The Methane Problem

[G.A]

'Methane fields on a scale not seen before' - researcher
More than 100 fountains, but could be 'thousands'
Could cause rapid climate change

The Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted a survey of 10,000 square miles of sea off the coast of eastern Siberia.
They made a terrifying discovery - huge plumes of methane bubbles rising to the surface from the seabed.
'We found more than 100 fountains, some more than a kilometre across,' said Dr Igor Semiletov, 'These are methane fields on a scale not seen before. The emissions went directly into the atmosphere.'



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2073686/Fountains-methane-1-000m-erupt-Arctic-ice--greenhouse-gas-30-times-potent-carbon-dioxide.html#ixzz1iMWIBlhF

I am no expert on the matter but events like this, in the past, have been credited to mass extinctions. One such event has been named "The Great Dying".

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/28jan_extinction/

I'm looking forward to some input from people knowledgeable on the matter. What are the implications to climate change and diffusion of oxygen in the atmosphere? Is the size of this particular release significant? If not, what is a significant amount?

[WhiteFeather]

First they said it was the cow farts causing global warming, so they had to move on to bigger and better things. Smells like a good B/S fear porn story to me. No pun intended.

[Flash]

First they said it was the cow farts causing global warming, so they had to move on to bigger and better things. Smells like a good B/S fear porn story to me. No pun intended.

If I am not mistaken, it is very well know that the Artic permafrost contains zillion tons of methane and that melting the permafrost (climate changes) releases it, making the climate changes still yet hotter, a vicious circle in a way: planet get hotter (whatever the initial cause is does not matter), permafrost melts releasing methane that in turn makes the planet still hotter. Hardly an hoax, it can be measured and it is, it has increased many times lately. Polar bears also have survival problems because their icefishing season is too short now. The first places the warming of the planet is felt is in its coldest places, the Artic and Antartic.

Incredulity as to the cause of warming is understandable, but the effect of the planet's warming cannot be argued. Just Canadian's winters the last few seasons are extremely mild on Eastern Canada.


Arctic methane release is the release of methane from seas and soils in permafrost regions of the Arctic, as part of a more general release of carbon from these soils and seas. Whilst a long-term natural process, it may be exacerbated by global warming. This results in a weak positive feedback effect, as methane is itself a greenhouse gas. The feedback is weak, however, because methane is well-mixed globally: the local release leads to a warming spread over the whole globe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_release


Methane Time Bomb in Arctic Seas – Apocalypse Not
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Dec. 19, 1:44 p.m. | Updated below |
A very important research effort has been under way during recent summers in the warming, increasingly ice-free shallows off Russia’s Siberian coast. There, an international array of scientists has been investigating widening areas of open water that are disgorging millions of tons of methane each year.

Given that methane, molecule for molecule, has at least 20 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide, it’s important to get a handle on whether these are new releases, the first foretaste of some great outburst from thawing sea-bed stores of the gas, or simply a longstanding phenomenon newly observed. -New York Times

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/methane-time-bomb-in-arctic-seas-apocalypse-not/

Videos from different Northern countries

The explanantion of why there is methane caught in the permafrost


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wofv9o0j1Ew

A video of the 1/3 increase of methane emission in the last 5 years and the impact in the increase of temperature


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8WsIr7m-4w&feature=related

A Swedish video saying the methane emission has greatly increased in Sweden and Russia but it is not effecting the atmosphere yet.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGXi_Ehffz4

[wolf_rt]

Not looking good... Id say it's time to find a big hill. Or at least get your spiritual affairs in order.

[WhiteFeather]

First they said it was the cow farts causing global warming, so they had to move on to bigger and better things. Smells like a good B/S fear porn story to me. No pun intended.

If I am not mistaken, it is very well know that the Artic permafrost contains zillion tons of methane and that melting the permafrost (climate changes) releases it, making the climate changes still yet hotter, a vicious circle in a way: planet get hotter (whatever the initial cause is does not matter), permafrost melts releasing methane that in turn makes the planet still hotter. Hardly an hoax, it can be measured and it is, it has increased many times lately. Polar bears also have survival problems because their icefishing season is too short now. The first places the warming of the planet is felt is in its coldest places, the Artic and Antartic.

Incredulity as to the cause of warming is understandable, but the effect of the planet's warming cannot be argued. Just Canadian's winters the last few seasons are extremely mild on Eastern Canada.


Arctic methane release is the release of methane from seas and soils in permafrost regions of the Arctic, as part of a more general release of carbon from these soils and seas. Whilst a long-term natural process, it may be exacerbated by global warming. This results in a weak positive feedback effect, as methane is itself a greenhouse gas. The feedback is weak, however, because methane is well-mixed globally: the local release leads to a warming spread over the whole globe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_release


Methane Time Bomb in Arctic Seas – Apocalypse Not
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Dec. 19, 1:44 p.m. | Updated below |
A very important research effort has been under way during recent summers in the warming, increasingly ice-free shallows off Russia’s Siberian coast. There, an international array of scientists has been investigating widening areas of open water that are disgorging millions of tons of methane each year.

Given that methane, molecule for molecule, has at least 20 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide, it’s important to get a handle on whether these are new releases, the first foretaste of some great outburst from thawing sea-bed stores of the gas, or simply a longstanding phenomenon newly observed. -New York Times

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/methane-time-bomb-in-arctic-seas-apocalypse-not/

Videos from different Northern countries

The explanantion of why there is methane caught in the permafrost


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wofv9o0j1Ew

A video of the 1/3 increase of methane emission in the last 5 years and the impact in the increase of temperature


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8WsIr7m-4w&feature=related

A Swedish video saying the methane emission has greatly increased in Sweden and Russia but it is not effecting the atmosphere yet.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGXi_Ehffz4

Whats your perspective on cow flatulence.

[Flash]

Whats your perspective on cow flatulence.

It is a dam HUGE cow lol

Do not want to be near its behind. We would be blown away.:eek:

[wolf_rt]

How's the Galactic federation going to fix this?

[G.A]

It is a dam HUGE cow lol

Do not want to be near its behind. We would be blown away.:eek:

I'm interested in how much methane release the atmosphere can tolerate before it begins to change its composition. I know methane in caves can kill people due to the lack of oxygen, so how significant is this amount of methane being released into the atmosphere?

[wolf_rt]

I'm not sure (i doubt anyone is) what effect this will have on the 'breathability' of the atmosphere... but it is a given that this will increase global warming which will leave the world looking like this:

The drama is that this is a feedback loop (the hotter it gets, the faster the ice melts, the more methane is released, the hotter it gets.) this can cause VERY rapid changes.

http://www.zetatalk.com/poleshft/pmelt.gif

shortly after that we will have an ice age, which last time happened fast enough to snap freeze the wooly mammoths mid chew.

The last time this happened, it caused the extinction of 70% of life on land and 90% of life in water (supposedly)

[Flash]

It is a dam HUGE cow lol

Do not want to be near its behind. We would be blown away.:eek:

I'm interested in how much methane release the atmosphere can tolerate before it begins to change its composition. I know methane in caves can kill people due to the lack of oxygen, so how significant is this amount of methane being released into the atmosphere?

From what I read, they do not know yet. The worry comes from the Notrhern Russia seas that are very shallow and are being warmed up by warmer rivers. Methane was not expected to be released from there at all, yet it is, and the amound of methane in those shallow seas if absolutely enormous.

Apart from this, it seems that scientists are still lost in potentialities.

[DreamsInDigital]

shortly after that we will have an ice age, which last time happened fast enough to snap freeze the wooly mammoths mid chew.
More than just Wooly Mammoths, they're finding all sorts of creatures that were flash frozen, and that the area that is currently frozen was tropical. Mmm maybe those stories of Hyperborea and Thule were true after all. This is a NORMAL warming cycle for the planet. Then it will cool off again.

As for the "what will the galactic federation do" question? We can ask the Pleiadians, or was it the Annunaki. But, anyway so I've been told/heard/ read etc. The last Floods were caused by one of the Alien Races hauling the earth out of it's closer orbit, and adding 5 days to it's rotation. And, that originally it was MUCH closer to Mars and covered in ice.

[Vitalux]

*Yawn*
More propaganda garbage about climate change and ....fear mongering.

I am not trying to attack the OP for posting this article. I am just reminding folks that we have to drop our FEAR and start to read information that will RELAX us.
It is the MEDIA that is hell bent on keeping us in fear...
which is preventing us from using the full potential of our brains.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgh2ayLE5Nqlx5dsUhip8BS1qJTwFz2o7md9mm4LU70dxTUx-o

[Calz]

Whats your perspective on cow flatulence.

Picture is worth a thousand words ... or so they say :smokin:


12423

[wolf_rt]

*Yawn*
More propaganda garbage about climate change and ....fear mongering.

I am not trying to attack the OP for posting this article. I am just reminding folks that we have to drop our FEAR and start to read information that will RELAX us.
It is the MEDIA that is hell bent on keeping us in fear...
which is preventing us from using the full potential of our brains.

I'm not living in fear gary... i am infinite consciousness after all... that said, i'm also not buying any waterfront property.




As for the "what will the galactic federation do" question? We can ask the Pleiadians, or was it the Annunaki. But, anyway so I've been told/heard/ read etc. The last Floods were caused by one of the Alien Races hauling the earth out of it's closer orbit, and adding 5 days to it's rotation. And, that originally it was MUCH closer to Mars and covered in ice.

I heard something similar....F'ing aliens.

[araucaria]

Once again, the OP is predicated on the notion that greenhouse gases cause global warming, when they are merely correlated, and with a considerable time lag..

See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-climate-theory-may-confuse-cause-and-effect/#more-53875

Polar melting has to be viewed globally. When it increases in the north it is decreasing in the south and vice versa. See the above site for more details.
:)

[G.A]

*Yawn*
More propaganda garbage about climate change and ....fear mongering.

I am not trying to attack the OP for posting this article. I am just reminding folks that we have to drop our FEAR and start to read information that will RELAX us.
It is the MEDIA that is hell bent on keeping us in fear...
which is preventing us from using the full potential of our brains.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgh2ayLE5Nqlx5dsUhip8BS1qJTwFz2o7md9mm4LU70dxTUx-o

I also don't live in fear of this, or anything else for that matter. I just found myself interested in learning more about this natural phenomena. Actually gave me a giggle first when I realized earth let off a fart! Boys will be boys eh?


What is the source of the methane in the ice? Is it due to decomposed organic matter or is there a source deeper in the earth? I know there are many planets with a large amount of methane in their atmosphere.

[Hazel]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2719727/Were-f-ked-Climate-change-catastrophe-mankind-study-shows-methane-leaking-Arctic-Ocean-scientist-warns.html#v-3720932334001

[ghostrider]

Right on ...

[ghostrider]

http://theyflyblog.com/update-methane/08/08/2014

[Bill Ryan]

-------

Dear All,

There's a very critical, and under-reported, issue which we should all be aware of: METHANE.

Do please take a look at these five videos. This very problematic topic has been mentioned to me by two well-informed insider sources (once in 2007, and again just a month ago), and I take it very seriously.

The various agencies — who do not make everything public! — are completely aware of the situation. We'll hear more about this as time goes on, and right now may benefit by being a little more informed than we may be currently.


