From the HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR OCEAN RESEARCH KIEL (GEOMAR) and the soon to be defunct “Arctic Methane Emergency Group” comes this good news.
Methane hydrate dissociation off Spitsbergen not caused by climate change
Study identifies post-glacial processes as main reason
Methane hydrates, also known as flammable ice, occur in many regions of the oceans. But only under high pressure and cold temperatures the product of methane and water forms a solid com-pound. If the pressure is too low or the temperature is too high, the hydrates decompose and the methane is released as gas from the sea floor into the water column. Spitsbergen has been experiencing severe outgassing for several years. Does the methane originate from decomposed methane hydrates? What is the cause of the dissociation of the hydrates? Warming due to climate change or other, natural processes? An international team of scientists has now been able to answer this question, which has been published in the international journal Nature Communications.
“Our investigations show that uplift of the sea floor in this region caused by the melting of the ice masses since the end of the last ice age is probably the reason for the dissolution of methane hydrate, which is already ongoing for several thousand years,” explains Prof. Dr. Klaus Wallmann, first author of the study by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. “The region has raised more than the sea level has risen, causing a pressure relief, so that the methane hydrates dissociate at the stability limit,” Wallmann continues.
For their investigations, the scientists carried out the expedition MSM 57 with the German research vessel Maria S. Merian led by the Research Center MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. The mobile drilling rig MARUM-MeBo70 was also used for this study. “With this special device, we were for the first time able to gain long sediment cores in this area,” explains Chief Scientist Prof. Dr. Gerhard Bohrmann from MARUM. “In these cores, we found significant amounts of freshwater that originate from decomposed hydrates,” Bohrmann continues.
The scientists were able to prove that this process started 8,000 years ago, thus it cannot be attributed to global warming of the past decades.
In addition to the geochemical analyses, results of a model simulation of ice distribution in the Arctic since the last ice age were used. “The results show that the rate of isostatic uplift at our drill sites after melting exceeded the eustatic sea-level rise throughout the post-glacial period,” explains Prof. Bohrmann. “In other words, the land has risen faster and stronger as the sea level rose, so that the pressure in the hydrate reservoir decreased and the hydrates finally became unstable,” adds Prof. Wallmann. Thus, the scientists argue that the dissociation of hydrates can be explained by this pro-cess, especially since the warming of sea water in deep layers of the ocean is still low.
The investigations off Spitsbergen show a methane release, which is not caused by climate warming. Further research efforts are necessary at other locations to investigate whether this applies also to other areas of the Arctic or even in middle latitudes.
###
Now that this is settled, one of the leaders of the “Arctic Methane Emergency Group”. Dr. Peter Wadhams, can go back to hunting for climate scientist murder conspiracies.
The paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02550-9 (open access)
Gas hydrate dissociation off Svalbard induced by isostatic rebound rather than global warming
Abstract
Methane seepage from the upper continental slopes of Western Svalbard has previously been attributed to gas hydrate dissociation induced by anthropogenic warming of ambient bottom waters. Here we show that sediment cores drilled off Prins Karls Foreland contain freshwater from dissociating hydrates. However, our modeling indicates that the observed pore water freshening began around 8 ka BP when the rate of isostatic uplift outpaced eustatic sea-level rise. The resultant local shallowing and lowering of hydrostatic pressure forced gas hydrate dissociation and dissolved chloride depletions consistent with our geochemical analysis. Hence, we propose that hydrate dissociation was triggered by postglacial isostatic rebound rather than anthropogenic warming. Furthermore, we show that methane fluxes from dissociating hydrates were considerably smaller than present methane seepage rates implying that gas hydrates were not a major source of methane to the oceans, but rather acted as a dynamic seal, regulating methane release from deep geological reservoirs.
Whew!! We dodged another one.
