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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Evening Open Thread: And the Planet… Belched

Thursday Evening Open Thread: And the Planet… Belched

by Anne Laurie|  August 7, 20148:08 pm| 39 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology, Decline and Fall

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“Don’t take life too serious – it ain’t nohow permanent.” From the Washington Post:

… By now, you’ve heard of the crater on the Yamal Peninsula. It’s the one that suddenly appeared, yawning nearly 100 feet in diameter, and made several rounds in the global viral media machine. The adjectives most often used to describe it: giant, mysterious, curious. Scientists were subsequently “baffled.” Locals were “mystified.” There were whispers that aliens were responsible. Nearby residents peddled theories of “bright flashes” and “celestial bodies.”

There’s now a substantiated theory about what created the crater. And the news isn’t so good.

It may be methane gas, released by the thawing of frozen ground. According to a recent Nature article, “air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted at the site on 16 July, says Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia. Plekhanov, who led an expedition to the crater, says that air normally contains just 0.000179% methane.”…

Some scientists contend the thawing of such terrain, rife with centuries of carbon, would release incredible amounts of methane gas and affect global temperatures. “Pound for pound, the comparative impact of [methane gas] on climate change is over 20 times greater than [carbon dioxide] over a 100-year period,” reported the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the Associated Press put it in 2010, the melting of Siberia’s permafrost is “a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.”…

***********
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    August 7, 2014 at 8:12 pm

    Panicking over bad news on climate change, I guess.

    AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you! AAAAARGH! Etc. …

  2. 2.

    Emma

    August 7, 2014 at 8:13 pm

    Ain’t the only place: The Arctic is doing it too.

  3. 3.

    scav

    August 7, 2014 at 8:15 pm

    @Emma: That was the thought that immediately bubbled to mind. . .

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    August 7, 2014 at 8:18 pm

    Thread went up just as was posting below, so repeating:

    If anyone interested in the impending major weather mess here (some bands of rain preceding the storm already falling), a recent report (from about 3 hours ago).

  5. 5.

    chopper

    August 7, 2014 at 8:20 pm

    Methane is even worse a greenhouse gas up in the arctic, unfortunately.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    August 7, 2014 at 8:23 pm

    @NotMax: I care!

  7. 7.

    Emma

    August 7, 2014 at 8:25 pm

    @scav: Pun! Pun! Run away! AAAEEEEIIIIII!

  8. 8.

    PsiFighter37

    August 7, 2014 at 8:26 pm

    I blame Obama. Also, Al Gore is fat.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    August 7, 2014 at 8:26 pm

    @JPL

    Appreciated.

    All set for hunker down mode. So long as the roof stays on, should be okay.

    Largest mall on the island closing at 3 p.m. today, all schools closed Thursday and Friday, bus service to be suspended by 5 this afternoon, airport closure likely around the same time, mayor has already put a state of emergency into place. Predicted power outages certainly a concern.

  10. 10.

    Emma

    August 7, 2014 at 8:31 pm

    @NotMax: That does NOT look good. You ok where you are?

  11. 11.

    Suffern ACE

    August 7, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    @NotMax: you aren’t one of those types who is thinking of surfing during the storm?

  12. 12.

    Hal

    August 7, 2014 at 8:37 pm

    Who cares? I will be raptured to heaven and won’t have to worry about this planet falling apart. Eat it suckers!

    It is gay, liberal Democrats who get raptured, right?

  13. 13.

    gbear

    August 7, 2014 at 8:47 pm

    I read that story and wondered if I should just retire from my job now instead of in 4 years. The work that I do has increasingly had to deal with building damage due to the blow down of trees by severe straight line winds. It’s starting to scare the shit out of me because some of the buildings that were repaired are being hit for the second time, and I’m wondering if I should just start visiting all the natural wonders of the US before they start disappearing. This has suddenly become very disturbing.

  14. 14.

    scav

    August 7, 2014 at 8:48 pm

    Current ear worm very apt: Bo Kaspers Orchester Världens ände and even matches the blue.

  15. 15.

    Citizen_X

    August 7, 2014 at 8:53 pm

    @Emma:

    Ain’t the only place: The Arctic is doing it too.

    Um, Siberia is in the Arctic. And Subarctic.

  16. 16.

    Emma

    August 7, 2014 at 8:54 pm

    @Citizen_X: Sorry. I meant the Arctic Ocean.

  17. 17.

    Citizen_X

    August 7, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    @Citizen_X: ETA: the methane bubbling in your link was in the Arctic Ocean, though.

    ETA ETA: I see you knew that!

  18. 18.

    Karen in GA

    August 7, 2014 at 8:58 pm

    Iggy ponders what it all means.

  19. 19.

    Karen in GA

    August 7, 2014 at 9:00 pm

    @NotMax: Nasty. Stay safe.

  20. 20.

    Anoniminous

    August 7, 2014 at 9:04 pm

    @NotMax:

    First time in recorded history a hurricane may hit Hawaii from the east. It’s also an angular hurricane and they are very, very, rare.