1) Arctic Methane Emergency: Economy vs. Ecology


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks

2) COP20: Global Arctic Methane Emergency #1 (12-4-2014 in Lima Peru)
First press briefing of the Arctic Emergency Methane Group (AMEG) held on Dec. 4, 2014 at the 20th annual Conference of the Parties (COP 20) for the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Lima, Peru.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2w0q6gxNiU

3) Abrupt climate change is underway already


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmmvuhDtHv0

4) Methane Crisis as Underwater Hydrates Erupt


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUaartMu6-I

5) Runaway Emergency: Arctic Death Spiral Before Your Eyes


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAHqn0K5wQ

[Cidersomerset]

There was talk several years ago about the threat from The Artic Tundra
thawing , as well as a large lake in Africa ? I remember seeing a documentary
about that ,also the threat from ocean vents.The topic has been quite as you
say for a while....


I just checked this is from 2002...

Nature Documentary hosted by Martin Shaw and published by BBC broadcasted as
part of BBC Horizon series in 2002 - English narration



Killer Lakes documentary narrated by Martin Shaw

pVMcSvG5Mpg

[christian]

From what I can see, there is roughly a 12% increase of atmospheric methane since the early 80s.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/images/F1.large.jpg

That would be a 2% increase in greenhouse gases altogether, since methane makes up for 18% of greenhouse gases.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Greenhouse_Gas_by_Sector.png

Gotta admit though, this calculation must be somewhat flawed, since methane is said to be a more potent greenhouse gas than for instance CO2. The numbers as to how much more potent vary greatly, from what I can see.

However, greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere has fluctuated greatly in the planet's history, so there's nothing unnatural about change in that regard in general, I'd think.

Climate change is always happening, sometimes with drastic consequences. It's not something that can be prevented altogether, that would be like stopping nature. My understanding of the methane issue is that there is little if any leverage to do something about the atmospheric concentration directly. If it should become an issue in one way or another, I reckon dealing with the consequences as they unfold would be economically most efficient.

I guess what the individual and society can do in light of this is to continue to work on very tangible issues that everyone can relate to in their daily lives. Working on a greater understanding and development of our culture (like politics, economics, etc) and our person (in terms of emotional processing, awareness of consciousness, etc). That's the foundation from where we can affect more specialized issues. I think if that foundation isn't there, the collective focus wouldn't be strong enough to make much of a difference in anything.

[Bill Ryan]

-------

The New York Times article that Stuart Scott mentions at the start of his presentation in video #1 above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) is this one:

http://nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/climate-talks.html?_r=0

Scott quotes the second paragraph: (my bold emphasis added)





Even with a deal to stop the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn, the world will become increasingly unpleasant. Without a deal, they say, the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans.

For the New York Times, this is an extraordinary thing to say. I do feel I have to wonder if this may possibly be connected with my thread here:

From Bill Ryan -- the Ultimate Hypothesis (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?46887-From-Bill-Ryan-the-Ultimate-Hypothesis)

For those who haven't read or seen this, the 'Ultimate Hypothesis' is the non-zero possibility that the elite group spearheading the 'Breakaway Civilization' (Richard Dolan's excellent term (http://www.afterdisclosure.com/2011/04/breakaway.html)) may be preparing for at least the option of evacuating the planet. When I posted the thread, why they might decide to do this was a matter of pure conjecture.

[Snowflower]

So far, I've managed to watch the first half of the first video, and decided to temporarily stop to ask my burning question. As far as I can glean, this program is assuming solely global warming - temps going up and up exponentially. But, there is increasing evidence that we are going into another ice age. The arctic shelf is melting on the left and increasing on the right - toward Europe I think. So, how does the methane emergency play out when we seem to be heading back into a colder period?

¤=[Post Update]=¤

By pointing out the fact that ice is melting in one area and increasing in another (the same goes for Antarctica) I am positing that not only are we heading into an ice age, but the location of the north and south poles are shifting. This necessarily means that new areas get frozen while frozen ones (methane-rich) are melting.

[joeecho]

On the lighter side....

With conflicting ideology and the science behind it, why not play it safe and just give the planet a massive dose of Gas-X?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kL7qDeI05U


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vVsvMbce5M

"Gas-X, the pressure is off".

[Cidersomerset]

After just watching the above doc from 2002 again about a couple
of lakes one in Cameroon which seems to be releasing Carbon Monoxide.
The other in Rwanda Lake Kivu has the Methane problem. Which
potentially threatens the life of aprox 2,000,000 locals if it was
released by a seismic event. As suggested at the end of the doc,
large scale removal of the methane was the only answer, I thought
I better check what the situation is now .Which shows the removal
of the methane seems to be happening.

There is still potential danger.........


Lake Kivu in Rwanda has enough methane gas in its volcanic lake bed to power several countries
P-FvhbLshME


Lake Kivu

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/LakeKivu_satellite.jpg/240px-LakeKivu_satellite.jpg
Satellite image of Lake Kivu courtesy of NASA


Methane extraction[edit]





Beach near Gisenyi
Lake Kivu has recently been found to contain approximately 55 billion
cubic metres (72 billion cubic yards) of dissolved biogas at a depth of
300 metres (1,000 ft). Until 2004, extraction of the gas was done on a
small scale, with the extracted gas being used to run boilers at a
brewery, the Bralirwa brewery in Gisenyi. As far as large-scale
exploitation of this resource is concerned, the Rwandan government
has negotiated with a number of parties to produce methane from the lake.

In 2011 ContourGlobal, a U.S. based energy company focused on emerging
markets, secured project financing to initiate a large-scale methane
extraction project. The project will be run through a local Rwandan entity
called KivuWatt, using an offshore barge platform to extract, separate, and
clean the gasses obtained from the lake bed before pumping purified methane
via an underwater pipeline to on-shore gas engines. Stage one of the project
aims to build and supply three "gensets" along the lake shore, totaling 25MW
of electrical capacity. Initial project operations are scheduled to commence in
2012. In addition to managing gas extraction, KivuWatt will also manage
the electrical generation plants and on-sell the electrical power to the Rwandan
government under the terms of a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).
This allows KivuWatt to control a vertically integrated energy offering from
point of extraction to point of sale into the local grid. Extraction is said to be
cost-effective and relatively simple because once the gas-rich water is pumped
up, the dissolved gases (primarily carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and methane)
begin to bubble out as the water pressure gets lower. This project is expected
to increase Rwanda's energy generation capability by as much as 20 times, and
will enable Rwanda to sell electricity to neighboring African countries.[The firm
was awarded the 2011 Africa Power deal of the year for innovation in the financing
arrangements it obtained from various sources for the KivuWatt project. [

A problem associated with the prevalence of methane is that of mazuku.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kivu


and they are trying to attract tourists to the areas natural beauty.....

Lake Kivu Serena Hotel - Gisenyi, Rwanda

hdjnTw4eEto

Published on 30 Jul 2014


http://davidsbeenhere.com David’s Been Here is touring all the top sites and best
accommodation options in Rwanda, Africa. If you’re looking to spot some of
Rwanda’s world-famous mountain gorillas, you should head for Volcanoes National
Park. If you’re looking for a comfortable and luxurious stay in between your
mountain treks, head for Gisenyi’s Lake Kivu Serena Hotel. Rwanda’s only 5-star
hotel, this lakefront getaway has 65 beautiful rooms, a refreshing swimming pool,
spa, fitness center and loads of water-based activities. Visit the nearby hot springs,
go boating to the lake’s various islands or just relax in the tranquil, hospitable
Serena atmosphere. Situated around one of Africa’s most beautiful lakes and only
an hour away from Volcanoes National Park, a stay at Lake Kivu Serena Hotel is
truly one to remember.

[Snowflower]

Joe, thanks for bringing expanding earth theory into the discussion. The rock at the bottom of all oceanic floor is 70 million years old, while rock on the continents is billions of years old. This means ALL ocean area is not more than 70 million years. This means the earth was 1/4 the size it is now 70 million years ago. This means the expansion event that happened 70 million years ago was enough to increase the size of this planet by 3/4ths. No wonder the dinosaurs died off!

All signs indicate we are in another earth expansion event. How much will it increase? What will happen to the atmosphere? How will methane, CO2, oxygen, hydrogen, and all the other gases react to expansion? What happens with the global warming/ice age consequences? Will we have continents further separated from each other? Will volcanoes create new land masses?

No one knows anything.

[Bill Ryan]

-------

Here's the wonderful graphic image (by artist Horst Haitzinger (https://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/horst-haitzinger/)) shown by Stuart Scott in video #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks):

(...if you only watch one video on this topic, make it that one)

https://one1more2time3.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/haitz27.jpg

[Operator]

---
Scott quotes the second paragraph: (my bold emphasis added)
[INDENT][INDENT][INDENT]
Even with a deal to stop the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn, the world will become increasingly unpleasant. Without a deal, they say, [I]the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans.
---


Unless life adapts itself again to changing circumstances as it has always done ...

Was methane on Pandora in Avatar a shot across the bow ?

Example:


Life in the Abyss

If there is a harsher place to live than a hydrothermal vent, it hasn't been found yet. Pitch darkness, poison gas, heavy metals, extreme acidity,
enormous pressure, water at turns frigid and searing—this seafloor environment seems more like something from deep space than from our own
deep sea.
---
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/life-in-the-abyss.html

[eaglespirit]

Actively ^reversing^ the image : )

[Operator]

-------

Here's the wonderful graphic image (by artist Horst Haitzinger (https://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/horst-haitzinger/)) shown by Stuart Scott in video #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks):

---

https://one1more2time3.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/haitz27.jpg

Wonderful indeed ... the image explains the situation well. It's workmen falling for the game
of money who operate that machine. The banksters in suits are only watching how the workmen are
all to eagerly rolling up their sleeves to do their bidding.

So guess where the solution needs to be found ... :eyebrows:

[christian]

The New York Times article that Stuart Scott mentions at the start of his presentation in video #1 above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) is this one:

http://nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/climate-talks.html?_r=0

Scott quotes the second paragraph: (my bold emphasis added)





Even with a deal to stop the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn, the world will become increasingly unpleasant. Without a deal, they say, the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans.

For the New York Times, this is an extraordinary thing to say.

"Without a deal we will all be doomed" is typical alarmist speech employed when advocating inhumane policies. Be it war, quantitative easing or cap and trade. The NYT has published quite some alarmist global warming articles before. Not that there aren't real environmental issues in our world today, but it's a trend to connect them all to global warming and to paint a picture of the massive catastrophes that are looming because of global warming.




We Can't Wish Away Climate Change (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html?pagewanted=all)

Here is what scientists have found is happening to our climate: man-made global-warming pollution traps heat from the sun and increases atmospheric temperatures. These pollutants — especially carbon dioxide — have been increasing rapidly with the growth in the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and forests, and temperatures have increased over the same period. Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting — and seas are rising. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and more destructive, though their number is expected to decrease. Droughts are getting longer and deeper in many mid-continent regions, even as the severity of flooding increases. The seasonal predictability of rainfall and temperatures is being disrupted, posing serious threats to agriculture. The rate of species extinction is accelerating to dangerous levels.

