Glen McDonald

Post image for Should We Fear the Methane Time Bomb?

A favorite doomsday scenario of the anti-carbon crusade hypothesizes that global warming, by melting frozen Arctic soils on land and the seafloor, will release billions of tons of carbon locked up for thousands of years in permafrost. Climate havoc ensues: The newly exposed carbon oxidizes and becomes carbon dioxide (CO2), further enhancing the greenhouse effect. Worse, some of the organic carbon decomposes into methane, which, molecule for molecule, packs 21 times the global warming punch of CO2 over a 100-year time span and more than 100 times the CO2-warming effect over a 20-year period.

The fear, in short, is that mankind is fast approaching a “tipping point” whereby outgassing CO2 and methane cause more warming, which melts more permafrost, which releases even more CO2 and methane, which pushes global temperatures up to catastrophic levels.

In a popular Youtube video, scientists flare outgassing methane from a frozen pond in Fairbanks, Alaska. A photo of the pond, with methane bubbling up through holes in the ice, appears in the marquee for this post. Are we approaching the End of Days?

New York Times science blogger Andrew Revkin ain’t buying it (“Methane Time Bomb in Arctic Seas – Apocalyplse Not,” 14 Dec. 2011), nor does his colleague, science reporter Justin Gillis (“Artic Methane: Is Catastrophe Imminent?” 20 Dec. 2011).

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