Siberia's mystery holes; It's the end of the world *runs*

[summer]

m.couriermail.com.au/technology/are-siberias-methane-blowholes-the-first-warning-sign-of-unstoppable-climate-change/story-fnjww4qa-1227006746397?nk=b3908f7c2892523242f3cad4dd246aa7

WHAT do three enormous craters in the Siberian wastelands have to do with a terrified American climate scientist? Methane. And that’s something to scare us all.



The end of the world could be starting right now — in a frozen Siberian wasteland known as Yamal. It translates as “The End of the Land”.



The first mysterious crater was spotted by oil workers earlier this month. It was an 80m wide cavern that reached deep into the earth.



Since then, the Siberian Times reports goatherds have found a further two enormous vents in the ground.



RELATED: Are we on the brink of a 6th mass extinction?



Russian researchers have returned from their investigation of the first find and taken water and soil samples to help resolve how the hole was formed.



Some say aliens. Some say they’re “hellmouths” — gateways to the undead.



But scientists already have a pretty good idea.



Explosive vents of vast quantities of methane gas.



Now a new, ominous, name could be attached to them: Dragon’s mouths.



Here’s where a blog posted by American professor in glaciology Dr Jason Box at the weekend comes in: “The dragon breath hypothesis has me losing sleep.”


Jason Box @climate_ice

If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd.




THE DRAGON’S BURP



Dr Box highlights signs of alarmingly huge spikes of methane being released into the atmosphere above Siberia.



It’s what that means which has him alarmed.



He’s not mincing his words.



He’s issued a no-holds barred call to action.



“This is an all hands on deck moment,” he writes. “We’re in the age of consequences.”



And he has the “WTF” results from atmospheric measurements to back him up.



Siberia has a single ground-based climate observing station, at a place called Tiksi.



But the numbers coming out of the remote research post are startling — and they’re backed up by similar stations in Alaska and Canada.



“I can tell you (these are) really high end,” Dr Box writes.



It’s the erratic, but enormous, spikes in methane readings coming from Tiksi — which Dr Box ominously calls “dragon breaths” — that may be tied to the enormous blow holes now appearing in Siberia’s desolate landscape.



He’d much rather the “dragon” remains dormant.



EMPTYING AN ANCIENT CARBON DUMP



Siberia’s Yamal region contains some of Russia’s largest gas reserves. It’s little coincidence that the first vent hole appeared about 40km from the nation’s largest gas field — Bovanenkovo.



Since then another crater has been identified nearby. This one is smaller: Some 15m in diameter. Locals first found it in September last year, but it has only now come to the attention of authorities. A third — this time only 4m wide — was found several hundred kilometres away on the Taymyr Peninsula.



Russian scientists examining the first blowhole found it to be 60-80m wide and some 70m deep. It runs into the permafrost of ice and mud. There is an icy lake at its bottom.


Earth-shattering ... Andrei Plekhanov, a senior researcher at the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic, stands at a crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Plekhanov said 80 per cent of the crater appeared to be made up of ice and that there were no traces of an explosion, eliminating the possibility that a meteorite had struck the region.

“We can be certain in saying that the crater appeared relatively recently, perhaps a year or two ago; so it is a recent formation, we are not talking about dozen years ago,” said Andrey Plekhanov, Senior Researcher at the Russian Scientific Centre of Arctic Research.



Could it be linked to climate change?



SIBERIAN MYSTERY: What formed this massive hole in the ground?



“Well, we have to continue our research to answer this question,” he said. “Two previous summers — years 2012 and 2013 were relatively hot for Yamal, perhaps this has somehow influenced the formation of the crater.”

Mikhail Lapsui, a deputy of Siberia’s regional parliament, inspected the second blowhole site.



“I flew by helicopter to inspect this funnel on Saturday, 19 July. Its diameter is about 15 metres. There is also ground outside, as if it was thrown as a result of an underground explosion.”



Methane.



It’s the lasting remains of an event which happened some 50 million years ago. An outbreak of a tiny green weed transformed the Earth from a virtually lifeless greenhouse by sucking the carbon out of the air and pumping oxygen back into it.

It was a process which took millions of years to create the world as we know it.



But the methane left trapped under the Arctic permafrost is a ticking time bomb — set to send the world into a mass extinction and set the climate clock back by millennia.



“We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating,” Dr Box writes.



HUMBLE POWERHOUSE: Can this weed save the world — again?



“If we don’t get atmospheric carbon down and cool the Arctic, the climate physics and recent observations tell me we will probably trigger the release of these vast carbon stores, dooming our kids’ to a hothouse Earth. That’s a tough statement to read when your worry budget is already full as most of ours is.”




GROWING ALARM



Dr Box says the issue of Arctic permafrost feedback on our warming climate was raised at the world’s largest meeting of scientists, the AGU, late last year. The take-home message was “we just can’t say much yet,” he said.



“That was then …”



He says he’s since been following blogs by other leading climate scientists and putting it all together.



“Their messaging is alarming, connecting dots between methane maps they generate using IASI data and a number of rapidly changing Arctic climate elements: declining sea ice area, duration, volume; increasing air and sea surface temperature; wildfires.”


One account is eerily similar to that of Siberia’s “dragon mouths”.