3.6 Degrees of Uncertainty (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/science/earth/is-a-two-degree-limit-on-global-warming-off-target.html)

The warming that has already occurred is causing enormous damage all over the planet, from dying forests to collapsing sea ice to savage heat waves to torrential rains. And scientists realize they may have underestimated the vulnerability of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Those ice sheets now appear to be in the early stages of breaking up. For instance, Greenland’s glaciers have lately been spitting icebergs into the sea at an accelerated pace, and scientific papers published this year warned that the melting in parts of Antarctica may already be unstoppable.

“The climate is now out of equilibrium with the ice sheets,” said Andrea Dutton, a geochemist at the University of Florida who studies global sea levels. “They are going to melt.”

That could ultimately mean 30 feet, or even more, of sea level rise, though scientists have no clear idea of how fast that could happen. They hope it would take thousands of years, but cannot rule out a faster rise that might overwhelm the ability of human society to adapt.

Heraclitus Hikes the Andes (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/opinion/global-warming-changes-everything.html&assetType=opinion)

Clearly the snow of the Andes was no longer as potent or plentiful, drying up before it had a chance to fully reach the cascades. My eyes were able to measure, right there in front of me, the incontrovertible effect that merciless global warming has on our environment.

To Save the Planet, Don't Plant Trees (www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/to-save-the-planet-dont-plant-trees.html)

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide. The assumption is that planting trees and avoiding further deforestation provides a convenient carbon capture and storage facility on the land.

That is the conventional wisdom. But the conventional wisdom is wrong.

In reality, the cycling of carbon, energy and water between the land and the atmosphere is much more complex. Considering all the interactions, large-scale increases in forest cover can actually make global warming worse.

Of course, this is counterintuitive. We all learn in school how trees effortlessly perform the marvel of photosynthesis: They take up carbon dioxide from the air and make oxygen. This process provides us with life, food, water, shelter, fiber and soil. The earth’s forests generously mop up about a quarter of the world’s fossil-fuel carbon emissions every year.

So it’s understandable that we’d expect trees to save us from rising temperatures, but climate science tells a different story. Besides the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, another important switch on the planetary thermostat is how much of the sun’s energy is taken up by the earth’s surface, compared to how much is reflected back to space. The dark color of trees means that they absorb more of the sun’s energy and raise the planet’s surface temperature.

Climate scientists have calculated the effect of increasing forest cover on surface temperature. Their conclusion is that planting trees in the tropics would lead to cooling, but in colder regions, it would cause warming.

Meanwhile, it recently came out that temperature data has been massively manipulated.




The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html)

Paul Homewood […] had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming. […]

Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.

Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic […]. Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded.

[Bill Ryan]

By pointing out the fact that ice is melting in one area and increasing in another (the same goes for Antarctica) I am positing that not only are we heading into an ice age, but the location of the north and south poles are shifting. This necessarily means that new areas get frozen while frozen ones (methane-rich) are melting.

Paul Beckwith (University of Ottawa‚ the same guy in video #3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmmvuhDtHv0), with his cats :) ) explains starting at 22:12 in the first video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) why the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing... the same topic as in my thread here:

The Arctic is melting, the Antarctic is freezing. What does this mean? (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?50036-The-Arctic-is-melting-the-Antarctic-is-freezing.-What-does-this-mean)

[Snowflower]

Multiple different variables: actual climate changes, warmer or colder caused by methane, human fossil fuel use, and/or unknown cause from the sun and/or deep space; expanding earth; sun changes from an unknown cause; human manipulation of weather facts; human manipulation of atmosphere (Chemtrails), other?

This has to go into the same category as Yellowstone caldera. Nothing we can do about it, focus on something else.

[christian]

Paul Beckwith (University of Ottawa‚ the same guy in video #3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmmvuhDtHv0), with his cats :) ) explains starting at 22:12 in the first video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) why the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing...

He says the arctic is melting because the snow and ice cover is melting exponentially. It's melting cause it's melting, it's a circular argument.

[Bill Ryan]

This has to go into the same category as Yellowstone caldera. Nothing we can do about it, focus on something else.

In his opening of video #2, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2w0q6gxNiU) Stuart Scott, who is a scientist, says that we should all pray. That might tell us something.

[Bill Ryan]

Paul Beckwith (University of Ottawa‚ the same guy in video #3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmmvuhDtHv0), with his cats :) ) explains starting at 22:12 in the first video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) why the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing...

He says the arctic is melting because the snow and ice cover is melting exponentially. It's melting cause it's melting, it's a circular argument.

It's a vicious-circle process. The more ice melts, the less sunlight is reflected, and the more sunlight (and heat) is absorbed.

Moreover, the 500 to 5000 billion tons of methane is all frozen (but maybe not for long) in a shallow (200 feet deep) continental shelf just north of Siberia. That's already starting to melt quite quickly.

The current amount of methane in the atmosphere is 5 billion tons. The amount that could be released is 100 to 1000 times as much. A [currently very rough] estimate of the amount that is in the process of being released is 50 billion tons (10 times as much as present).

Methane is on average 86 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. What does this mean?

In the first two videos (from the COP20 conference), Dr Peter Wadhams (Professor of Ocean Physics, Cambridge) and Dr Ira Leifer (Atmospheric Scientist, University of California) both state that this runaway process could be a civilization-ending event.

[Hervé]

[...]
...the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing...
[...]

Actually, they are currently both freezing!

Winter up North and ice-breaker needed down South:

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/u-s-ice-breaker-rushes-free-fishing-vessel-stuck-thick-antarctic-ice/

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/antarctica-rescuers-reach-fishing-boat-stuck-ice/

[Operator]

Well, well look here ... perhaps the reason for chemtrails ?

High Methane Storage Capacity in Aluminum Metal–Organic Frameworks (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja501606h)

Gas-phase reactions between hydrocarbons and metal oxides: the aluminum monoxide + methane reaction from 590 to 1380 K (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/j100116a002)

[christian]

It's a vicious-circle process. The more ice melts, the less sunlight is reflected, and the more sunlight (and heat) is absorbed.

Moreover, the 500 to 5000 billion tons of methane is all frozen (but maybe not for long) in a shallow (200 feet deep) continental shelf just north of Siberia. That's already starting to melt quite quickly.

That still doesn't explain why the Arctic melts while the Antarctic is freezing (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/poles-apart-antarctic-sea-ice-hits-record-high-while-the-arctic-s-keeps-melting-1.2793963), though. Hervé recently published some interesting posts on your other thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?50036-The-Arctic-is-melting-the-Antarctic-is-freezing.-What-does-this-mean/page13) that could explain it. It seems to be because of undersea volcanic activity. Something else that most climate scientists did not have on their radars.


The current amount of methane in the atmosphere is 5 billion tons. The amount that could be released is 100 to 1000 times as much. A [currently very rough] estimate of the amount that is in the process of being released is 50 billion tons (10 times as much as present).

Methane is on average 86 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. What does this mean?

In the first two videos (from the COP20 conference), Dr Peter Wadhams (Professor of Ocean Physics, Cambridge) and Dr Ira Leifer (Atmospheric Scientist, University of California) both state that this runaway process could be a civilization-ending event.

Estimates in climate forecast hardly ever seemed reliable so far. But even if they would be, currently methane makes up 0.000179% of the atmosphere. I don't see how even a drastic increase there could be civilization-ending. CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases, but there are so many other factors influencing the climate besides the greenhouse effect. And then, there are effects of greenhouse gases that are not usually reported, like desert greening due to increased CO2 (http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx).

[joeecho]

Can cyclic events be stopped or slowed (significantly) in the course of their action? Can the sun be suspended from rising in the morning or setting in the evening?

In the apparent universe the only constant is change. The change is labeled good or bad depending on ones perspective and perspective is skewed by position. All position are covered within probability waves.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrv3hteHglI

[Bill Ryan]

[...]
...the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing...
[...]

Actually, they are currently both freezing!

Winter up North and ice-breaker needed down South:

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/u-s-ice-breaker-rushes-free-fishing-vessel-stuck-thick-antarctic-ice/

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/antarctica-rescuers-reach-fishing-boat-stuck-ice/

Yes, Robert Felix (Ice Age Now) gave references to the freezing Antarctic. But this slide was shown by Stuart Scott in video #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks), and John Nissen in video #2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2w0q6gxNiU):

http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b0153920ddd12970b-pi

John Nissen points out that the clear trend of the graph heads straight to what he calls a "Blue Ocean Event" — a pleasant enough name, but catastrophic when it comes — which may possibly occur as early as September of this year (2015).

That's the point of no return, and of no ice... after which the Arctic would be ice-free. And after that, says Nissen, global weather will rapidly get REALLY unstable.

In his presentation, Nissen said it was the most important day of his life. He is enormously concerned, and is convinced he and Dr Peter Wadhams have the engineering models correct. He points out that according to the historic global climate record, the last 8,000 years have been so stable compared with all the previous ages that's it's actually a 'fluke' that that happened at all.

That 'fluke', he says, permitted the human population to thrive and grow to 7 billion in that short time — but that stability will soon end very dramatically.

[Carmody]

By pointing out the fact that ice is melting in one area and increasing in another (the same goes for Antarctica) I am positing that not only are we heading into an ice age, but the location of the north and south poles are shifting. This necessarily means that new areas get frozen while frozen ones (methane-rich) are melting.

Paul Beckwith (University of Ottawa‚ the same guy in video #3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmmvuhDtHv0), with his cats :) ) explains starting at 22:12 in the first video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks) why the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing... the same topic as in my thread here:

The Arctic is melting, the Antarctic is freezing. What does this mean? (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?50036-The-Arctic-is-melting-the-Antarctic-is-freezing.-What-does-this-mean)

Also, striation and extremes. Ie, gas planet striations.

http://campfire.andycamper.com/wp-content/media/2011/05/jupiter.gif

More potent storms, more demarcated lines, or - striations.

It's really interesting to me that this was all discussed back in the early 80's, if anyone cared to look at the time. I'm quite sure of that, as I still have the public school atlas I had at the time, in order to look up and understand the changes in the map that would occur due to rising sea levels.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Bill, thanks a million for this article.

Macondo opened my eyes to the risk of methane saturation.
I also started researching what happened to Mars.

Needless to say, there are scientists out there who agree with some of our hunches here --
their hands are tied, but if they could I think some would chime in here and tell you more.



Methane incidents predate most ice ages and mass extinctions.
Outgassing, that is.


When a teenager I read about Lake Monoun (Africa) and the carbon outgassing taking place there.
Then realized thru reading more that the methane outgassing we saw in the Macondo well area, and then later in the New Zealand region (the pumice raft that was over 1' tall and 10x size of Rhode Island),
from a volcano on the ocean floor...

we're not always told the whole truth about how delicate our world is.

<3

[Hervé]

[...]

John Nissen points out that the clear trend of the graph heads straight to what he calls a "Blue Ocean Event" — a pleasant enough name, but catastrophic when it comes — which may possibly occur as early as September of this year (2015).

That's the point of no return, and of no ice...

[...]

