communities."
   
   "The FLIR camera provides visual evidence of gases leaking during oil and gas activities or being purposefully vented or released into the air as part of an operation. The camera we use is designed to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs)."
   
   "This technology, along with our FLIR trained staff armed with 25 years of experience in the field, is helping communities see what’s in the air they breathe at home, in school and around town."
   
   Editor's Note: This technology could, perhaps, provide early warning for coastal communities that are vulnerable to methane releases from deep ocean warming. 12-15
   
   
2. -01 Methane in the Oceans (Mongabay.com)
   "Gas hydrates from total reserves could contain up to 10 times the current amount of carbon into the atmosphere."
   
   " 'The destabilization of gas hydrates is likely to be a serious hazard in the near future due to the effects of global warming,' says Dr Maslin. 'Research already exists to suggest that the release of hydrates increased global temperature 18,000 years ago, and we now face a similar threat as our global temperature continues to rise.' " 11-14
   
   
3. A Solution for Melting Methane in Oceans (ClimateCoLab.org)
   Provides a geoengineering plan for "Testing nontoxic chemicals that stabilize methane ice, making it stable and resistant to elevated temperatures as the climate warms." 07-15
   
   
4. Arctic Methane (PBS)
   Describes the problem with Arctic methane sinkholes. 04-2023
   
   
5. Methane Hydrates Catastrophe (HuffPost.com)
   " 'Think about that,' Erik Cordes, the expedition’s chief scientist and a deep-sea ecologist at Temple University, said as Atlantis headed out to sea from Woods Hole. “All the forests on the planet, all the living organisms on the planet together, have less carbon in them than there is in methane hydrate.' "
   
   "Hydrate remains stable under conditions like those found in the frigid deep sea. But if exposed to warmer temperatures or a drop in pressure, it can turn to gas, expanding by approximately 180 times its volume. The concern for some scientists is that as global climate change thaws Arctic permafrost and heats up the oceans, these hydrates will break down, setting off a potentially calamitous feedback loop."
   
   "It’s obvious why methane hydrate has alarmed the public. But Ruppel says it is the shallow water seeps, those on upper continental shelves and not associated with hydrate, that have a greater capacity to inject methane into Earth’s atmosphere." 09-19
   
   
6. Methane Hydrates Catastrophe (Truth-Out.org)
   "A study published in the prestigious journal Nature in July 2013 confirmed what Shakhova had been warning us about for years: A 50-gigaton 'burp' of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea is highly possible."
   
   "Such a 'burp' would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide. (For perspective, humans have released approximately 1,475 gigatons in total carbon dioxide since the year 1850.)"
   
   "Scientists have been warning us for a number of years about the dire consequences of methane hydrates in the Arctic, and how the methane being released poses a potentially disastrous threat to the planet." 03-17
   
   
7. Methane Release from Arctic Ice Melting (Arctic Methane Emergency Group)
   "The Arctic summer sea ice is in a rapid, extremely dangerous meltdown process. The Arctic summer ice albedo loss feedback (i.e., open sea absorbs more heat than ice, which reflects much of it) passed its tipping point in 2007 – many decades earlier than models projected, and scientists now agree the Arctic will be ice free during the summer by 2030. However, that is not to say it couldn't happen very much earlier. "
   
   "The retreat of sea ice appears to be leading to the most catastrophic feedback process of all. This is the venting of methane to the atmosphere from frozen methane gas hydrates on the sea floor of the Arctic continental shelf."
   
   "If methane release from Arctic sea floor hydrates happens on a large scale — and this year's reports suggest that it will — then this situation can start an uncontrollable sequence of events that would make world agriculture and civilization unsustainable. It is a responsible alarm, not alarmist, to say that it is a real threat to the survival of humanity and most life on Earth." 01-15
   
   
8. Methane in Oceans an Emerging Threat (Truth-Out.org)
   "The Permian mass extinction that occurred 250 million years ago was related to methane - in fact, the gas is thought to be the key to what caused the extinction of approximately 95 percent of all species on the planet."
   
   "Also known as 'The Great Dying,' it was triggered by a massive lava flow in an area of Siberia that led to an increase in global temperatures of 6 degrees Celsius. That, in turn, caused the melting of frozen methane deposits under the seas. Released into the atmosphere, it caused temperatures to skyrocket further. All of this occurred over a period of approximately 80,000 years."
   
   "We are already in the midst of what scientists consider the sixth mass extinction in planetary history, with between 150 and 200 species going extinct daily, a pace 1,000 times greater than the 'natural' or 'background' extinction rate. This event may already be comparable to, or even exceed, both the speed and intensity of the Permian mass extinction." 01-15
   
   
9. Release of Methane from the Arctic May Be an Extinction Level Event (Truthout.org)
   "“The ice making up the Greenland Ice Sheet holds about the equivalent of 6-7 meters (~20 feet) of global sea level rise, and glaciological evidence makes clear that an order of approximately half of that melted during the last interglacial about 125,000 years ago, contributing significantly to the 4-8 meter rise in sea level at that time,” Dr. MacCracken said.
   
   "He pointed out that this rise was caused by a 1°C temperature increase, similar to the temperature increase Earth is experiencing right now (1.16°C above baseline)."
   
   “In reality, there are many critical feedback mechanisms and the interlocking effects between them means that the climate is far more unstable and irreversible than we are led to believe, and the climate’s change is likely to follow a super exponential progression once the temperature rises above a certain level.” According to the journlist writing this story, Dahr Jamail, we are currently facing the very real possibility of a major methane release in the Arctic. Such a release would be a catastrophe for the global climate — and the survival of humans and other species." 10-18
   
   

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