Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change
Abstract. Methane frozen into hydrate makes up a large reservoir of potentially volatile carbon below the sea floor and associated with permafrost soils. This reservoir intu-itively seems precarious, because hydrate ice floats in water, and melts at Earth surface conditions. The hydrate reservoir is...
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ftciteseerx:oai:CiteSeerX.psu:10.1.1.454.5590 2023-05-15T15:10:35+02:00 Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change D. Archer The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives 2007 application/pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.454.5590 http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf en eng http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.454.5590 http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf Metadata may be used without restrictions as long as the oai identifier remains attached to it. http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf text 2007 ftciteseerx 2016-01-08T06:06:13Z Abstract. Methane frozen into hydrate makes up a large reservoir of potentially volatile carbon below the sea floor and associated with permafrost soils. This reservoir intu-itively seems precarious, because hydrate ice floats in water, and melts at Earth surface conditions. The hydrate reservoir is so large that if 10 % of the methane were released to the at-mosphere within a few years, it would have an impact on the Earth’s radiation budget equivalent to a factor of 10 increase in atmospheric CO2. Hydrates are releasing methane to the atmosphere today in response to anthropogenic warming, for example along the Arctic coastline of Siberia. However most of the hydrates are located at depths in soils and ocean sediments where an-thropogenic warming and any possible methane release will take place over time scales of millennia. Individual catas-trophic releases like landslides and pockmark explosions are too small to reach a sizable fraction of the hydrates. The carbon isotopic excursion at the end of the Paleocene has been interpreted as the release of thousands of Gton C, pos-sibly from hydrates, but the time scale of the release appears to have been thousands of years, chronic rather than catas-trophic. The potential climate impact in the coming century from hydrate methane release is speculative but could be com-parable to climate feedbacks from the terrestrial biosphere and from peat, significant but not catastrophic. On geologic timescales, it is conceivable that hydrates could release as much carbon to the atmosphere/ocean system as we do by fossil fuel combustion. Text Arctic Climate change Ice Methane hydrate permafrost Siberia Unknown Arctic |
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Abstract. Methane frozen into hydrate makes up a large reservoir of potentially volatile carbon below the sea floor and associated with permafrost soils. This reservoir intu-itively seems precarious, because hydrate ice floats in water, and melts at Earth surface conditions. The hydrate reservoir is so large that if 10 % of the methane were released to the at-mosphere within a few years, it would have an impact on the Earth’s radiation budget equivalent to a factor of 10 increase in atmospheric CO2. Hydrates are releasing methane to the atmosphere today in response to anthropogenic warming, for example along the Arctic coastline of Siberia. However most of the hydrates are located at depths in soils and ocean sediments where an-thropogenic warming and any possible methane release will take place over time scales of millennia. Individual catas-trophic releases like landslides and pockmark explosions are too small to reach a sizable fraction of the hydrates. The carbon isotopic excursion at the end of the Paleocene has been interpreted as the release of thousands of Gton C, pos-sibly from hydrates, but the time scale of the release appears to have been thousands of years, chronic rather than catas-trophic. The potential climate impact in the coming century from hydrate methane release is speculative but could be com-parable to climate feedbacks from the terrestrial biosphere and from peat, significant but not catastrophic. On geologic timescales, it is conceivable that hydrates could release as much carbon to the atmosphere/ocean system as we do by fossil fuel combustion. |
author2 |
The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives |
format |
Text |
author |
D. Archer |
spellingShingle |
D. Archer Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
author_facet |
D. Archer |
author_sort |
D. Archer |
title |
Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
title_short |
Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
title_full |
Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
title_fullStr |
Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
title_full_unstemmed |
Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
title_sort |
methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change |
publishDate |
2007 |
url |
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.454.5590 http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Ice Methane hydrate permafrost Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Ice Methane hydrate permafrost Siberia |
op_source |
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf |
op_relation |
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.454.5590 http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf |
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Metadata may be used without restrictions as long as the oai identifier remains attached to it. |
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1766341587689799680 |