... that's the trouble with theoretical models, they rarely match reality:


Contrary to predictions
The Kronen Zeitung then explains how the climate models have failed in that they predicted the very opposite to happen and that some scientists even desperately claimed that the measurements were wrong.

The situation is similar in the Arctic: Even the prestigious BBC predicted not too long ago that the North Pole would be completely ice-free by 2013. But now, even before winter starts properly, a huge ice sheet covers the North Pole, ranging from the islands of Canada to the northern coasts of Russia.

29 percent more ice at the North Pole
Yachting adventurers who wished to sail through the ice-free North had to return empty-handed because of the ice – half the size of Europe – blocked their passage.

Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder (Colorado) to admit any event that takes a more global warming is global cooling underway. According to their latest data, the cool northern cap has seen an increase of as much as 29 percent!

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?50036-The-Arctic-is-melting-the-Antarctic-is-freezing.-What-does-this-mean&p=890654&viewfull=1#post890654
Siberian snow cover way ahead of schedule – Near record pace
(http://iceagenow.info/2014/10/siberian-snow-cover-schedule-record-pace/)
By Robert (http://iceagenow.info/author/xilef/) On October 18, 2014 ·

The difference is massive.
Compare snow mapping for October 2013 and October 2014 https://www.facebook.com/WxRisk/phot...185523/?type=1 (https://www.facebook.com/WxRisk/photos/p.761950707185523/761950707185523/?type=1)

http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Siberian-Snow-Cover-2013_vs_2014.jpg (http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Siberian-Snow-Cover-2013_vs_2014.jpg)http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?50036-The-Arctic-is-melting-the-Antarctic-is-freezing.-What-does-this-mean&p=890649&viewfull=1#post890649I am not dismissing the potential threat of methane starting to bubble up, as long as the models that are developed are firmly anchored in reality :)

[Bob]

This is a global distribution map of locations planetwide which are producing CH4 (Methane).


http://chanlo.com/images/methane-seeps.jpg

Source: Etiope, G. 2004. New directions: GEM—Geologic emissions of methane, the missing source in the
atmospheric methane budget. Atmospheric Environment 38(19): 3099-3100.

Organic matter in the soil in sedimentary basins (which generally are responsible for natural gas and oil formation, are called "Petroliferous Sedimentary Regions" ). Locally, more modern sources of Methane, are local LANDFILLS (Garbage dumps).


http://chanlo.com/images/basins.jpg

Natural Methane emission from the Earth itself, estimation is 72,752,546,520 pounds per year (2004 study).

The majority of human hydrocarbon release comes from NATURAL GAS FLARING from oil well production (associated gas or primary methane gas from a gas well).

CO2 release from burning, is estimated at 54,400,000,000,000 pounds per year.

Methane has 84 times the global-warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and 28 times over a 100-year period. Methane breaks down over time in other words.

(Natural methane gas is therefore a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide due to the greater warming potential of methane.)

DAMAGE FACTOR:
Running the "potency comparison" between CO2 verses CH4 allowing for the 84 times potency, we compute at:
72,752,546,520 (methane) times 84 = 6,111,213,907,680 (6.1 trillion pounds/year)

54,400,000,000,000 (carbon dioxide) times "1" = 54,400,000,000,000 (54.4 trillion pounds/year)

There is 9 times MORE CO2 damage than Methane damage released per year allowing for the 84X potency factor for Methane.

The combination of METHANE plus CO2 plus raw carbon release from FLARING (oil/gas wells) is horrendous and is contributing to atmosphere damage.

[ghostrider]

Edward Meier and Ptaah have been warning about this since 1958 , it is partly the reason Mars lost it's atmosphere and they had to escape to Earth ... http://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_Meier/Contact_Report_444 http://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_Meier/A_Predicthttp://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_Meier/Overpopulation_Bomb http://www.futureofmankind.co.uk/Billy_Meier/The_Crime_Against_All_Life I could keep going with their words and links but you get the point ... they the ET's have been trying to warn us , the Earth is connected to us , we are living things living together , mankind has no idea that his thoughts and actions have energy that affects his environment ... Earth responds in kind ...

[ghostrider]

they closed the seed vault last year , and have been building underground cities for 50 years ... they know living above ground may become a problem ... too many ignore the reality of climate change ... it was 80 yesterday IN FEBRUARY here , today it's supposed to snow and the high 33 ... but they deny our climate is broke , and deny the causes ... I ask you where do we go if our air has too much Co2 ??? it causes headaches , and extreme tiredness , those are just some of the effects our ET friends have made known to mankind ...

[yelik]

Good informative video Bill, thanks

Climate change has been known about for a long time, in fact the famous alternatives 1,2 and 3 involved planning for climate disaster. I read somewhere that in the 1990's politicians didn't think we'd reach the year 2000.

It is evident that politicians have sold their soul to the anti- human banking and energy cartels for the sake of money, the route of all evil.

The video indicates we are doing too little too late and could have a mere 20 years left before things get really bad unless you head for the Arctic.

I think humanity faces a number of risks, not least the cabal who may use this information to support their main agenda, the NWO and depopulation. Also the video fell short in that they failed to mention things like illegal Chemtrailing supposedly designed to reflect heat away from Earth, this is not working but has likely put trillions into the hands of the elites, yet again. Even when they appear to be concerned about life on Earth they still want to strip its wealth and keep us enslaved.

No mention of the widespread radiation contamination from Fukushima and leaks from older facilities around the world which is lurking in the atmoshere with idiots like David Cabal Cameron pushing for more.

No mention of the sun getting warming and likely expansion of the earth taking place, but you cannot tax that.

Also no mention of technologies like zero point energy and the development of other exotic technologies and weapons stripping even more wealth, yet more crime against humanity.

Unfortunately I have no faith in our mind controlled politicians doing a dam thing about it, I do not believe they have the desire, capability or enough compassion or respect for humanity, I think they'd rather die in a bed of money and greed than change their ways.

Because no one could be really so stupid as to continue polluting our own environment, regardless of climate change, I can only assume it is intentional re- terraforming of the the planet, but for who? I also read where the idiot military were firing scar weapons (haap) above the atmoshere in the artic where they may have blasted a hole, I don't know how true this is, but nothing is beyond believe when it comes down to the cabal and their mind controlled minions.

[araucaria]

It's a vicious-circle process.
This is the positive feedback mechanism. The following article shows how systems like climate are chiefly characterized by negative feedback. ‘No new strange attractors: strong evidence against both positive feedback and catastrophe’. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/


In an open system in a locally stable phase, the oscillations (fluctuations) couple to the dissipation so that more fluctuation makes more dissipation — negative feedback. If this is not true, the locally stable phase is not stable.

This is a strong argument against catastrophe! The point is that given that CO_2 is making only small, slow, local shifts of the attractors compared to the large shifts of the system between the attractors, if there was a point where the system was likely to fall over to a much warmer stable point — the “catastrophe” threatened by the warmists — it almost certainly would have already done it, as the phase oscillations over the last ten thousand years have on numerous occasions made it as warm as it is right now.

The fact that this has not happened is actually enormously strong evidence against both positive feedback and catastrophe. Yes, anthropogenic CO_2 may have shifted all the attractor temperatures a bit higher, it may have made small rearrangements of the attractors, but there is no evidence that suggests that it is probably going to suddenly create at new attractor far outside of the normal range of variation already visible in the climate record. Is it impossible? Of course not. But it is not probable.

I’ll close with an analogy. When physicists were getting ready to test the first nuclear bomb, there was some concern expressed by the less gifted physicists present that in doing so they might “ignite the Earth’s atmosphere” or somehow turn the Earth into a Sun (note that this was before there was any understanding of fusion — the sun’s energy cycle was still not understood). I’ve read (far more recently) some concern that collisions at the LHC could have the same effect — create a mini-black hole or the like that swallows the Earth.

Both of these are silly fears (although offered up, note well, by real scientists, because they could see that these outcomes were possible, at least in principle) and here’s why.

The temperature and pressure created by the nuclear bomb is not unique! Although it is rare, asteroids fall to the earth, and when they do they create pressures and temperatures much higher than those produced by nuclear bombs. A very modest sized asteroid can release more energy in a few milliseconds than tens of thousands of times the total explosive energy of all of the man-made explosives, including nuclear bombs, on Earth! In a nutshell, if it could happen (with any reasonable probability), it already would have happened.

Ditto the fears associated with the LHC, or other “super” colliders. Sure, it generates collisions on the order of electron-teravolts, but this sort of energy in nuclear collisions is not unique! The Earth is constantly being bombarded by high energy particles given off by extremely energetic events like supernovae that happened long ago and far away. The energies of these cosmic rays are vastly greater than anything we will ever be able to produce in the laboratory until the laboratory in question contains a supernova. The most energetic cosmic ray ever observed (so far) was a (presumably) proton with the kinetic energy of a fastball-pitched baseball, a baseball travelling at some 150 kilometers per hour. Since we’ve seen one of these in a few decades of looking, we have to assume that they happen all the time — literally every second a cosmic ray of this sort of energy is hitting the Earth (BIG target) somewhere. If such a collision could create a black hole that destroyed planets with any significant probability, we would have been toast long, long ago.

Hence it is silly to fear the LHC or nuclear ignition. If either were probable, we wouldn’t be here to build an LHC or nuclear bomb.

It is not quite that silly to fear CAGW. The truth is that we haven’t been around long enough to know enough about the climate system to be able to tell what sorts of feedbacks and factors structure the multistable climate attractors, so one can create a number of doomsday scenarios — warming to a critical point that releases massive amounts of methane that heats things suddenly so that the ocean degasses all of its CO_2 and the ice caps melt and the oceans boil and suddenly there we are, Venus Earth with a mean temperature outside of 200 C. If we can imagine it and write it down, it must be possible, right? Science fiction novels galore explore just that sort of thing. Or movies proposing the opposite — the appearance of attractors that somehow instantly freeze the entire planet and bring about an ice age. Hey! It could happen!

But is it probable?

Here is where the argument above provides us with a great deal of comfort. There is little in the climate record to suggest the existence of another major stable state, another major attractor, well above the current warm phase attractor. Quite the opposite — the record over the last few tens of millions of years suggest that we are in the middle of a prolonged cooling phase of the planet, of the sort that has happened repeatedly over geological time, such that we are in the warm phase major attractor, and that there is literally nothing out there above it to go to. If there were, we would have gone there, instead, as local variations and oscillation around the many> minor warm phase attractors has repeatedly sampled conditions that would have been likely to cause a transition to occur if one was at all likely. At the very least, there would be a trace of it in the thermal record of the last million years or thereabouts, and there isn’t. We’re in one of the longest, warmest interglacials of the last five, although not at the warmest point of the current interglacial (the Holocene). If there were a still warmer attractor out there, the warmest point of the Holocene would have been likely to find it.

Since it manifestly did not, that suggests that the overall feedbacks are safely negative and all of the “catastrophe” hypotheses but one are relatively unlikely.

