how gas hydrates prevent global warming?

Question

gas hydrates

Answer 1

Gas hydrates contribute to global warming as opposed to preventing it. The most common gas hydrate is methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide (specifically it has a 100 year GWP of 23).

A gas hydrate is a crystalline solid consisting of water and a naturally occurring gas. They are formed when the correct pressures and temperatures exist thus allowing stability of the hydrate and are mainly found in oceanic sediments in the polar regions and the sedimentary deposits of the continental slope.

Subterranean methane is also formed through the process of methanogenesis or biomethanation, this happens in rice paddies, peat bogs, degrading vegetation etc.

No-one can say for sure but it's estimated that there are 70 billion tons of methane trapped in these ways. There is potential for tapping into these reserves and using the methane commercially. However, the process is more complex than the current methods of extraction from gas pockets so it's not something that is being considered for now. Probably, as conventional reserves dwindle, it will become a more viable option.

Through the melting of permafrost and disrpution to sedimentary deposits large quantities of gas hydrates, primarily methane, are being released into the atmopshere. More from Siberia than anywhere else where the permafrost is rapidly melting and releaseing the gas trapped beneath it. If it were all to be released it would be the equivalent of all the grenhouse gases that humans have released in the last 200 years.

Answer 2

(gas hydrates are solid ice like materials being loosely bonded compounds typically of methane and water)

I have seen reports that suggest massive tonnages of methane are bound up in hydrates not far bellow the ocean floor in various parts of the world. Clearly if the massive amounts of this methane (a strong greenhouse gas) were to be released it would add to the greenhouse effect.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/14342;jsessionid=baa9...

Answer 3

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