This is the press release sent out by NSIDC today (sans image below). Instead of celebrating a two year recovery, they push the “ice free” theme started last year by Marc Serreze. There’s no joy in mudville apparently. My prediction for 2010 is a third year of increase in the September minimum to perhaps 5.7 to 5.9 million square kilometers. Readers should have a look again at how the experts did this year on short term forecasts. – Anthony
Image source: NOAA News
Arctic sea ice reaches minimum extent for 2009, third lowest ever recorded
CU-Boulder’s Snow and Ice Data Center analysis shows negative summertime ice trend continues
The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.
Atmospheric circulation patterns helped the Arctic sea ice spread out in August to prevent another record-setting minimum, said Meier. But most of the 2009 September Arctic sea ice is thin first- or second-year ice, rather than thicker, multi-year ice that used to dominate the region, said Meier.
The minimum 2009 sea-ice extent is still about 620,000 square miles below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000 — an area nearly equal to the size of Alaska, said Meier. “We are still seeing a downward trend that appears to be heading toward ice-free Arctic summers,” Meier said.
CU-Boulder’s NSIDC will provide more detailed information in early October with a full analysis of the 2009 Arctic ice conditions, including aspects of the melt season and conditions heading into the winter ice-growth season. The report will include graphics comparing 2009 to the long-term Arctic sea-ice record.
NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and is funded primarily by NASA.
For more information visit http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/, contact NSIDC’s Katherine Leitzell at 303-492-1497 or leitzell@nsidc.org or Jim Scott in the CU-Boulder news office at 303-492-3114 or jim.scott@colorado.edu.
Hi Alan Wilkinson
Sorry, Alan, but I don’t see a bright side, here.
Proponents of the business as usual approach to global warming generally assume linear models, and generally assume no synergy between warming mechanisms.
As the synergy between warming and wildfires and warming and bark bettle infestations shows us, though, synergistic effects abound in nature, and huge economic consequences can flow from very minor climate variations.
In the case of methane and CO2, a spike in methane concentrations could easily set off increased CO2 release from the oceans, which are a huge carbon reservoir. Increased warming will also lead to higher water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere, another greenhouse gas. If the conditions get so extreme as to remove the stabilizing effect of life itself on the climate, thermodynamic equilibrium of the earth’s climate would resemble the surface of Venus.
Nature is full of hard to model, nonlinear effects. What would be the effect of dumping a couple of trillion tons of methane into our atmosphere? Would it really lead to tipping the whole climate system over, and extinction of all life on earth?
No one knows, and I don’t want to find out.
We do know that release of methane from the hydrates has been catastrophic in the past, and could condemn both ourselves and future generations to a hellish future, which may or may not include extinction of ourselves or even all life on earth.
What we do know is that we can vastly increase the probability of continuing to receive the trillions of dollars per year in free services we receive from the biosphere by relatively minor and relatively inexpensive changes in our technology.
Nature is full of examples of extinction, as a penalty for not being adaptive and pragmatic.
Leland Palmer (20:42:30)
You illustrate my point rather well. You gave us 10 paragraphs of history of naturally occurring events. However, your last sentence was, in my opinion, a non sequitur. You are asking whether a natural disaster would be good for the economy and the answer is, of course, probably not.
However, my point was that we would cause enormous damage to the economy by spending a mind boggling sum of money every year in a doomed attempt to fix something which, in all probability, will never happen. Your argument appears to be along the lines of “we had to destroy the economy in order to save it” which does not strike me as being particularly sensible.
Leland Palmer:
Do you really want to risk getting injured or killed in your car? The odds of your getting killed in an automobile accident are astronomically greater than a completely speculative event that maybe, might possibly, have occurred some 250 million years ago.
But you still drive your car every day. Emitting tons of [harmless] CO2, driving everywhere even when you could bike it or hoof it. And as you’ve stated before, you have a rather large fossil fuel-using house where you could keep the temperature at 60° F in the winter by wearing a couple of sweaters. But I bet you don’t. Lecturing us is more fun.