The one that should be worrisome? Catastrophic Global Cooling. We know that there is a cold phase major attractor some 5-10C cooler than current temperatures. Human civilization arose in the Holocene, and we have not yet advanced to where it can survive a cold phase transition back to glacial conditions, not without the death of 5 billion people and probable near-collapse of civilization. We know that this transition not only can occur, but will occur. We do not know when, why, or how to estimate its general probability. We do know that the LIA — a mere 400-500 years ago — was the coolest period in the entire Holocene post the Younger Dryas excursion; in general the Holocene appears to be cooling from its warmest period, and the twentieth century was a Grand Solar Maximum, the most active sun in 11,000 years, a maximum that is now clearly past.

IMO we are far more likely to be hanging out over an instability in which a complete transition to cold phase becomes uncomfortably likely than we are to be near a transition to a superwarm phase that there is no evidence of in the climate record. The probability is higher for two reasons. One is that unlike the superwarm phase, we know that the cold phase actually exists, and is a lot more stable than the warm phase. The “size” of the quasistable Poincare cycle oscillations around the cold phase major attractor is much larger than that around the warm phase attractors, and brief periods of warming often get squashed before turning into actual interglacials — that’s how stable they are.

[jake gittes]

This is probably a stupid question.. but here goes anyway. With all the energy needs in the world, is it not possible to capture this methane and use it as energy? 2 birds/1 stone deal?

[christian]

Harvesting methane is possible but hard. (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27021610) It can be used as an energy source.

I think the main questions to answer in this thread are:


How much methane in the atmosphere is tolerable?
How much methane release (and uptake) can realistically be expected in the foreseeable future?

When looking for answers, I'd be very cautious not to take anybody's word for it though. Climate science still seems to be a lot of guesswork and is politically charged on top of that.

[Limor Wolf]

---
Scott quotes the second paragraph: (my bold emphasis added)
[INDENT][INDENT][INDENT]
Even with a deal to stop the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warn, the world will become increasingly unpleasant. Without a deal, they say, [I]the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans.
---


Unless life adapts itself again to changing circumstances as it has always done ...

Was methane on Pandora in Avatar a shot across the bow ?

Example:


Life in the Abyss

If there is a harsher place to live than a hydrothermal vent, it hasn't been found yet. Pitch darkness, poison gas, heavy metals, extreme acidity,
enormous pressure, water at turns frigid and searing—this seafloor environment seems more like something from deep space than from our own
deep sea.
---
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/life-in-the-abyss.html


Here is Wade Frazier's take on that -(Links from his 'Energy and the human journey' essey)


If you take the time to begin learning about Earth's carbon cycle (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#carbonstarvation), for instance, the role of greenhouse gases in Earth's climate becomes evident. Every paleoclimate study I ever saw considered carbon dioxide the most important greenhouse gas, and scientific careers have been devoted to the subject, as well as the role of oxygen (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#geocarbsulf)on Earth. It is a young science and full of controversy, but none of the players deny the role of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is certainly not the only one. Water is more influential, but it is ephemeral (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#neogene)and there is a positive feedback with temperature (a warmer climate means more evaporation, which makes it warmer as water vapor traps more radiation, and it works in reverse for cooling, to intensify it). There seems to be a sporadic but potentially great impact by methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But methane is also taken out of the atmosphere quickly, so only in a few instances in the eon of complex life has methane been implicated in Global Warming. The main way was when the poles and ocean floor warmed up enough (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#hydrates)so that trapped methane was released into the atmosphere. This is in danger of happening as I write this, which is probably what scares climate scientists the most. The last time it seems to have happened (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#petm), it created the warmest climate in the past 500 million years (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#globaltemps), with global temperatures about 14 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today. It led to a Golden Age of life on Earth (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#eocene), when alligators lived in Greenland and forests extended nearly to the poles, but after the mass extinction that the warming caused, and it was still a Greenhouse Earth when that event began. We are living in an Icehouse Earth (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#icehouse)today, and the last time that Earth went from Icehouse to Greenhouse conditions, Earth had its greatest mass extinction ever (http://www.ahealedplanet.net/humanity.htm#permianextinction). We are toying with turning Earth from Icehouse to Greenhouse conditions, and that has climate scientists terrified.



I am not 100% sure, but I think Paul La violette has somehow connected his 'Galactic superwave' theory to all the other failing layers of the earth, as if all is happening at once.. sun anomalies, electric current bulding around earth that distributes heat, trapped gases being realesed as a consequence, techtonic triggerings etc.

And perheps this comment does not belong to a thread on methane, but it seems that indeed everything is converging to be happening all at once. The list contains a man made dangers as well as some 'natural' (artificial?) ones and a cosmic ones, as if all is correlated in some type of synergy...

And sadly here is what may seem as a faithful reflection of the human part -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU

[sigma6]

1Wj3xn-8y0Q

And if it's not aliens it sure is hell one great platform to push for a Global Carbon "TAX" 2.0... how many tiers of taxation would that make now :p ?

So make sure you do your part and pay your taxes, or this will be your fault! (and stop blaming corporations making 20,30,40,50... billion dollar profits per year) it's up to YOU! Help raise the standard of living by contributing your share to the Global Carbon Tax Plan today...

...give now and give generously... (this message is brought to you by the political leadership of all G-8 countries(-1) (after 100 years of burning fossil fuels), the United Banking Families for a peaceful earth, the Holy Brethren Vatican Trust for Healthy Methane Levels and Al Gore's PR assistant to the Executive Secretary Treasurer.

See below contact information for new hiring positions with unlimited growth potential...

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

did you ladies and gents catch the CNN article yesterday about the NASA prediction of decades-long droughts on earth?
they mentioned greenhouse gases but NOT which ones, neither carbon nor methane,

my bet is on methane @@

[Tesseract]

This is probably a stupid question.. but here goes anyway. With all the energy needs in the world, is it not possible to capture this methane and use it as energy? 2 birds/1 stone deal?

It's not a stupid question..

A quick internet search reveals the atmospheric methane concentration is almost 2 ppm (parts per million, by volume). This is low, but not extremely low in the world of chemistry. There are chemists who specialize in detecting chemicals at ppt (part per trillion) levels, which is a million times more dilute than atmospheric methane, such analysis normally involves capturing and concentrating those chemicals prior to the detection step. Also, people have suggested extracting lithium from sea water which contains 0.1 to 0.2 ppm lithium. Of course, the atmosphere is less dense that water so that has to be taken into account, but on the plus side the diffusion of gases is very fast. Methane can be very easily absorbed by activated carbon, which is mass produced for a few dollars a kilogram, mostly from waste products. Whether or not it absorbs efficiently at 2 ppm I'm not sure, but I suspect that it would. On a similar topic, I think Richard Branson some years ago announced a prize for anyone who could design and demonstrate a system that captured CO2 from the atmosphere (which is present at a few hundred ppm). I believe there was a team that successfully demonstrated direct conversion of atmospheric CO2 to liquid fuel.


All that said, I think it would make the most sense to capture methane at the source, where the concentration would be much richer. Indeed, there are already operations that do this, such can be found at some landfill sites. However, there are many many methane sources that are not being exploited and the methane just goes to waste into the atmosphere.

[Bob]

Whence methane (IF) captured, there remains the transport issue. In Nigeria for instance, probably THE number 1 or number 2 contributor to global hydrocarbon waste gas emission into the atmosphere besides Russia, is that if methane would be captured, there is no infra-structure to contain it or transport it.

As it comes down to $$$ being pocketed by tptb controlling the resource being emitted, spending many billions for a pipeline is not conducive to a ptb structure who would rather pocket the $$$ and let the emissions happen.. That is the reality in the majority of the methane AND CO2 and carbon black (soot) producers..

The PTB mindset is ignore it, and take the $$$ and stall. This is a political issue..

World Bank has said, no more loans to those countries who still allow for emissions from for instance associated methane gas release or burning.. The likelihood that the methane and CO2 producers will listen is snoball chance in hades..

[Mark]

Thanks Bill for raising this important topic.

Back in the late-80s, I read a sci-fi book by Greg Barnes called "Mother of Storms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_Storms)".


In the early 21st century, the earth suffers from a giant hurricane spawned by the release of clathrate compounds, as the result of a nuclear explosion. While the hurricane spawns hundreds of progeny, which by novel's end kill at least 1 billion people, two massively computer augmented human intelligences, both of whom witness their organic bodies die, race to corral a comet from beyond Pluto's orbit. They use the ice from the comet to reduce earth surface temperatures, and quell the mother of storms.

Needless to say it affected my outlook and probably contributed to my desire to learn more about the world and what these "methane clathrates" were. Perhaps it even contributed in some way to me deciding to become a "geographer" and study these issues in more depth.

I think this particular threat is so scary that to give it mainstream acknowledgement would lead directly to change. And there remain some elements who, for whatever reason, do not want that.

[Bill Ryan]

-------

Here's a good one. :)

From http://iflscience.com/environment/climatologist-arctic-carbon-release-could-mean-%E2%80%9Cwere-f*cked%E2%80%9D

Excuse the smiley above. To open the link, copy it and substitute a 'u' for the asterisk in the URL.


Climatologist Says Arctic Carbon Release Could Mean “We're F*cked”

August 4, 2014 | by Stephen Luntz
http://www.iflscience.com/sites/www.iflscience.com/files/styles/ifls_large/public/blog/%5Bnid%5D/07_18_Pete-Hill_CTD-bubbles_1_m.jpg?itok=ZB2sf8br
Photo credit: Pete Hill. These tiny bubbles may be the scariest thing you'll ever see.


Climatologists have spent decades politely warning that we are cooking our planet, but now one has decided to stop sugar coating it. Professor Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland tweeted: “If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f*cked.”

Box was responding to research by Stockholm University reporting “vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor (http://www.su.se/english/research/leading-research-areas/science/swerus-c3-first-observations-of-methane-release-from-arctic-ocean-hydrates-1.198540)” in the Arctic Ocean.

The scientists who made the discovery were more restrained. “This was somewhat of a surprise,” chief scientist Orjan Gustafsson wrote. Although there have been plenty of reports of methane plumes (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JC005602/abstract;jsessionid=C1EAA0F5C3FF97F5359BA42F4508D1C8.f02t01) in the Arctic before, these have been a forewarning of danger (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-ado-about-methane/), rather than a direct threat themselves. Microorganisms in the water column scavenge methane as it rises. Provided they can get to it before it reaches the surface the climate change damage is small.

However, at some locations the Swedish team saw bubbles reaching the surface. Dissolved methane concentrations were 10-50 times background levels, and expedition members report “sniffing methane”.

“While there has been much speculation about the vulnerability of regular marine hydrates along the continental slopes of the Arctic rim, very few actual observations of methane releases due to collapsing marine hydrates on the Arctic slope have been made,” Gustafsson wrote (http://www.swerus-c3.geo.su.se/index.php/oerjans-blog-leg-1/170-observing-and-investigating).

The methane was released from a steep continental shelf 250-500m beneath the Laptev Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptev_Sea) off Siberia. There is evidence that the last vestige of the Gulf Stream, which reaches this point having wrapped around Scandinavia, has become warmer in recent years, and this may be triggering the release.

Explorations of the Arctic Ocean are so recent we don't know whether such events are unprecedented, but we do know the area has warmed dramatically in recent decades.