More cherry-picked data and faulty generalizations. Bear in mind that this is a specific location, so local factors may prevail. The other thing is that methane emissions due to up-lifting and global warming are not mutually exclusive. Both geological factors and warming water temperatures can both account for methane emissions. Note a previous study of the same area:
In 2009, a research team of 19 scientists wrote a paper in Geophysical Research Letters documenting how the past thirty years of a warming Arctic current due to contemporary climate change was triggering unprecedented emissions of methane from gas hydrate in submarine sediments beneath the seabed in the West Spitsbergen continental margin. Prior to the new warming, these methane hydrates had been stable at water depths as shallow as 360m. Over 250 plumes of methane gas bubbles were found rising from the seabed due to the 1C temperature increase in the current:
“… causing the liberation of methane from decomposing hydrate… If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of Teragrams of methane per year could be released into the ocean.”
So it would appear that not only local factors come into play but methodology plays an important role, too. I will point out that the 2009 study involved 19 scientist.
Could you provide a link to this paper, details? With all due respect, pointing out, that 19 scientists were involved, is an incomprehensible, vacuous statement. I may thus also ask how many drillships, core testing were involved? How many scientists differed with Einstein? Is this your logic?
“especially since the warming of sea water in deep layers of the ocean is still low.”
He must mean non existent. As long as there is ice at the poles, chilled water will sink, be distributed and be insulated from surface warmth by the thermocline. Water is not a very good thermal insulator, but for a thermocline about a km thick, a weak insulator becomes strong enough to insulate deep ocean cold from warm surface waters, in fact, this is what determines the thickness of the thermocline. Even at the equator, the deep ocean water below the thermocline is between 0 and 4C and will remain so until all the polar ice is gone 365 days per year. All that happens as the ocean surface warms is that the thermocline gets thicker.
The temperature of most of the water in the world oceans is unaffected by surface warmth and affected primarily by the PVT profile of water. The densest water at 4C sinks and as the pressure increases, the maximum density converges towards 0C.
Surface waters off the west and SE coasts of Svalbard Island are currently exhibiting a 10C temperature anomalies. That’s a lot of warming.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=4.31,77.46,1821/loc=5.653,77.849
SC,
I have little faith in this. No data source is cited nor is any scale shown, moreover; just to the left of your warm spot is a similar sized region with a very large cold anomaly. Besides, small local anomalies like this are far from indicative of the whole planet and could just be a snapshot from a weather front passing through.
Earth.nullschool.net is a wonderful tool, but; and this is a mighty but, much of what is shown on Earth.nullschool.net is based on models.
When possible, they do update modeled information with actuals. SST temperatures are not reliably measured, except where ships ply and near buoys. This information gets smudged to fill in.
Do pay attention.
From the Earth.nullschool.net’s “about page”:
Here are the caveats at the end of the age.
From the NOAA page regarding SST analyses:
Satellite measurements of the upper 10 microns of water… Ships and buoy temperatures. “NOAA Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature Analysis” derived from NOAA’s oddly adjusted SST via “Karl et al (2015)” remarkable claims that shipboard sea surface temperature measurements are more accurate than buoys and deployed temperature sensors.
Earth.nullschool.net is a wonderful visualization tool. Take all of the modeled information as advisory, not fact.
Consider how well NOAA’s models did not perform during the recent Eastern cold front and snow storm…
If NOAA plans to continue using the upper 10 microns of surface water molecules, they will need serious work to prove validity.
10 microns of water is about 36,363.6 water molecules deep.
– 10 microns = 100,000 angstroms. Water molecules are approximately 2.75 angstroms across.
One microliter, i.e. 1/millionth of a liter contains approximately 334,184,239,733,629,300.8. molecules of water.
One gram of water contains 1,000 microliters of water.
About the reliability of SST data.
“SC January 8, 2018 at 3:39 pm: Surface waters off the west and SE coasts of Svalbard Island are currently exhibiting a 10C temperature anomalies. That’s a lot of warming.”
and
“ATheoK January 9, 2018 at 2:13 am”
WR: ATheoK is right. Nullschool is giving a good indication but thanks to failure in the data that they get delivered, we can get odd results. Wrong results. In the case of Svalbard especially.
