Scared Shitless?

It must've been about 7 or 8 years ago that I read the Last Generation by Fred Pearce. The book was truly terrifying talking of the consequences of the changes occuring to the world, thanks to us, Man.

The section of the book that caused me the most concerns was the idea of the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis which in summary states that increased sea temperatures could lead to the release of methane from methane clathrate compounds in both the oceans and permafrost of the Boreal regions of the Earth. As methane is about 70 times more potent in terms of trapping heat then a CO2 molecule, this release could lead to a irreversible runaway effect in less then a human lifespan. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

This was postulated by Fred Pearce, like i said, perhaps 8 or more years ago.

Lets fast forward to December 2011 - "Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years." - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html

Ok, well at least the News media has picked up on this story and the whole world is being made aware of the science, surely! Well some are reporting on this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arctic-ocean-releasing-significant-amounts-of-methane

http://www.france24.com/en/20120422-arctic-ocean-could-be-source-greenhouse-gas-study

"The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Now a multi-institutional study by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself." - http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120422.html

""We know the Arctic is warming very fast indeed," Nisbet says. And as the warming climate leads to more breaks in the sea ice, more ice-surrounded patches of open water will be able to release their methane, further accelerating global warming. The question now is: how significant will this new effect on warming be? "It might be small," Nisbet says, "or it could be another serious problem." -
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21733-arctic-methane-leaks-threaten-climate.html

Processing this is tricky, one wouldn't want to come across as alarmist, but seriously, what the fuck?  Did you notice any of the major News outlets running with this?  Did you notice BBC, ABC, NBC, Fox (hilarious, Tim made a funny!) make any mention of this?  Hey maybe I'm missing some critical point, yes I know that methane "breaks down" quicker in the atmosphere then CO2, so maybe that will be our saving grace.  But be under no illusion, I'm keenly interested in this and have no clue what the fuck is going on or what will ultimately happen.  Shouldn't someone, lets call them "policy-makers" or "world-leaders" have this type of thing on their radar?

I'll leave the final sage words on this to the Arch Druid - "All that’s certain at this point is that something potentially very troubling is happening in Arctic waters, and the possibility that it might have destructive consequences on a local, regional, or continental scale can’t be ruled out. Panic is the least useful response I can think of, so I’ll say this very quietly: if the news from Arctic waters in the months and years to come suggests that things are moving in the wrong direction, and those of my readers who live close to the shores of the northern Atlantic basin happen to have the opportunity to move inland or to higher ground, it might not be unreasonable to do so." - http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/seascape-with-methane-plumes.html

Maybe we'll discuss methane trapped in permafrost next time?