Simultaneously, evidence is building that methane release is the cause of the craters that have suddenly started appearing in other parts of Siberia (http://www.iflscience.com/environment/scientists-think-they-may-have-solved-siberian-crater-mystery). When interviewed by Vice (http://http://motherboard.vice.com/read/if-we-release-a-small-fraction-of-arctic-carbon-were-****ed-climatologist) Box said if he knew the tweet was going to attract so much attention he would have included the methane in permafrost, since this could be equally dangerous, but says he doesn't know enough about the holes to comment on their relation to climate change.

Box is a highly credentialed scientist (https://sites.google.com/site/jboxgreenland/publications), whose main area of research is dark snow (http://darksnow.org/), snow that has had soot and black carbon fall on it, speeding its melting. He blogs at Meltfactor (http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/), where he says we need “an aggressive atmospheric decarbonization program. We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating. If we don’t get atmospheric carbon down and cool the Arctic, the climate physics and recent observations tell me we will probably trigger the release of these vast carbon stores, dooming our kids’ to a hothouse Earth. That’s a tough statement to read when your worry budget is already full as most of ours is.”

[Fairy Friend]

A plan is being developed in Wisconsin to use manure from dairy cows for a methane energy source and still provide fertilizer in a less polluting manner. Initial stages of implementing. Making progress.
http://www.uwosh.edu/biodigester/news-and-events/in-the-news/local-news
http://www.are.wisc.edu/

[Carmody]

This here thread has the solution that works, in total. It has an actual viable solution, that can be enacted today.

If it were enacted with, for example, China's coal powered electric plants, and other coal fired or oil fired plants, it would drop emissions SIGNIFICANTLY. somewhere in the area of 95% plus of all emissions from the given coal or oil fired plant, would be gone. This most specifically includes C02.

10's 0f thousands of people are doing this already, with their cars trucks, fleet vehicles, and so on.

Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of videos can be seen on the internet, about this technology, in-situ, in use, in various methods and ways, and so on.

The price is low and the hardware is already an existent thing.

NOTHING NEEDS BE INVENTED.

NOTHING NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED.

It's already here and is EASY to build, EASY to install. Almost ZERO maintenance and has NO dangers of any kind.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?8458-2.85-billion-fewer-polluting-cars-on-the-road....for-60M

So we have the solution, and it is perfected in all ways required.

We just need the WILL to make it happen.

[sigma6]

Well, well look here ... perhaps the reason for chemtrails ?

High Methane Storage Capacity in Aluminum Metal–Organic Frameworks (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja501606h)

Gas-phase reactions between hydrocarbons and metal oxides: the aluminum monoxide + methane reaction from 590 to 1380 K (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/j100116a002)

Aluminum is poison to all life. The government should tax corporations instead and use the money to create pollution technology. Or just admit the truth, it's the solar system heating up and all this other stuff is nonsense saying there is a million tons or a trillion tons, in relation to the scale of a planet is meaningless...

I don't trust the scientific community of today any more. We just experienced this a few years ago with Al Gore's carbon tax program that netted him over a 100 million dollar windfall. How did that help the planet again?



To Save the Planet, Don't Plant Trees

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide. The assumption is that planting trees and avoiding further deforestation provides a convenient carbon capture and storage facility on the land.

That is the conventional wisdom. But the conventional wisdom is wrong.

In reality, the cycling of carbon, energy and water between the land and the atmosphere is much more complex. Considering all the interactions, large-scale increases in forest cover can actually make global warming worse.

Of course, this is counterintuitive. We all learn in school how trees effortlessly perform the marvel of photosynthesis: They take up carbon dioxide from the air and make oxygen. This process provides us with life, food, water, shelter, fiber and soil. The earth’s forests generously mop up about a quarter of the world’s fossil-fuel carbon emissions every year.

So it’s understandable that we’d expect trees to save us from rising temperatures, but climate science tells a different story. Besides the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, another important switch on the planetary thermostat is how much of the sun’s energy is taken up by the earth’s surface, compared to how much is reflected back to space. The dark color of trees means that they absorb more of the sun’s energy and raise the planet’s surface temperature.

Climate scientists have calculated the effect of increasing forest cover on surface temperature. Their conclusion is that planting trees in the tropics would lead to cooling, but in colder regions, it would cause warming.
Meanwhile, it recently came out that temperature data has been massively manipulated.
This is another perfect example you have people suggesting spraying aluminum is helping the planet (sorry that's suboptimal at the very least) And now some are saying trees are bad?... Trees are life... no exception. Trees = Lifesupport... To suggest otherwise is misinformation by focusing on a subset and not looking at the bigger more complex and dynamic picture... (suboptimal again)

Scientist's are only human, and fallible and subject to the same ego-centric weaknesses all humans are. The biggest problem in science has always been, and still is, and will continue to be... subjective human bias. The history of science is a history of mistake and errors, and those are only the ones that people had to fight for because the scientists that came up with them would rather put their ego, reputation, and politics ahead of science, or they are members of groups tied to political agendas (to put it mildly...)

I like the idea of using the methane for energy and if necessary, appropriate a portion toward growing more trees. Before the Amazon is completely gone and we all suffocate to death.



But even if they would be, currently methane makes up 0.000179% of the atmosphere. I don't see how even a drastic increase there could be civilization-ending. Excellent just the stat I was looking for ... and what is 100 to 1000 x 0.000179? Let's be conservative and just say 500 for now... 0.00895% as a "conservative" worst case scenario...

hmm.... The world needs more trees... where is the clamour for this? Anyone with me? Nature to be mastered must be obeyed. The earth already knows how to create and nurture life. All we have to do (or were supposed to do) was a little spade work. And live off the excess of the bounty.

Even if we don't get to benefit from all the work today... we owe it to the future... no getting around it... it would be 1/10,000th the cost of building space ships and supposedly flying to another planet... (not going to happen for a few millenia)

[sigma6]

[...]
...the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic is freezing...
[...]

Actually, they are currently both freezing!

Winter up North and ice-breaker needed down South:

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/u-s-ice-breaker-rushes-free-fishing-vessel-stuck-thick-antarctic-ice/

http://iceagenow.info/2015/02/antarctica-rescuers-reach-fishing-boat-stuck-ice/

Yes, Robert Felix (Ice Age Now) gave references to the freezing Antarctic. But this slide was shown by Stuart Scott in video #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATIm8Ov1Fks), and John Nissen in video #2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2w0q6gxNiU):

http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b0153920ddd12970b-pi

John Nissen points out that the clear trend of the graph heads straight to what he calls a "Blue Ocean Event" — a pleasant enough name, but catastrophic when it comes — which may possibly occur as early as September of this year (2015).

That's the point of no return, and of no ice... after which the Arctic would be ice-free. And after that, says Nissen, global weather will rapidly get REALLY unstable.

In his presentation, Nissen said it was the most important day of his life. He is enormously concerned, and is convinced he and Dr Peter Wadhams have the engineering models correct. He points out that according to the historic global climate record, the last 8,000 years have been so stable compared with all the previous ages that's it's actually a 'fluke' that that happened at all.

That 'fluke', he says, permitted the human population to thrive and grow to 7 billion in that short time — but that stability will soon end very dramatically.

Then again this "fluke" may have other explanations, today's scientists are trained in materialist indoctrination, i.e. this is assumes everything is random, there is no intelligence outside their degrees and awards, which itself is really an illusion since they don't even have a consciousness, since there is "no scientific evidence" to conclusively "prove this" (believe me this passed for reason in Universities in my day) And therefore, according to this rigorous "logic" no intelligent life exists outside the physical realm of a biochemical mankind (without "consciousness") and that we happened onto this planet as a form of bacterial slime on a piece of stone several millions of millions of years ago, etc, etc, ad nauseum (even though, none of which holds water upon closer scrutiny, since it has been proven, higher complex forms of information cannot be derived from nothing... i.e. all this is just supposition, an abstraction of an abstraction, the reification of theoretically incomplete suppositions....blah blah blah...) i.e. what if our whole major premise is ALL wrong to begin with??!!

The whole universe in fact depends on "intelligence" built into each level from the quantum to the atom to the elements... (who can explain how adding additional protons and neutrons can change lead into gold? other then by using circular reasoning? i.e. that it "simply does"? (an observation/label is not an explanation) As much as my overly literal religious zealot friends drive me nuts... I do believe there is more to this life then Washington DC and the Federal Reserve holding the universe together...

It makes more sense the more that I do learn, that we may very well be in some kind of biospheric "zoo". I believe the dinosaurs were nothing more than terraforming automatons (contrary to the completely misleading "super intelligent" dinos in Jurassic Park...) ever since I read that the stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut... and a secondary "nerve center" just to operate it's tail! (think about it, these creatures could barely procreate and mulch plant matter... and for a few million years... and when their job was done... they were "conveniently" wiped out... another fluke?

If we are meant to be wiped off the planet, I don't think there is anything we can do about it... And if there is something we can do about it... I suspect the solution does not lie solely coming up with the some shiny new gadget... it will be an inner reality change, a philosophical shift of our understanding of who we are... There is something out there, even if it is only the universe itself (the seat and source of intelligence that we are a "derivative" of)

We are either going to align ourselves with the greater universe and become a "healthy cell" in the "universal body" or become a "cancerous cell" feeding on itself and self destructing... We are absolutely NOT the pinnacle of intelligence in the universe, not by a long shot... this realization might very well be the next biggest earth changing discovery of mankind.

[guayabal]

Don't forget the role HAARP is playing in this. Take a look at the first video linked here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?78555-The-Power-Thirsty-Bastards-continue-destroying-the-planet-using-HAARP-tech).

[yelik]

Just summarised one of the vids for information purposes so thought I'd share it

Remember we have zero-point energy technology being denied to the world so dealing with the capture of carbon & Methane is economically viable. Why are the Elites still sitting on it unless they want to use a potential Extinction Level Event to introduce NWO

TURNING NATURE INTO MONEY WILL KILL US

http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Climate_Disruption_Inevitable.html

WE ARE PAST TIPPING POINT

The worst consequence of climate disruption is likely to be release of massive amounts of methane from deep oceans due to warming of deep ocean water. Deep ocean water is warming due to excessive carbon dioxide in the air. Paleontology records from millions of years past show that life on earth has been destroyed several times before. Sudden release of massive amounts of methane could be an extinction level event (ELE). Enough methane is frozen in deep ocean water to kill us if suddenly released.