West of Svalbard plus southeast of Svalbard there are two very warm anomalies visible. They are already there for years!!!! I had some correspondence with Nullschool and in the program that is used by Nullschool there was no failure, it was the data and/or program of NOAA that was giving the odd results. I asked NOAA the 9th of May 2017 at 3:31 PM the following:
“On NOAA’s map http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/rtg_low_res/global_anomaly_oper0.png a very anomalous warm area is visible. There is another very anomalous hotspot south east of Svalbard and one south east of the island Hokkaido, Japan.
I followed the hotspots many months at https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-1.94,75.13,1865/loc=5.755,77.744 (Nullschool is using your data) and the hotspots don’t seem to change of location and don’t disappear. I have even seen pictures of the west Svalbard hotspot from previous years.
I think there are only two options:
1. there is at least one subsea volcano (west of Svalbard), possibly more on the other locations
2. there is a problem with the data resp. the software behind the data.
Anomaly’s seem to be consistent with the measured SST’s as presented by NOAA.
I would be pleased to get NOAA’s answer on the question which one of the two options is correct.”
WR: The next day I received the following answer:
” The less interesting answer is the correct one — the automated processing produced an erroneous analysis quite a while ago and has not been able to recover. That’s the answer on the Svalbard point(s). I haven’t noticed a persistent, extraordinary, anomaly SE of Hokkaido. This is a more challenging area to decide that something is erroneous. The Kuroshio current moves away from Japan in that area. Depending exactly where it makes the turn, very large anomalies can appear and persist for months — and be correct. That’s not the issue with Svalbard, where we already have a repair to the analysis prepared. We just cannot make corrections as fast as we want. We’re working with the systems (mostly the human systems involved) to make such repairs easier and faster.”
WR: eight months later, the huge anomaly’s (8-10 degrees C) are still there, on the same place off the coast of Svalbard: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=12.10,77.12,3000/loc=153.815,32.355
Southeast of Hokkaido I (again) see an anomaly of around 10 degrees if compared with the coldest eddies surrounding this warm eddie: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=148.57,37.76,3000/loc=153.815,32.355
I am wondering, how trustworthy the other NOAA data on SST are. Perhaps NOAA would like to give the answer themselves.
Wim,
The location of the largest SST anomaly aligns perfectly with the West Spitsbergen Current. The WSC surface temps are described as highly variable with the core temps usually being up to 6-8 degrees Celsius warmer, but as we have both noticed, this has been an ongoing situation at multiple locations around Svalbard for well over a year now.
“The temperature of the WSC is highly variable. It often depends on atmospheric conditions which are highly variable in their own right. In general, however, the warmest core temperature of the Atlantic Water in the WSC is around 2.75 °C near Svalbard to 2.25 °C near Franz Josef Land to 1.0 °C north of the new Siberian Islands. Salinity in this warm core is often greater than 34.95 psu.[6] Ocean temperature values for the beginning of the WSC are typically between 6 and 8 °C with salinities between 35.1 and 35.3 psu.[8]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Spitsbergen_Current
Just thinking that if these persistent anomalies are real then there may be something happening below the surface.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/02/hot-times-near-svalbard-volcanic-range-discovered/
SC, you write” The temperature of the WSC is highly variable”
WR: the hotspots shown off Svalbard are not variable, they remain at the same place and show constantly high surface temperatures that are nowhere else visible in the region. You have to go as far as west of Ireland to find the same temperatures…..
I also asked Ole Humlum who works in the region about this. He provided me with a link for a map of Met Norway. Met Norway based her maps on European Copernicus data. No high temperatures visible around Svalbard. I also had some correspondence with Met Norway as well.
Possibly most or all of the sources you mention are based on NOAA data…..
Here are two links to maps of Met Norway:
http://polarview.met.no/regs/general_20180109.png
http://polarview.met.no/highres/svalbard_20180109.png
If this host spot has always been there, then it’s not an anomaly. Anomalies are the differences from average.
BUT, that isostatic rebound, raising the level of the ocean floor will also slightly increase sea level rise simply by raising the base level. All that ocean water has to go someplace
Consider this:
The volume of the Earth’s mantle must be constant. When you are getting post-glacial rise in one location, you must be getting a slump or falling somewhere else.