Bubbles of methane have been observed rising to the Arctic Ocean’s surface since as early as 2011.



“That’s damn scary,” Dr Box writes.



He fears the genie may be escaping from the bottle.



“Atmospheric methane release is a much bigger problem than atmospheric carbon dioxide release, since methane is ~20 times more powerful greenhouse gas,” he writes.



It’s a sign of a worst-case scenario cascading environmental collapse.



The loss of the reflective bright white Arctic ice itself contributes to warming as the ocean left behind absorbs more heat.

This warm water further destabilises the ice sheet and allows currents to form which “unlock” the methane trapped in the cold, shallow seas.



This methane erupts into the air — rapidly surpassing the effects of our own pollutants. At this point, there is nothing left humanity can do.



“What’s the take home message, if you ask me?” Dr Box writes.



EARTH 2.0: Can we find it fast enough?



“Because elevated atmospheric carbon from fossil fuel burning is the trigger mechanism poking the climate dragon. The trajectory we’re on is to awaken a runaway climate heating that will ravage global agricultural systems leading to mass famine, conflict. Sea level rise will be a small problem by comparison. We simply MUST lower atmospheric carbon emissions.



“There are still questions, of course, but the precautionary principle makes clear we have to keep this dragon in the ground.”

[overture]

Welp, I'm off to procure some cyanide capsules.

[summer]

Jul 31, 2014 3:04:05 GMT -5 overture said:

Welp, I'm off to procure some cyanide capsules.

Belgium probably has the good stuff.  

[mrsukyankee]

Jul 31, 2014 4:15:27 GMT -5 summer said:

Jul 31, 2014 3:04:05 GMT -5 overture said:

Welp, I'm off to procure some cyanide capsules.

Belgium probably has the good stuff.  

Switzerland - it's legal to do assisted suicide there.

[sushi]

[Velar Fricative]

Puh-lease. These guys are only experienced scientists. Elected officials tell me there's no such thing as climate change, so it's all good.

[katfco]

[ttt]

Yes but the economy! What about the shareholders??

[iammalcolmx]

[summer]

Jul 31, 2014 7:09:21 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Seriously. I felt sick reading this.

[josieposy]

So i can stop paying my bills right?

[krisandgrace]

It's just the earth burping, nothing to worry about!

Between this and the Colorado aquifer news;

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/30/groundwater-depletion-in-colorado-river-basin-adds-big-risks-to-water-security/

we are all basically screwed.

[AJL]

Jul 31, 2014 7:24:10 GMT -5 incogneato said:

I'm honestly wishing I had anti-anxiety meds on hand. The world my children are growing up in is not what they deserve.

I'm happy to share my Klonopin. 

[carowen]

This is seriously depressing.

[heyjude]

"Here’s where a blog posted by American professor in glaciology Dr Jason Box at the weekend comes in: “The dragon breath hypothesis has me losing sleep.”"

This has 12 year old science fair project written all over it!

[meshaliuknits]

I see.


Where are we on the "colonizing Mars" thing?

[sushi]

Jul 31, 2014 9:10:36 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

I see.


Where are we on the "colonizing Mars" thing?

The kids janitor army hasn't started work on it last I heard.

[anonymous]

Jul 31, 2014 7:24:10 GMT -5 incogneato said:

I'm honestly wishing I had anti-anxiety meds on hand. The world my children are growing up in is not what they deserve.

i'm here

[pixy0stix]

Jul 31, 2014 7:59:34 GMT -5 josieposy said:

So i can stop paying my bills right?

Projections for world collapse are still 30 years out. So don't stop paying them quite yet. You could probably start spending your retirement fund*.

*Note, if you actually do this, I am in no way responsible.

[Scout'sHonor]

Stephen Colbert summed this all up very well the other night.

I need a drink

[Velar Fricative]

Jul 31, 2014 7:59:34 GMT -5 josieposy said:

So i can stop paying my bills right?

I'm about to stop contributing to my retirement and spend all the monies.

ETA: I see pixy0stix and I are on the same page.

[josieposy]

Jul 31, 2014 9:34:47 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Jul 31, 2014 7:59:34 GMT -5 josieposy said:

So i can stop paying my bills right?

Projections for world collapse are still 30 years out. So don't stop paying them quite yet. You could probably start spending your retirement fund*.

*Note, if you actually do this, I am in no way responsible.

Sigh. We hang out with too many attorneys.

[pixy0stix]

Jul 31, 2014 9:51:08 GMT -5 josieposy said:

Jul 31, 2014 9:34:47 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Projections for world collapse are still 30 years out. So don't stop paying them quite yet. You could probably start spending your retirement fund*.

*Note, if you actually do this, I am in no way responsible.

Sigh. We hang out with too many attorneys.

[Deleted]

[aurora]

Well, this just goes to prove that there's nothing people can do to prevent climate change. I mean, obviously dragons are responsible.

Let's go burn some more coal to celebrate the discovery of the dragons!

[Vespasia]

Jul 31, 2014 17:36:56 GMT -5 aurora said:

Well, this just goes to prove that there's nothing people can do to prevent climate change. I mean, obviously dragons are responsible.

Let's go burn some more coal to celebrate the discovery of the dragons!

Clearly it is all this bitch's fault