The Carbon Bubble - Arctic Methane Emergency. Earth vs Money

http://youtu.be/ATIm8Ov1Fks

Organic material trapped in the permafrost releases methane, 84 times worse than carbon dioxide - Methane veil is spreading from the Arctic

Arctic ice is disappearing exponentially
Total Methane in atmosphere is 5 giga tons
Siberian Arctic Shelf contains 500 to 5000 giga tons of methane
A 1% leak would double earth methane levels
Estimated that 50 giga tons will leak - more than x10 current levels
400ppm to 800 ppm of carbon dioxide - not survivable
Estimated +2 deg C by mid century & +4deg C by end of century - devastating effects
Predicted to be very bad within the next 20 years
Iran Leifer - Atmospheric scientist - we should be making plans now to survive +4deg C rise
Only a few thousand people may survive who take refuge in the Arctic
Pre- industrial level was 720 ppm, 2362ppm recorded in Jan 2014
Drought conditions expected
The USA, Mediterranean and Europe would be toast
Reliant upon Russia and Northern China for food production

The Global Operating System is seriously flawed - based on Money & Economics
Neoclassical economics
Turning Nature into Money Will Kill Us
Money is killing the host ( the masses)
Need Ecological Balance

IPCC 5th Report
In order to stay below 2deg C of Global warming 66% to 80% of all fossil fuels reserves of all companies and nations are unburnable
If we are to save the planet we must write off $28 trillion in standard fossil fuel assets
As investors wake up to these huge risks of owning stocks the bubble will burst
Many corporates work hard to make Global Warming come sooner

Paul Beckwith
What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic
Extreme warming amplification process
Melted snow and ice cover does not reflect solar energy
It destabilises the atmosphere and slows the jet stream where much colder & warmer air is spread
We get feedback loop - moving more heat to Arctic eventually fractures jet stream
Weather becomes destabilised and unpredictable - happening at just 0.85deg C change
The chemistry of the atmosphere is changing


Typically oceans and soil have absorbed about the same amount of decaying vegetation, creating balance
We now have 30% more carbon dioxide in the air than in any other period in the last 800k years

Sources of Carbon Dioxide
Decaying vegetation 90%
Burning fossil fuels 3% to 10%

A strategy to reduce climate disruption.

We do need to reduce our use of fossil fuels as part of our strategy. However, reducing the use of fossil fuels--even stopping the use of fossil fuels--is no longer sufficient to avoid climate disruption; climate disruption has already started.

The most powerful strategy we can use to minimize climate disruption is to pyrolyze a percentage of decaying vegetation. In pyrolysis, most of the carbon in the vegetation converts to a solid (biochar) instead of releasing the carbon into the air as carbon dioxide. The biochar, in turn, can be used in the soil to increase the soil's productivity.

To pyrolyze is to heat to 500 degrees Celsius, without oxygen. Existing or abandoned coal-fired power stations could be adapted to pyrolyze massive amounts of decaying vegetation. Existing coal-fired power stations have the infrastructure that pyrolysis of vegetation needs: furnaces to pyrolyze the vegetation and rail systems to bring the vegetation to the stations. The coal-fired stations also have the generators and other necessary support for distribution of electricity resulting from using the vegetation as fuel.

Municipalities could collect yard waste and provide it for fuel. Forestry departments could provide forestry waste for fuel. Farmers could provide crop waste for fuel. Prairie grass could be planted on non-arable land and harvested for fuel. We can do this now.

Problem: We are at the tipping point of catastrophic climate change and we are not responding with a solution.

Solution: Pyrolyze 70 gigatons of organic waste (biomass) to sequester carbon dioxide as carbon char (biochar) instead of having the waste emit that amount of carbon dioxide into the air; this can reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Also reduce use of fossil fuels. The combination of pyrolysis and reduction of use of fossil fuels needs to get carbon dioxide levels down to 285 ppm globally.

Action: Work with environmentalists to ensure effective use of pyrolysis at the city, county, state, and federal levels. Work with environmentalists globally, especially China, the United States, and India, to reach the goal of converting at least 1,000 coal-fired power stations to biomass-pyrolysis power stations. Keep a running tabulation on the number of power stations converted to biomass pyrolysis and location.

Work with your local legislators to pass laws supporting the conversion of coal-fired power stations to biomass-pyrolysis power stations.

Work with the media to ensure that the public knows about the myths and the truth of climate disruption. Work with media to measure the amount of biochar generated in each city, municipality, county, and state. Pressure the EPA to put measurement of biochar creation on their list of high-priority measures for climate change.

Goals

1. Environmental organizations need to make pyrolysis of biomass a priority.
2. Governments at all levels need to make support of pyrolysis an urgent priority.
3. Humanity needs to make the conversion of at least 1,000 coal-fired plants a priority globally.

References:

www.awesomelibrary.org/Climate_Change_Balance.html

www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Science/Catastrophic_Climate_Change/Coal_Power_to_Biomass.html

www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Science/Catastrophic_Climate_Change/Catastrophic_Climate_Change.html

Example
Provides an approach to using vegetation waste (grass and straw) as a fuel for a 3 million watt (megawatt) pyrolysis power station. The station also keeps carbon dioxide in the waste from entering the air by conveting it to a solid carbon, biochar, that can be used to improve soil productivity."

[Cjay]

It was warmer on Earth during the so-called Medieval Warm Period than it is today. You can find this image all over the internet.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia/globalwarming05.jpg

Was human civilisation wiped out by the extra warmth? No.

Did we have catastrophic methane releases then? No.

Granted, we had a lot more forest then to absorb any extra CO2 and we did not have industry or power generation or transportation that burns oil, coal or gas.

As for the alarmists who suggest that re-planting forests will lead to an increase of average surface temperatures, I invite them to stand under a shady tree on a hot day or better still, walk into any dense forest and feel (or measure) that it is 7 to 10 degrees C cooler inside the forest than it is in an adjacent clearing. The leaves do NOT radiate more heat than bare ground.

Most of the forest clearing and CO2 emissions from burning carbon-based fuels occurred in the last 50 to 100 years. It used to take days to cut down giant trees and hours to cut down smaller trees. By comparision, it takes seconds to plant trees mechanically and minutes to plant trees by hand. We could, if we set our minds to it, re-plant forests much faster than they were cleared. And those forests would soak up huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

We now have the knowledge of how to green deserts using no more water than falls from the sky.

K1rKDXuZ8C0


We know how to re-grow large areas of tropical rainforests, very quickly, so that humans only need to use a tiny percentage of the total area re-planted.

3vfuCPFb8wk


In China's Loess Plateau we have an outstanding example of repairing and re-planting vast areas of land destroyed by humans over thousands of years. Approximately 35,000 square kilometres was re-planted in a decade. See photos and Green Gold video below:

28978

"The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now."

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
- Chinese Proverbs

YBLZmwlPa8A


The last segment of the first video in the opening post was about biochar. I do not believe this is the whole answer but it does have the potential to store carbon in the soil for thousands of years and to significantly increase the growth rate of plants, among many other benefits.

Approximately 90 million hectares of soil in the Amazon contains large amounts of biochar, mostly dated between 450 BC and 950 AD.

My post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?52523-ANNOUNCEMENT-Huge-Scale-Environmental-and-Humanitarian-Projects-to-Repair-The-Earth) from 2012 contains a lot of information and videos about biochar and other very useful things which can help us in so many ways. What happened to those projects? As it turns out, my announcement was premature because the promised funding was not delivered. Since then, other much larger promises to fund much larger projects in at least four countries have been made and the funding will be available "in two weeks" (in other words, not yet). That's disappointing but I am not disheartened because I know we can do it.


I don't doubt that if all of the frozen methane was released in a very short period, we'd have a serious problem. That apparently didn't happen during the Medieval Warm Period so I doubt it is (more) likely to happen now.

Now we have a lot more instruments and people measuring and observing and several methods (radio, television and internet) for reporting a lot more details more quickly than ever before. I think the real problem is information overload and manipulative tricksters trying to cash in on our fear and confusion. The real world is far more complex than the models and frankly the models are flawed.

Meteorologists can't accurately and reliably predict the weather a few days in advance. Climatologists certainly can't accurately predict climate change several decades or a century in advance. They are guessing and they are trying to scare the crap out of us to make us PAY.

If we (humanity collectively) put 10% as much time and energy into greening deserts and re-planting forests as we put into climate hysteria and scaremongering, the job would be half completed by now. There are hundreds of things or events that could wipe out most life this planet. Let's put more focused effort into doing what we CAN do NOW and less effort into fearing all the things we can't control.

[Operator]

Well, well look here ... perhaps the reason for chemtrails ?

High Methane Storage Capacity in Aluminum Metal–Organic Frameworks (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja501606h)

Gas-phase reactions between hydrocarbons and metal oxides: the aluminum monoxide + methane reaction from 590 to 1380 K (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/j100116a002)

Aluminum is poison to all life. The government should tax corporations instead and use the money to create pollution technology. Or just admit the truth, it's the solar system heating up and all this other stuff is nonsense saying there is a million tons or a trillion tons, in relation to the scale of a planet is meaningless...
---


To be clear, I didn't mention this in defense of the chemtrails just as a possible clarification.


Don't forget the role HAARP is playing in this. Take a look at the first video linked here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?78555-The-Power-Thirsty-Bastards-continue-destroying-the-planet-using-HAARP-tech).

Great, that you mention HAARP ... because that crossed my mind too. The 2nd link that I offered shows that heat is needed
for certain reactions.

So, here's another dot that could be connected: Experiments with the HAARP Ionospheric Heater (http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/experiments-haarp-ionospheric-heater)
HAARP is used as a 'heater' and articles that I've read in the past mention that HAARP often is used after spraying the chemtrails.

I wonder if there's an additional connection to the weird (un-meltable) snow reports that showed up recently ... ;)

[regnak]

Great post excellent but Global warming has proved to be a hoax because the climate has been getting colder for last couple years

The Earth Is Cooling
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/

personal I think there is a cycle this cycle comes from the sun as does our weather indeed many people have been saying there is a ice mini only coming so a 4 degree temperature increase will be welcomed by all :p

A former White House and Nasa scientist says that due to the cycles of the Sun we are due a 30 year mini Ice Age

http://www.spaceandscience.net/id1.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIEAOAOgyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqLIPTnQK-g

also see Rolf Witzsche

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9abiktFkWo

and Piers Corbyn

[Baby Steps]

Www.floodmap.net

Positive feedback loop

Leading to a fast flip

What eventually arrests the process? Cloud cover. It's a warm wet future with a lot of dry areas blooming, but higher sea level.
It has happened before
People will have time to move

H

[Tangri]

Whence methane (IF) captured, there remains the transport issue. In Nigeria for instance, probably THE number 1 or number 2 contributor to global hydrocarbon waste gas emission into the atmosphere besides Russia, is that if methane would be captured, there is no infra-structure to contain it or transport it.

As it comes down to $$$ being pocketed by tptb controlling the resource being emitted, spending many billions for a pipeline is not conducive to a ptb structure who would rather pocket the $$$ and let the emissions happen.. That is the reality in the majority of the methane AND CO2 and carbon black (soot) producers..

The PTB mindset is ignore it, and take the $$$ and stall. This is a political issue..

World Bank has said, no more loans to those countries who still allow for emissions from for instance associated methane gas release or burning.. The likelihood that the methane and CO2 producers will listen is snoball chance in hades..

If there is enough customers " infra-structure to contain it or transport it" can be quickly restored. It had been tested.

[Flash]

I heard about the Artic Methane release a few years ago, and since, i had a weird form of thinking about it.

Although I understand CO2 release and damage, how biochar could work, that the whole solar system may be warming up, etc etc., I also always have an underneath unhealthy suspicion about something else.

Call me paranoïd if you want, but this starts on the premises that some beings may want a warmer planet for themselves. Therefore created our demise partly through our own stupidity through using petroleum etc, and partly planned for their benefit, therefore creating CO2 release which in turn will create methane release, which will all turn the planet into a human inferno, to the pleasure of a conquering race. Who, by the way, may not be able to breath oxygen. Who may in fact be damaged by oxygen.