IF:
We consider *just* ocean floor, then rise in one location == fall in another, and so not net change in sea level.
IF:
We consider land *and* ocean floor rise and fall, land (largely) rises, ocean floor (largely) falls, and you get a falling sea level overall.
BUT:
The overall area affected by post-glacial effects (rise and fall) is small compared to the overall area of all the world’s ocean basins. So the effect should be quite minimal.
“The volume of the Earth’s mantle must be constant. When you are getting post-glacial rise in one location, you must be getting a slump or falling somewhere else.”
Of course. The “holes” left by the weight of the ice are slowly filled back as rock flows back and the “fore-bulges” around the old icecaps are flattening out.
So the area around Hudson Bay and much of Canada is rising and most of the US is sinking. Not very much of course, but a few millimeters per year. It has been going on for 15,000 years and will probably continue for at least as long again. And there is not a thing anybody can do about it.
TonyL January 8, 2018 at 12:41 pm
“Consider this:
The volume of the Earth’s mantle must be constant. When you are getting post-glacial rise in one location, you must be getting a slump or falling somewhere else.”
Thanks Tony.
Do we know – as a fact, rather than as an assumption – that the parts of the mantle are truly incompressible?
If not, then you first proposition would seem to be perhaps a step too far.
And I have no idea whatever, either way – I’m a bum boatie – but merely raise the query.
Auto
@ Auto:
No, the the mantle is not going to compress. It is under a lot of pressure, and a little more will cause it to flow but not to squeeze into a smaller volume.
2) If the mantle compressed under load, it would decompress after the load was removed. You would not see adjacent areas sinking.
Of course, we see rising areas with adjacent areas falling in concert, in numerous locations. This is powerful evidence for constant volume.
Unless of course if the rebound is below sea level (under water) and the subsidence is above sea level (dry ground)
Not certain. We know pretty well what is going on in the northern hemisphere, but it is far from certain whether the ocean bottoms around Antarctica are net rising or net sinking. We don’t know enough about Antarctic glacial history, and we have too few GPS measurement point to tell.
The scientists were able to prove that this process started 8,000 years ago, thus it cannot be attributed to global warming of the past decades.
As if that’s ever stopped the warmists in the past.
This all BOL**X!!! Of course it is attributable to AGW! Along with everything else!
And Brexit.
And Trump leaving the Paris accords.
And the weather, and the cricket results – and probably Arsenal’s defeat by Nottingham Forest the other day . . . . .
Auto – no fan of Arsenal!
And Trump!
Did they just discover natural gas fields, as in
Drill, Baby, Drill?
Naw. With methane clathrates it’s mining.
If you look at that photo at the top of the article, that’s what the undersea clathrates look like, mud layered with ice. The methane seeps up through the sediment until it encounters some ice, where it gets squeezed into the ice crystals, cold temperature, high pressure. Once it gets locked in, the clathrate is very stable, so you can’t get the methane out in place. You have to bring the sediment up to where it’s warmer and under lower pressure, then capture the methane as it’s released.
For all the work required to mine the mud, I don’t see it being economical for a long time.
Phase diagram
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/methane_hydrate_phase_02.png
Everything you say is true.
But that is not my question.
Natural gas coming from *below* the clathrates layers?
Then it is Drill, Baby, Drill!
“show that uplift of the sea floor “……..
Climate Change Is Causing the Seafloor to Sink
https://earther.com/climate-change-is-causing-the-seafloor-to-sink-1821632553
Ocean Levels Aren’t Just Rising, the Sea Floor Is Sinking,
https://www.inverse.com/article/40005-geologists-sea-level-rise-barystatic-geocentric-seafloor-sinking
The Bottom of the Ocean Is Sinking
https://www.livescience.com/61328-ocean-bottom-is-sinking.html
wash……rinse….repeat
In the charts for Ocean Level Rise, isn’t there an adjustment for Geostatic Rebound? Aren’t the plates rising due to the lack of glacial weight? As I recall.
Yes, and that adjustment is pure guesswork. We know practically nothing about the most important area, the seabottom around Antarctica. We don’t even know the sign of the adjustment for sure.
