Should we fear the burp more than the warming?

Question

Many today think that global warming (climate change) is the most pressing issue for humanity. What about the methane burp?
250 million years ago, a humungous amount of methane trapped on the ocean floor erupted into gaseous form. The oxygen levels around the world dropped from 30% to 16 % in a matter of weeks. 95% of the species on the planet died. The methane is building up below the ocean floor. It could be used for fuel but it is very volatile. Don't you think that 10% oxygen could be more devastating than 42 degree winters?

Dana, Hey Duuuudddeee take a chill pill. I posted this to be a bit sarcastic. You have found a way to be defensively agressive. Wow! My point is that there are lots of bad things out there and to focus on just one obscure threat is kind of silly. The planet has warmed and cooled in the past and methane has exploded out of the ocean. Methane had the greater impact. Kind of like focusing on your weight problem while dying of prostrate cancer. You have to worry about what you can change.

Answer 1

The "Big Burp" is only a hypothesis, and not the "consensus" view - if you can claim one - of the Permian Extinction. Most scientists find evidence of massive glaciation triggered by volcanic aerosols.

As far as the extinctions go, most of those affected were marine species. Land species on the supercontinent, Pangea were not nearly as decimated.

I'd say that the biggest threat from these methyl hydrates would be the massive mining operations to harvest it as yet another "fossil fuel source. There is as much as 80,000 times more methane than known natural gas reserves. That's over a million years of available fuel.

Someone is going to go after it, you can bank on it.

Answer 2

I've mentioned this several times. It's the only natural event even close to Global Warming. It killed all life except the plankton.

It's usually called the Permian Extinction, not the Methane Belch. The methane is in crystal form, created by volcanic outgassing, frozen by cold temperatures and high pressures. They're also called Clathrates, or Methane Hydrate Crystals.

There was an area of volcanoes of several thousand square miles erupting continuously for thousands of years. After 8,000 years, the temperature had risen 4 degrees (we've had 2 degrees in less than 200 years). At this point all the more advanced life on land died out (animals, trees) and all the more advanced life in the sea (fish, shellfish, crustaceans). The secondary effects, like the drop in oxygen levels was caused by killing the plants. The plants after all, are what puts the oxygen in the air to begin with.

The oceans had then reached the "trigger threshold" that started melting the clathrates. In a much shorter period of time, about 1,000 years, the crystals added their billions of tons of methane to the atmosphere and the temperature rose another 4 degrees. As this happened, ALL life on land died, and everything in the oceans except the algae. Up until now, it is the biggest setback life has had on planet earth.

We can learn a lot from this. One, if you use realistic numbers, we've raised the temperature half of what is required to trigger the clathrate melting. We did it in 200 years, not 8000. It makes the argument that the warming going on now could be caused by the few hundred volcanic eruptions we've had over those years sound pretty dumb, since it took thousands of volcanos erupting for thousands of years to do it the first time. The important thing is not what things will be like when we reach 8 degrees 8,000 years from now. The important thing is what the world will be like to live in as we rack up those last 2 degrees before the trigger level. If everything as advanced as a tree or a dragon fly is dying, how will it be for us over those decades?

This isn't as you sugest, an alternative event that could happen instead of Global Warming. It is one of the expected events that will happen if we don't stop it. And we're getting there ahead of ALL predictions by decades, and speeding up all the time.. It could very plausibly happen in your lifetime, or even your parent's.

Answer 3

This is one of the great uncertainties in GW predictions.

The release of methane hydrate may be triggered by warming of the oceans, creating a positive feedback to GW that would be catastrophic. The mechanism is not understood and it's not known how likely this is, but it's one of the doomsday scenarios of GW. There is evidence that something like this was triggered by a sudden rise in temperatures in the great Permian extinction, and the resulting average global temperature rise was 30 C. That would not be survivable by most individuals or species.

Answer 4

You don't have to wait that long. In 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon 'burped' a cloud of co2 that was building in the water. More that 1000 people died instantly. Now the gas is controlled vented into the atmosphere to prevent further deaths.

Lake Kivu in Rwanda produces co2, h2s, and methane naturally. Engineers are planning to tap the lake for its natural methane reserves for energy.

Answer 5

"Don't you think that 10% oxygen could be more devastating than 42 degree winters?"

Yes, although you're conveniently omitting a few facts.

1) Global warming has many consequences, and "42 degree winters" doesn't quite cover them.

2) How likely is your 'methane burp' scenario? There are an infinite number of potentially worse scenarios than global warming, but they're also all far less likely to happen, so clearly we shouldn't fear them more.

Answer 6

Ohhh. So this is how evolutionists explain the flood. It actually happened about 10,000 years ago. The 95% of species dying was because they drowned. Besides if it DID happen 250 million years ago, and we are STILL here, I really don't see the problem.

Answer 7

Actually....given the "scientific certainty" of "Anthropogenic Global Warming," I think we should fear both equally.

"So let me get this straight. Fifty BILLION dollars spent funding pro-Anthropogenic Global Warming research doesn't corrupt the process, but nineteen million dollars spent in response DOES?"