You can not do anything about natural methane seeps except worry, like a kid worrying about the monster under the bed. Yet you could immediately stop driving your fossil fuel burning cars, but you won’t; in other comments you’ve said you’re not willing to do that. How do you rationalize that? I’m sure you’ll find a way, and that’s fine. But scolding us at the same time makes you a h[snip].
You can take a decisive personal action to [as you see it] actually benefit the environment. Instead, you refuse to give up your CO2 emitters [and don’t give us any of your “I’m doing a little bit, but that’s all I’m willing to do, I recycle, etc.”]. Then, you demand that the whole world must drop what they’re doing and pay attention to your frantic arm-waving over what is pure speculation about something that could have [but probably didn’t] happen a quarter of a billion years ago. More recently, the climate has been much, much warmer at times, with vastly more CO2… and no natural gas catastrophe occurred. Yet you want to do what? Increase spending by $trillions on an unprovable conjecture? While you are not even willing to trade your cars for bicycles??
Maybe your fantastic natural gas catastrophe will happen next Thursday — or in a quarter of a billion years. Or most probably, never. But you still drive your car, which could get you injured or killed at any time, and which [as you see it, anyway] is destroying Mother Earth. Those are some strange priorities, my friend.
Leland Palmer (20:42:30) :
Leland Palmer (08:45:11) :
I believe I’m beginning to see the light. You’re eloquent and closely reasoned descriptions of the incredible hazards facing the world as a consequence of the looming methane catastrophe have convinced me of the need for immediate action. To that end I have decided to commit all my efforts toward organizing a massive rally in Washington D.C., timed to coincide with the UN’s Copenhagen conference, where I and the assembled masses will stand united before the steps of the Capitol to demand that the politicians abandon their plans to spend hundreds of billions of our scarce dollars creating worthless pieces of paper, i.e. carbon credits, and almost equally worthless windmills and instead invest those resources in a massive Apollo- Manhattan project scale R&D program to develop with all possible speed the means to harvest those dangerous methane hydrates and convert them to much less hazardous CO2 by running the methane through dual cycle gas turbine generators to provide for the burgeoning demand for electricity in the developing world.
Of course, organizing such an event on such a short time scale will be quite expensive and, since my own economic circumstances are seriously reduced due to recent events in the economy, I was hoping I could count on you for a contribution of say, $10.000 to get the ball rolling. I know that seems like a lot of money, but hey, the fate of the planet is hanging in the balance it’s no time to be squeamish about costs.
Leland Palmer, Even if we are already past some tipping point (natural, anthropogenic, or whatever), it is not sensible to be alarmed. I encourage everyone to consider the threat an alarmed human race could pose to elements of the biosphere. Serenely & patiently, my focus will remain on understanding natural variation; we are nowhere near where we need to be on that front.
I will answer my own question re mauna loa co2 above where I said
“Can I repost Smokey’s earlier link which has passed everyone by in the latest flurry of co2 information:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/carbon-emissions-fall-with-global-downturn-report-20090921-fxqf.html
Is there an actual decline, or is it a slow down in the rate of increase of co2 as measured ar Mauna Loa?? Any actual figures or a graph anywhere?”
***
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Shows figures to August 2009. Can’t see anty decline myself just the usual rather too regular uplift. Can anyone else determine a trend?
( come on Joel, where are you-you’d be proud of me:) )
tonyb
Leland Palmer
That was a very interesting reference re Methane, thank you.
“Whether it is possible for humans to set one off is a good question, but do we really want to risk it?”
Yes. The long and the short of it is that in very many years ‘something’ ‘might’ ‘possibly’ happen but it is extremly unlikely.
I’m afraid as a scare that we need to worry about that comes way down my list (as does AGW)
If we were talking about abstract natural scares, a repeat of a Carrington event of 1859 would top my list.
As regards more immediate and concrete concerns, in the third world no doubt freedom from hunger, thirst, illness and poverty would figure highly. As for myself I’m concerned about the lights going off in the UK, so as we are awash with the stuff I would build immediately 10 c*a* fired power stations (sorry to swear in your internet home Anthony)
As usual history can give us a pointer to the present regarding leaking methane. From your post:
“On a calm day, you can see 20 or more ’seeps’ out across this lake,” said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze. ”
Fires from methane are as old as time and many countries have folk tales of them.The fires go by various names such as will o the wisp.