“Yes, and that adjustment is pure guesswork.”
Very likely not even that good. The geologic and paleontologic evidence for substantial isostatic rebound of some parts of Eurasia and North America is pretty solid. Everything else is speculative. I wouldn’t even bet on the volume of the Earth being constant much less on any of the models of crustal deformation under pressure (There are at least two) being good enough to produce usable numbers for isostasy beyond the places where it can be measured. We currently don’t really know much of anything about the mantle except for its seismic properties.
They will still claim a melting permafrost methane bomb. When I point out that permafrost was far more extensive prior to the Holocene Thermal maximum than now without resulting in runaway warming……..crickets.
“Methane seepage from the upper continental slopes of Western Svalbard has previously been attributed to gas hydrate dissociation induced by anthropogenic warming of ambient bottom waters. Here we show that sediment cores drilled off Prins Karls Foreland contain freshwater from dissociating hydrates. However, our modeling indicates that the observed pore water freshening began around 8 ka BP when the rate of isostatic uplift outpaced eustatic sea-level rise.”
Modelling.
Difference here is that sort of modeling is more of a cause-effect linear progression type. Climate modeling has chaotic action built in, feedbacks, and many many more variables.
But, you got your dig in.
cause effect linear progression?
1. my bet is you didnt read the open access description of the modelling.
2. You seem to accept their simplified modelling.. That is, it doesnt bother you that they used a simple
model for a complex process.
3. Since you approve of simple models you should also accept Simple climate models, like a Energy
Balance model.. Effectively the kind of climate model that Nic Lewis uses in his work.
As for their … what did you call it “linear “progression” model??
here is a brief description.. Sounds more complex than a Energy Balance model
“A simple numerical model was set up to evaluate the pore water data. It uses concepts developed in previous transport-reaction models35, 43. The model calculates fractions of bulk volume occupied by pore water, methane gas, methane hydrate, and sediment grains. It considers that gas hydrates and gas bubbles fill the pore space without supporting the grain structure such that the porosity is not affected by hydrate dissociation. Steady state compaction is considered and the resulting exponential down-core decrease in porosity is prescribed with measured porosity data. Moreover, it is assumed that the excess pressure and volume created by hydrate dissociation induces rapid gas bubble ascent and gas seepage at the sediment surface as observed in the study area. Fluid flow is ignored and gas transport is treated as a non-local process that removes gas from the sediment column directly into the overlying water column to conserve the total sediment volume and maintain hydrostatic pressure in the sediment column. Phase densities change with sediment depth but are assumed to be constant over time. The model simulates temperature, and the dissolved components chloride, sulfate and methane, the endothermic dissociation of gas hydrate into freshwater and free gas, the dissolution of gas hydrates and gas bubbles in ambient pore fluid and AOM. Dissolved chloride is an inert tracer that is transported in the water phase by molecular diffusion only, whereas dissolved sulfate and methane are consumed by AOM. Mass balance equations for the three phases hydrate, gas, and pore water are formulated as:”
Bottom Line;
1. you liked the answer
2. you ingored that it is heavily dependent on modelling
3. you found a way to defend modelling without looking at the code or description.
4. you forgot that there are ALSO simple climate models.. you can basically ignore local chaos because it it a boundary problem..
5. If you believe that Climate is Chaotic and that c02 could have a small effect, then you cant rule out that
the small effect could have large consequences… because CHAOS.. omg.
Nope. Anyone who has visited Spitzbergen and has eyes to see with know that the area is rising. There are raised beaches everywhere.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/ancient-whale-bones-on-a-raised-beach-at-high-res-stock-photography/520960756
That bowhead whale didn’t walk uphill.
“Modelling.”
Airfix, Revell or Kiel Kraft?
don’t forget Monogram and Cox
Well Steven, it amazes me too that they needed models to show the land rising faster than the sea. It’s quite normal in areas that were most heavily glaciated, and it is very simply and very easily demonstrated by the presence of raised beaches. I spent a couple of minutes on google earth and saw raised beaches on Svalbard, just like the ones in Scotland and the ones around Hudson Bay (and doubtless in many other places, those are just the ones I’ve seen).
