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Climate bomb off the Siberian coast?

Anthropogenic global warming -- there are few subjects that get my readers more riled up than this.

Some believe it's just a con-job being perpetrated on the public by a bunch of scientists seeking more funding, aided by some dim-witted politicians who'll believe anything that allows them to pass more laws and exert more control over an equally witless public.

Others are genuinely concerned that mankind has, or is about to become, the author of his own destruction by relentlessly pouring millennia worth of stored carbon into the atmosphere at a rate that the biosphere simply can't handle.

I can see both sides of the debate. There has been incompetence and deception on the part of the pro-AGW lobby but there are also some compelling arguments in favour of their claims.

But what if they're right. And what if disaster was just days away, rather than decades or centuries?

Well that's the prospect being raised by some pro-AGW advocates who are watching something they call a ticking timebomb in the Siberian seabed.

We're all aware that one of the key catalysts for global warming is the nasty CO2 that appears to be a side effect of all our activities these days. Well if you think CO2 is nasty well don't even think about releasing any methane -- that's 25 times as nasty.

However, if the doomsayers are correct, there is enough methane stored in the icy waters off the Siberian coast to make the effects of all the world's oil, coal and natural gas reserves look decidedly feeble.

As the ocean in this area warms (which it is doing at an unprecedented rate), that methane is slowly released. To date, most of it has been absorbed into the water and oxidised before it reached the surface. If that gas manges to reach the surface however, it contributes to the warming, effectively creating a positive feedback loop that begins to dramatically boost the rate of warming and the rate of gas-release.

Previous wisdom was that such a runaway event wasn't likely for at least another 100 years, by which time we should have this whole AGW thing under control, right?

Unfortunately the most recent studies indicate that the water in this area is already approaching saturation levels, inable to absorb and oxidise any more of the gas -- which means that raw methane may soon be injected into the atmosphere, kicking off the runaway cycle a full century ahead of predictions.

Once gas starts bubbling to the surface, some predict a 12-fold increase in the levels of atmospheric methane, and remember this is a substance that is 25-times more potent than CO2 when it comes to increasing the rate of global warming.

It kind of makes NZ's emissions trading tax look more than a little futile doesn't it?

If you're up for some hard-core reading, this document will provide you with some of the info about the present situation and the potential of this "methane timebomb".

Is it just a scare tactic?

More FUD from the pro-AGW brigade?

Or could we suddenly find ourselves on the back-foot and entirely out of time when it comes to our attempts to mitigate climate change?

Scary or laughable?

You tell me.

And what is happening to the huge amount of carbon that's been introduced into our ecosphere by the Gulf oil leak? Why haven't we heard anything about the effect this will have on our climate?

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