“Sightings of anomalous lights are perhaps the most plausibly ‘explained’ of fairy phenomena. Will-o-the-wisps, or corpse candles, are usually attributed to methane. Baron von Reichenbach was curious about lights reported in graveyards. One of his associates, Leopoldina Reichel, was able to see dancing lights which resembled “dwarfish kobolds”. She could swish them about with her skirt. Reichebach thought they were a result of chemicals from the dead. Elf fire, or ignis fatuus (‘foolish fire’), is a flame-like phosphorescence caused by combusting gases from decaying vegetable matter. Those pursuing ignis fatuus are evaded. In Russian folklore these wandering fires are the spirits of stillborn children flitting between heaven and hell.”
Your researcher needs to be less credulous and look at the history of other cold countries where these events are common.
tonyb
Bart Verheggen
Thanks for coming back to me with further information.
Following the exchange of emails here you will presumably now want to correct your web site regarding residency time of co2? If you follow your own link you will see the author has a book to sell and not even the IPCC agree with him.
You might also like to carry my 16:55:48 which gave seven links of the historic oscillations of arctic ice, demonstrating the considerable variability and that todays levels are nothing out of the ordinary, declining from a cyclical peak in around 1979.
In that way your visitors can see the alarmist position you take in a rather more rounded context. Hey! Why not put a link to this web site as well?
tonyb
Robert E. Phelan,
You accuse me of cherrypicking, but perhaps you care to check where I entered the conversation: In this post, Anthony mentioned that the Arctic sea ice was on a “two year recovery”, which clearly is a form of cherrypicking. Even more so, since even the data of the past two years are below the long term trend of the past 30 years. That claim is subsequently attacked, so I give my sources. Your accusation should not be directed at me, I’m afraid.
Smokey,
Guess I’m one of those evil people who wants to lower your standard of living, eh? Thanks for a good laugh.
Bart Verheggen (13:12:09),
Glad I made you laugh. That’s better than having the truth hurt, isn’t it?
As I’ve said in the past, it’s a very strange value system displayed by multiple people that read and post on this website.
Any sort of change, or loss of income for the fossil fuel industries is portrayed as catastrophic, and something that is inconceivable.
Continuing on our present course, a course that has a very high probability (not a low probability) of disaster, in my opinion, is framed as being a minor risk, when it is actually a huge risk, both in consequences and in probability.
When a lawyer is employed to get off a client, if one argument fails he will simply switch to another. The bottom line of his arguments is that his client must go free or receive a low sentence. The arguments change, but the final conclusion of all of his arguments is that his client should receive the minimum damage the lawyer can achieve.
When I respond to the arguments presented on this site, I often get the feeling that I am responding to people who are acting like lawyers, not like scientists. The bottom line of all of these threads is that appropriate adaptation to climate change will doom us to poverty. The arguments change, but the final conclusion is always the same. It is also a wrong conclusion, IMO. Current climate legislation is a small start, but it is a start, and is moving in the right direction.
Responding to specific points:
Hi Dave:
How refreshing. A positive solution!
Unfortunately, it won’t be all that easy, and release of methane from hydrates will likely kill the oceans by increased acidification. Try as we might, much of the methane from these hydrate deposits will escape, and add to ocean acidification, by being oxidized into CO2. Eventually, if it gets bad enough, it will go directly into the atmosphere, and at this point, might ignite.
Yes, we should harvest these methane plumes, and burn the methane via oxyfuel combustion to generate electricity, then deep inject the CO2 into deep basalt strata below the floor of the ocean. Below 2.7 km, the CO2, being compressible, becomes denser than water, which is much less compressible. So it would have negative bouyancy, and would tend to sink rather than rise. It would also react chemically with the basalt to form carbonates. And being this deep below the ocean floor, escape of deep injected CO2 would be unlikely in any case, and would tend to form CO2 hydrates, which might delay it getting into the oceans themselves.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/29/9920.full.pdf+html
The methane hydrate maps are fragmentary, but methane hydrate deposits lie on continental shelves around every continent. One good place to start hydrate remediation might be the hydrate ridge area, off the pacific northwest. Selling the electricity from burning the methane could pay for the scheme, and fund the installation of the deep injection wells, which could also deep inject CO2 from carbon negative biomass/CCS power plants based on land.