    So.

    Look on the bright side: you are about to experience an historic event.

  21. 21.

    raven

    August 7, 2014 at 9:08 pm

    @Karen in GA: It’s not easy bein green.

  22. 22.

    Fatcow

    August 7, 2014 at 9:14 pm

    Ahh yes. Methane… the evil culprit of the empending fartocalypse. More hot air from the balloon juice kool-aid machine.

  23. 23.

    Karen in GA

    August 7, 2014 at 9:15 pm

    @raven: It could be — just don’t let Iggy see you.

  24. 24.

    Comrade Dread

    August 7, 2014 at 9:23 pm

    Yep. Our kids and grandkids are well and proper fucked.

    Sorry. I hope that in due time when civilization collapses and everything descends into a mad anarchy where every man is against every other man, that they will have banded together just long enough to ensure that the Republicans were eaten first.

    Also, I’m hoping that worms evolve into giant sized beasts that can be ridden across the sands, because that would at least be a nice consolation prize for them.

  25. 25.

    Suffern ACE

    August 7, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    @Comrade Dread: I read that as “worms evolve giant sized breasts” which I don’t think they need, but which would be weirdly entertaining to behold.

  26. 26.

    Bob In Portland

    August 7, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    I guess Kiev and Washington don’t really want to investigate the MH17 crash site.

    So almost a month after the crash, why hasn’t Kiev released the air traffic controllers’ conversations with the airliner? Why hasn’t the US released its intel satellite photos of any contrails that those surface-to-air missiles would have made?

    Because?

  27. 27.

    Bob In Portland

    August 7, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    Also, Comcast sucks.

  28. 28.

    Mike S

    August 7, 2014 at 9:42 pm

    Is anyone else have trouble accessing Balloon-Juice with Google Chrome? I have had to use IE to read B-J for the last two days. Adblock didn’t make any difference. It just partly loads the page and then freezes.

    I really don’t want to have to use two browsers all the time. Is this an MS conspiracy maybe?

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    August 7, 2014 at 9:50 pm

    @Emma

    House is at about 1100 feet elevation, and have weathered Iniki and other storms here quite well.

    @Suffern ACE

    Heh. You can bet your sweet bippy I won’t.

    @Karen in GA

    Thanks.

  30. 30.

    Amir Khalid

    August 7, 2014 at 9:56 pm

    @Bob In Portland:
    Do you know if Ukraine and the US have provided that information to the MH17 investigators? That would serve the investigation better than publishing it. Alternatively, do you know that these two countries have refused to provide such information?

    Incidentally, the investigation already has the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which the Malaysian team persuaded the separatists to release. The latter will have a record of those conversations.

    Also, you are suggesting that the crash site being unsafe for investigators is due to the Ukrainian government wanting to hinder the investigation. The site is in a war zone, as everyone knows; if the separatists really want the investigation to exculpate them as soon as possible, maybe they should avoid fighting there.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    August 7, 2014 at 9:58 pm

    @Mike S:
    I use Firefox, and have had no problems accessing Balloon Juice. Maybe you could switch to that.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    August 7, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    @Mike S:

    There are problems with Chrome right now — people at my office used to use it for our web-based apps, but they had to switch back to Firefox or Safari. No idea what Google broke in Chrome, but they broke it good.

  33. 33.

    Schlemizel

    August 7, 2014 at 10:07 pm

    WE have not seen the real worst yet. No, I don’t mean that the hockey stick theory of things getting a whole lot hotter in a run away fashion. That will happen & cause a lot of upheaval & death. But the real disaster will happen when the dipshit finally understand how fucked we all are & DEMAND that extraordinary measures be taken. Several will be tried & they will be what ultimately wipes humans off the face of the earth.

  34. 34.

    lurker dean

    August 7, 2014 at 10:17 pm

    @Mike S: Yes, in another thread a few of us commiserated about problems with Chrome. I have to use a different browser for BJ now, it blows.

  35. 35.

    muddy

    August 7, 2014 at 10:31 pm

    @lurker dean: Me too, still.

  36. 36.

    Francis

    August 7, 2014 at 10:33 pm

    @Karen in GA: Karen: Iggy is awesome. I love the blog.

  37. 37.

    kmeyerthelurker

    August 7, 2014 at 11:22 pm

    gods this is bad news. This is how the second phase of the Permian Extinction began. Sterilized the planet for some 50k years. Le sigh.

  38. 38.

    dmbeaster

    August 8, 2014 at 10:57 am

    @Anoniminous:

    Most hurricanes that hit Hawaii come in from the east. They all originate pretty much due east of Hawaii off the Mexico coast, and a few are curving northward when they get out to Hawaii. But the typically storm track is from the east.

    Not to pick on the typo, but it is an “annular” hurricane. It refers to the very round and complete formation of clouds around the eye to some depth (i.e., no gaps or ragged portions).

  39. 39.

    S. cerevisiae

    August 8, 2014 at 11:48 am

    Hang on for the ride, kids! We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!

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