It’s a sad fact that so many earth scientists don’t bother to go out and look at the earth any more. She has so much to show you.
Quick, find another shibboleth!!
“In addition to the geochemical analyses, results of a model simulation of ice distribution in the Arctic since the last ice age were used. “The results show that the rate of isostatic uplift at our drill sites after melting exceeded the eustatic sea-level rise throughout the post-glacial period,” explains Prof. Bohrmann.”
Can’t modern scientists do or understand anything without computer models? Everybody who has visited Spitzbergen in the last 150 years and has a basic knowledge of geology knows this. There are raised beaches all over the place and nary a trace of transgressive deposits.
Methane clathrates are with just a few Siberian/Alaskan exceptions completely different than tundra methane. Methane bomb scares have used both sources without making the distinction. Most ocean clathrate will never get warm enough or depressurized enough to dissolve. Too deep, too cold. Most tundra methane is offset by growth of methanotrophs as it warms in summers. Same reason almost no methane reached the armosphere from the Macondo blowout, even though clathrate formation blocked and plugged the capture bell attempt.
“The region has raised more than the sea level has risen, causing a pressure relief, so that the methane hydrates dissociate at the stability limit (…)”
WR: Sea level rose some 120 meter since the last glacial. An extra pressure of 12 atmosphere which is only to be offset by a very huge oceanic warming – which does not occur or will occur.
This study is the end of the tale of the ‘oceanic methane bomb’. Oceans should warm enough to compensate the extra 12 atmosphere pressure from the last sea level rise in order to have the deep oceanic methane hydrates released.
What ‘could be a future danger is ‘cooling’, resulting in a fall of the sea level of 120 meter or more, that could (!) cause the release of the ‘methane bomb’. Which we would need a lot at those killing temperatures.
Isn’t methane a stabilizing factor in case of a dangerous life threatening cooling?
Or ‘the’ stabilizing factor?
WR: “Or ‘the’ stabilizing factor?”
WR: The above thought was rather spontaneous. If methane could be a stabilizing factor (a lower sea level would result in more methane and so in more warming) than every fall in sea level would trigger a release of methane. But, checked, ice core data on the contrary show an alignment of temperature and methane and not a reverse relationship which you would expect as methane hydrates would react on a fall in sea level by being released in a larger quantity. Oceanic gas hydrates seem to be rather stable.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/vostok_temperature_methane.png
Methane (as released by wetlands) even seems to be a strong and direct follower (!) of temperature.
During a glacial, because of a low evaporation and because of the low temperature there is a low average humidity. During a glacial the area of deserts is greatly extended. It might be expected that the role of methane releasing wetlands during a glacial is strongly diminished. This explains the strong correlation of methane and temperature: a temperature rise causes more humidity, more bio production, more wetlands and so more methane. And every fall in temperature does do the reverse.
Further reading: http://euanmearns.com/the-vostok-ice-core-temperature-co2-and-ch4/
No. If there is a large drop in ocean levels due to cooling, that water didn’t disappear. Rather, it would be a giant continental glacier barrelling down my front door…over the course of centuries…
As a matter of fact, methane CONCENTRATION, both global and North hemispheric accelerated after 2014. Does this mean that EMISSION, which has been considered as pretty stable before 2014, increased dramatically after 2014? Our paper ( http://jr.rse.cosmos.ru/article.aspx?id=1690&lang=eng)
( Eng. transl. available here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319671575_English_translation_of_a_published_paper_Evidences_of_accelerating_the_increase_in_the_concentration_of_methane_in_the_atmosphere_after_2014_satellite_data_for_the_Arctic?_iepl%5BviewId%5D=qwmVWHCV3bZjVFiwjQZejHSa&_iepl%5BprofilePublicationItemVariant%5D=default&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=prfpi&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A319671575&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle)
treats methane ANOMALIES to be proportional to emission. If this is true, then emission doubled between 2013 and 2016. Global surface temp-re warmed by 0.5 C during the same period. I think the authors should re-examine their results…