But, we are not going to be able to capture all of the methane. Its like trying to catch soup in a basket, some will dribble through.
My 12 19 44
Curioser and curioser.
The BBC no less has just reported a drop in co2. Can anyone see it?
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
tonyb
[Ps-s-s-st! Leland! That methane monster is still lurking under your bed. And there’s another one with it, a coal monster!]
I grew up in northeast Ohio. As kids we knew where the natural gas [methane] seeps were. They were all over. You could throw a match in one and the gas would burn for days, until the next rain or until someone called the fire department. These vents didn’t just start recently. I suspect they’ve even been there in pre-SUV times.
This happens all over the world, all the time. It’s completely natural. Then there’s coal:
There are unstoppable coal fires burning all over the world. Almost all of them were started by people burning something over an exposed seam.
The Centralia, Illinois coal fire has burned non-stop for over forty seven years. It can not be extinguished, and it is still growing. Someone ignited an exposed coal seam:
Coal plants scrub out the ash and other particulates. What is emitted is only clean, beneficial CO2. But these underground coal fires continue to grow, and they put huge amounts of smoke and ash into the atmosphere 24/7/365, all over the world. And they can burn for centuries, growing constantly larger.
This is a real problem, right now, Leland, not some wild-eyed speculation about an event that probably didn’t even happen a quarter billion years ago, and won’t happen in the next quarter billion years.
Just thought I’d give you something else to worry about. And you know, for well under one per cent of the proposed $trillions for the climate change silliness, all of these fires could be extinguished around the world. Because with the will, it can be done; in ten years we ramped up and went to the Moon.
But that won’t happen. Why? Because it’s like roofing a house. You work at it and work at it, and then suddenly you’re done, and the fires are out. But globaloney warming isn’t at all about science, or it would actually be seriously debated. It’s really all about money. Our money, and how they can get their kleptocratic hands deeper into everyone’s pockets.
Demonizing CO2 is an open-ended gravy train, not simply a challenging job to do and be done with it. That’s why they don’t care about gigatons of raw coal pollution. They want to tax the air you breathe.
Leland Palmer (08:45:11) :
I guess that’s a no on the ten grand then.
Once more from the top.
1] As I’ve said in the past, it’s a very strange value system displayed by multiple people that read and post on this website.
Any sort of change, or loss of income for the fossil fuel industries is portrayed as catastrophic, and something that is inconceivable.
I can’t speak for everyone here, but as for me, I see little prospect that the fossil fuel industry will suffer any loss of income from any of this, for the simple reason that corporations don’t pay taxes, they collect them and if history is any indication they will not only collect all new taxes in this boondoogle with enthusiasm, but will use the cover of the changes to slip a little sugar in their pocket for themselves. In all likelihood their profits will increase which is probably why so many of them are touting Waxman-Markey.
2] Continuing on our present course, a course that has a very high probability (not a low probability) of disaster, in my opinion, is framed as being a minor risk, when it is actually a huge risk, both in consequences and in probability
Perhaps you’d like to share your work with the class on this calculation.
3] When I respond to the arguments presented on this site, I often get the feeling that I am responding to people who are acting like lawyers, not like scientists. The bottom line of all of these threads is that appropriate adaptation to climate change will doom us to poverty. The arguments change, but the final conclusion is always the same. It is also a wrong conclusion, IMO. Current climate legislation is a small start, but it is a start, and is moving in the right direction.
If you want to be responded to in a scientific manner, you might want to consider couching your arguments in scientific terms.
