A note from The Mound of Sound with the header, The Tundra's a poppin' alerted me to this strange tale from the far north in Siberia, where a giant crater has appeared.
Says the Mound:
Russian helicopter crews stumbled across what appears to be an 80-metre wide crater in Siberia. They thought it might have been a meteor. Wrong. Russian scientists believe it was gas, probably methane, from melting permafrost that formed a bubble and finally blew up. The helo crew posted a great video of it on YouTube. No one has any idea how deep the hole is but it’s obviously very, very deep.
Makes you wonder if this is a fluke or if we’ll be seeing these in our high north before long. It also begs the question of how much highly pressurized methane must have been released into the atmosphere.
Maybe this dramatic event will... nah, this ominous sign of climatic disaster won't make any difference in the policies of our overlords.
Video's been copyright claimed.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, the last Greenhouse Earth event, it's theorized perhaps a tonne of CO2 and/or methane somehow escaped the oceans and the lands, and, well, caused the Earth to go completely greenhouse. Small or no polar ice caps.
But it's been ages and ages since that happened. Over 50 million years ago. And those researching still don't know enough about last the Greenhouse Earth to even properly model it. We're rapidly heading toward living in a world we're ill equipped to understand.
Thanks, Troy. I found another source for the video, so it should play now.
DeleteWhile it is true that we are rapidly heading into a world we are will-equipped to understand, a large part of the reason, I believe, is the willful ignorance that the corporate agenda is embracing and promoting, aided and abetted by its political handmaidens, of which the Harper government is but one of the more egregious examples
Like Oedipus, Lorne, we refuse to see the truth before our eyes. And we will suffer for our willful blindness.
ReplyDeleteThese are the times, Owen, when it grows more and more difficult to see hope for our future.
DeleteAnd I thought I'd be long dead and gone before this stuff happened. I wonder when we'll realize that our constant under-estimating the onset of climate change is far more dangerous than over-estimating these impacts.
ReplyDeleteWe're seeing all these feedback mechanisms coming into play. The tundra burning exposing the permafrost beneath that thaws and then releases methane into the atmosphere. The northern boreal forests burning at rates never previously known releasing soot into the air that blankets icesheets and accelerates melting. The melting of methane clathrates in the warming ocean waters. The energized polar jet stream that generates Rossby waves that trigger droughts and floods, freeze Atlanta while bringing 62F temperatures to a village in northern Alaska in February. Next year, maybe, we'll talk about measures to sharply cut our man-made greenhouse gas emissions - perhaps - while Canada remains determined to peddle as much high-carbon, synthetic petroleum as we can ship.
We always knew there were 'tipping points' at which our ability to avert catastrophic global warming would be lost as nature finished the job. Anecdotal evidence is coming in almost daily that suggests we may already be there.
And yet, as with the sinking Titanic, Mound, the (neocon) band plays on.
DeleteHere's another, darker take on what this means:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/16/1314501/-Mysterious-Siberian-Crater-Found-at-End-of-the-World-May-Portend-Methane-Climate-Catastrophe#?detail=email
I just checked out your link, Mound. To say that it is profoundly disturbing is an understatement. Yet I fear that the majority prefer a sweet lie to the bitter truth, a tendency that far too many major governments are willing to exploit.
Delete