The bottom line of most of the comments here is that spending vast amounts on programs which will achieve almost nothing for the climate is stupid and if you believe otherwise perhaps you could share a few historic examples where restricting the supply of energy and dramatically raising its cost has had a positive effect on a society. Your final point that this is considered only a small start is not a real positive one for your argument.
As for the rest, it’s been a while since I read anything on attempts to come up with plans to harvest methane hydrates so I’m working off memory here, but as I recall the plans fell apart not so much because it was impossible to accomplish, but because it wasn’t economically feasible and as I recall the numbers involved, a fraction of what is being proposed to subsidize wind and solar would cover the capital shortfall nicely. Your carbon sequestration schemes seem to be awfully Rube Goldbergish as well, much more complicated than necessary. A more simple plan, if oceanic PH is shown to be a real problem, would be to turn all that captured carbon into Alka-Seltzer, and put a device on all ships to spread it across the oceans as they travel about. Plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is.
You probably think I’m not taking your concerns seriously, you’d probably be right.
i
Smokey (09:28:13) , 21 September,
Smokey, the white cliffs of Dover were deposited when CO2 levels in the atmosphere were 10-12 times higher than today, by the same species which lives even today:
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/soes/staff/tt/eh/
That is the reason why I don’t think that high levels of CO2 have much effect on ocean acidification or calcite deposits. But the return of slightly higher CO2 levels is not from the solution of deposits, it is from the CO2 present in the deep ocean layers. The deposits are only part of the (negative) feedback of higher CO2 levels and are of the slow type.
I don’t think that we will use all oil and most of coal in a short time, as that will increase in price, while the alternatives between now and 50-100 years will become cheaper in comparison. What I described is what the IPCC uses to “project” the future. But that is based on the worst case scenario’s, which are very unlikely to develop. The effect of these scenario’s is scaring, just because these are so far out of reality. Thus if you hear of “CO2 is forever”, that may be right, but that is only for a small, inconsequent fraction of the emissions.
The rest is politics, where I have my own opinion, but I am far more interested in the science than in the politics…
Leland Palmer,
For your interest: despite the increase in temperature, CH4 levels in the atmosphere didn’t increase significantly in the past decade. It seems that the natural increase is compensated by the decline in human emissions (probably due to a conversion to “dry” rice cultivation). See the “carbon tracker” of NOAA and click on Barrow, at the edge of the Alaskan tundra and fill in CH4 to show the trend since the measurements started:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
Further, temperatures during the previous warm period (the Eemian) were globally 1-2 K warmer than today and over 5 K warmer in the Arctic regions, with forest growing up to the Arctic ocean (where now only tundra grows). The methane level then was not more than 600-700 ppbv over a period of 10,000 years… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/eemian.html
Thus forget all these alarming scenario’s. These are all based on computer models which fail to even correctly “predict” the current 10-years halt of temperature increase…
Bart Verheggen
As Ferdinand states;
“The effect of these scenario’s is scaring, just because these are so far out of reality. Thus if you hear of “CO2 is forever”, that may be right, but that is only for a small, inconsequent fraction of the emissions.”
As previously mentioned you will no doubt want to change your web site content to reflect this reality so any casual browsers aren’t misled by the paper yor cited which comes from someone with a book to sell.
tonyb
Paul Vaughan: “I encourage everyone to consider the threat an alarmed human race could pose to elements of the biosphere.”
The threat is not even hypothetical, it’s already happening: Short-sighted political regulations encouraging the use of biofuels were partly responsible for the skyrocketing of palm oil prices from about 2 years ago, which accelerated the destruction of Indonesian and Malaysian rain forests (the prices plummeted in the wake of the financial crisis, but they’re on the rise again).
Anyone who has a genuine interest in the ecological well-being of our planet should avoid drinking the AGW Kool Aid and rationally look at what the AGW hysteria may cause: Both the direct consequences of wrong political decisions and the direct humanitarian (and indirect environmental) consequences of halting the development of third world countries. And least but not last, the long-lasting opinion damage this could do, both with regards to environmental issues and the public’s trust in science.
Ferdinand,
“Further, temperatures during the previous warm period (the Eemian) were globally 1-2 K warmer than today and over 5 K warmer in the Arctic regions, with forest growing up to the Arctic ocean (where now only tundra grows). ”
And global average sea level was about 6 metres higher than now. Sounds quite alarming to me.
Hi all-
Most of our “don’t worry, be happy” assumptions and approach to life are about to change, IMO. These are the assumptions and attitudes of creatures who have been freeloading on a stable, self-regulating climate system.
Now, like a finely tuned machine with a wrench thrown into it, our self-regulating climate system is starting to tear itself apart, in an ever-widening series of vicious cycle positive feedbacks. The human race is in trouble- we have never seen trouble like this, ever before, in my opinion.
My concerns are not just my concerns. They are the concerns of a growing number of people, and one ominous trend is that the people who are most educated and informed about the subject are the most concerned.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html
The “don’t worry, be happy” attitude displayed on this site is actually a minority opinion, at least among those who are informed about the subject.
like a finely tuned machine with a wrench thrown into it, our climate appears to be destabilizing.
The human grief and anguish that is going to cause, apparently, unless drastic action is taken, have barely started, I think.
Here is a link to an interview with James Lovelock, one of the real experts and intellectual leaders in the field of the climate as a self-regulating system.
Lovelock was right, IMO, except that he isn’t worried enough about the effects of methane release from the hydrates on the climate system:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock
REPLY: But Now Lovelock says “we shouldn’t have fixated on Carbon Dioxide” Even prophets change their minds. -A
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6207647/Climate-change-campaigners-should-not-have-fixated-on-carbon-dioxide.html
Leland Palmer said:
“Now, like a finely tuned machine with a wrench thrown into it, our self-regulating climate system is starting to tear itself apart, in an ever-widening series of vicious cycle positive feedbacks. The human race is in trouble- we have never seen trouble like this, ever before, in my opinion.”
What do you believe these vicious cycle positive feedbacks to be?
tonyb
Bart Verheggen
You seem to have accidentally omitted the rest of the quote:
“Researchers expect to find that much of the ice persisted even when temperatures were 5C higher than today, offering hope that much of it will remain in a world of manmade climate change.”
tonyb
TonyB,
Sounds like you take comfort in the remaining ice on Greenland and the Antarctic, even in the Eemian. Perhaps only ~8% of the total amount of land ice melted, but it still caused a 6 meter sea level rise. Very comforting indeed, especially when taking into account that the global average temperature was only about 1-2 K higher than it is now; we will very likely surpass that temperature this century. The question of course is: How long will we remain above that temperature, and will the icesheets remain stable for that time period? I don’t know. Do you? Does not knowing comfort you?
Hi Anthony-
Well, I didn’t see that quote in the link you provided, but I’ll take your word for it. It seems likely that Lovelock was talking about controlling emissions of black carbon soot, which make a sizable contribution to global warming, and which might be easier to control than CO2.
I strongly doubt that Lovelock has changed his mind about the role of CO2 in climate change in any fundamental way, which is seen by the experts as the largest contributor to global warming.
Likely, he just sees the black carbon as easier to control than the CO2, not a bigger contributor to global warming. The article linked to seems to be about going after the “low hanging fruit” when fighting global warming which the article says is black carbon.
Sure, let’s go after the black carbon.
But let’s convert the coal fired power plants to enhanced efficiency “carbon negative” biomass plus carbon capture and storage power plants, too, and go after CO2 emissions in a big way.
We can’t turn the corner on the developing runaway positive feedbacks we are starting to see in the tropical and boreal forests and the polar regions without controlling CO2 emissions, I think.
Hi Tony B:
To the best of my knowledge, the positive feedback cycles mentioned most often are wildfires in the tropical and boreal forests, the melting Arctic icecap/ albedo feedback, release of methane and CO2 from melting permafrost, release of dissolved CO2 from warming oceans into the atmosphere, increases of water vapor in the atmosphere, and release of methane from the methane hydrates. A positive feedback sometimes mentioned in relation to the release of methane from the methane hydrates is increased destruction of the hydroxyl radical by oxidation of methane, leading to longer equilibrium lifetimes of methane in the atmosphere.