Up to a point where at some point I had asked Simon Parkes what Reptilians were breathing. I was expecting methane, but his answer was not it, although he hesitated before answering. He told me though that oxygen is detrimental to them and they have to wear a breathing device when coming in 3D.

Anyhow, food for thought

[Snowflower]

Flash, I've had the same thought about the insanity of building nuclear reactors that can melt down and turn the planet into a radiation cess pool.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

I heard about the Artic Methane release a few years ago, and since, i had a weird form of thinking about it.

Although I understand CO2 release and damage, how biochar could work, that the whole solar system may be warming up, etc etc., I also always have an underneath unhealthy suspicion about something else.

Call me paranoïd if you want, but this starts on the premises that some beings may want a warmer planet for themselves. Therefore created our demise partly through our own stupidity through using petroleum etc, and partly planned for their benefit, therefore creating CO2 release which in turn will create methane release, which will all turn the planet into a human inferno, to the pleasure of a conquering race. Who, by the way, may not be able to breath oxygen. Who may in fact be damaged by oxygen.

Up to a point where at some point I had asked Simon Parkes what Reptilians were breathing. I was expecting methane, but his answer was not it, although he hesitated before answering. He told me though that oxygen is detrimental to them and they have to wear a breathing device when coming in 3D.

Anyhow, food for thought

You are correct.
Those individuals who have invested in Water Scarcity and have purchased land surrounding aquifers,
are among those who would prefer the desert planet reality.

Some call them reptilians,
but i'm wondering if that's a tongue in cheek reference to,
Those Who Must Not Be Named,
due to politics :(

[Bob]

Whence methane (IF) captured, there remains the transport issue. In Nigeria for instance, probably THE number 1 or number 2 contributor to global hydrocarbon waste gas emission into the atmosphere besides Russia, is that if methane would be captured, there is no infra-structure to contain it or transport it.

As it comes down to $$$ being pocketed by tptb controlling the resource being emitted, spending many billions for a pipeline is not conducive to a ptb structure who would rather pocket the $$$ and let the emissions happen.. That is the reality in the majority of the methane AND CO2 and carbon black (soot) producers..

The PTB mindset is ignore it, and take the $$$ and stall. This is a political issue..

World Bank has said, no more loans to those countries who still allow for emissions from for instance associated methane gas release or burning.. The likelihood that the methane and CO2 producers will listen is snoball chance in hades..

If there is enough customers " infra-structure to contain it or transport it" can be quickly restored. It had been tested.

Kinda depends on where the release sources are.

In Africa, the prime releaser of the carbon black, the hydrocarbon soot from flaring, the methane release from the wells, and the CO2 formation is from Nigeria. There is no user available for the well gas.

Here you can see in Kazakhstan's fiasco's with intense methane release (and CO2) from leaky pipelines, and wells and the so called "solution":


Feb. 13 2014 (Bloomberg) (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-13/kazakhstan-starts-pursuit-of-kashagan-partners-over-gas-flaring) -- Kazakhstan made a move against the Kashagan venture for allegedly exceeding pollution levels by burning off natural gas to clear leaky pipelines from the country’s biggest oil field.

The ecology department in Atyrau, the Caspian Sea region where the project operates, sent the results of its gas-flaring review to the Kashagan venture on Feb. 8 and has a month to estimate the economic damage, the Environment and Water Resources Ministry said today in an e-mailed reply to questions.

Kazakhstan, which devalued its currency by 19 percent on Feb. 11 to boost its economic competitiveness, is considering a $1.2 billion fine to punish the partners in the Kashagan oil field for pollution from the flaring last year, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Output at the field has been halted since October, less than a month after it started, because of defects found in pipes carrying lethal sulfur-laden natural gas from the oil field.

The partners, which include Eni SpA, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and the Kazakhstan’s state oil producer, are accused of burning more than the permitted level of natural gas at both the project’s production island in the Caspian Sea and the onshore processing plant, the people said.

Notice the international "Partners". And that the solution is to FINE (financially penalize) the players. That has not been shown to work though..

In Nigeria, the government IS interested in who IS flaring, releasing methane and CO2 and carbon black soot (from the burning)..

(Source (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-27/nigeria-employs-satellite-to-chase-1-billion-gas-flaring-fines))

Knowing that the "Partners" will pay fines to be allowed to FLARE (and not capture the gas), and the government WANTS the extra BILLION $$ to go into their pockets, they have started using high tech satellites to see WHO is flaring, so they can BILL the offender..


Nov. 27 2014 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria has started using a satellite tracking system to help it bring in more than $1 billion a year in fines it could charge for illegal gas flaring.

The new gas flare tracker is an online map showing data from a U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration satellite that will observe natural gas fires when orbiting over Nigeria.

The measurements it records will feed into estimates of how much gas is burned, its carbon dioxide content, and its potential value.

“It has the ability to calculate the amount of unpaid fines owed by facility owners, estimated at $1.1 billion per year,” Environment Minister Laurentia Laraba Mallam said today at an event unveiling the system in the capital, Abuja. While it was outlawed in 1984, the burning of gas that occurs in oil deposits “is still a major cause of human and environmental issues across the country,” she said.

Is there "profit" in methane/natural gas ? No, it is kept artificially devalued... where oil may be going for 50$ a barrel (where it was artificially inflated to 108$ a barrel), gas is kept at an equivalent of 2$ a barrel.. nobody makes money that way, so why spend 100 million $ on a pipeline, or more when it is easier to "pay the fine" pollute and damage the environment and people's lives, allow the politico to pocket the fines, and the situation stays as it was.. nothing changes..

[Snowflower]

No, really, Tesla - they're reptilian. As in reptiles. As in lizards. From a different dimension.

[Antagenet]

Guy McPherson


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO1l3mPRkeg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKkJb6IrV_U


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNlPMsfjPKk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oHrC-HGEm8


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Near-Term-Human-Extinction-Evidence-and-Support-Group/170787913129107

[Bill Ryan]

1Wj3xn-8y0Q



I didn't immediately understand this post, but it's a reference to a 1996 movie called The Arrival. The film never won any Oscars, but the Sci-Fi premise was loosely based around runaway global warming. I watched it last night. Here's a screenshot from one scene:

http://projectavalon.net/The_Arrival.jpg

[Baby Steps]

Ice core samples confirm that the sequence is warming leads to higher co2.
Tonnes of melted tundra bog are releasing a volume of Co2 that dwarves man's efforts.

[lucidity]

Hello Siblings,

It seems that Russian scientists are also worried
about the climatic risks of thawing permafrost.

The story reports on the 'mysterious' appearance of
sink holes, 20 of them, in the northern Russian Yamal Peninsula.

http://rt.com/news/235219-craters-siberia-yamal-lake/

However the story also notes that these holes are not too
far away from Gazprom’s Bovanenkovo gas field.
Perhaps the gas extraction in some way weakens the
foundations upon which the surface rests.. and so
subsidence leads to sink holes..... perhaps.

be happy

lucidity :-)

[TargeT]

While Obama spent weeks apprising us before, during, and after of the UN climate talks in Paris which are set to cost developed nations upwards of $100 billion dollars a year — an estimated $170 billion to US GDP in 2030 — all so they can lower the planet's temperature a whole 1.5 degrees... Have you heard the man say anything about the massive "unstoppable" methane leak in California that's been happening this whole time? They're calling it the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill. No one has any idea how to stop or fix it.

Punchline? This leak has put out the equivalent of what six coal fired power plants (the ones Obama wants to regulate out of existence) would put out in 20 YEARS while the UN climate change talks in Paris were going down and it's still spewing methane into the air like a volcano right now. The president who cares so much about the environment hasn't mentioned it once.
Atvv55rsbA8



A California Gas Leak Is the Biggest Environmental Disaster Since the BP Oil Spill (http://gizmodo.com/a-california-gas-leak-is-the-biggest-environmental-disa-1749958081)

No quick relief from methane leak for residents of California town (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/southern-california-porter-ranch-methane-gas-leak-pumping-out-70000-lbs-of-gas-an-hour/)

Infrared Footage Shows Just How Terrifyingly Bad California's Gas Leak Is (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a18761/infrared-footage-of-socal-gas-leak-shows-how-bad-the-problem-is/)

Lpcs4ear94k



'Unprecedented' gas leak in California is the climate disaster version of BP's oil spill
exfJ8VPQDTY
A massive natural gas leak in Aliso Canyon, California, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles, has been spewing about 62 million standard cubic feet of methane per day into the air since a well casing mysteriously suffered damage on Oct. 23 of this year.

The leak is unlikely to be squelched for another three to four months, according to SoCalGas, as crews have to drill about 8,500 underground to intersect with the base of the leaking pipe.

Already, more than 1,000 people in Porter Ranch and Northridge, California have temporarily relocated due to health complaints related to the fumes from the leak. In addition, the Los Angeles Unified School District's Board of Education decided on Dec. 17 to temporarily relocate two schools for the rest of the 2015-16 school year.The Aliso Canyon leak demonstrates a potential blind spot in the nascent regulatory system for overseeing the country's growing natural gas infrastructure. Companies are being pushed to contain leaks in their natural gas pipelines and at facilities that burn natural gas, but underground storage areas, of which there are more than 300 nationwide, aren't subjected to specific standards that might have prevented this leak.California has been monitoring the air quality in the Porter Ranch community, which is closest to the leak and where many people have complained about health issues. They have found that, so far, the level of pollutants in the air, including benzene, which can be extremely hazardous when present in particularly high levels, has remained below the threshold where they would be considered dangerous.

However, natural gas odorants can cause adverse physical symptoms, including nausea and headaches, despite the lack of long-term health risk. A spokesman for SoCalGas told Mashable that the company "recognizes the impact this incident is having on the environment," but said it's unsure exactly how much gas has escaped so far.
http://mashable.com/2015/12/24/methane-gas-leak-california-aliso/#tjSawKnTlqq8

[Cidersomerset]

Rachel Maddow: HUGE Methane GAS LEAK Impacting Town & Environment

OaY6-8MRwBE

Published on 5 Dec 2015

This Methane gas leak is equivalent to 1/4 of all the greenhouse gas emissions from
California each day. Rachel reports on a weeks-long natural gas leak from a storage
facility in Porter Ranch, California that is sickening residents, forcing evacuations
and threatening the environment as repeated attempts to stop the leak fail and a
final solution potentially months away.
From TRMS, MSNBC



===================================================

Methane Continues to Spew Into Air Over California’Absolutely Uncontained’:

By David Icke on 29th December 2015

http://www.davidicke.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/1032427692.jpg

‘In what is being called the worst environmental disaster since the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill in
2010, methane gas has been pouring into the air over California’s Aliso Canyon, near Los Angeles,
at the rate of approximately 1200 tons each day since October.

The massive leak is spewing 110,000 pounds of the gas per hour from a cold-war era energy
facility storage. Currently 1,700 homes have had to be evacuated, and the Southern California
Gas Company estimates that they will not be able to stop the leak until “late February or late March.”

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released footage taken with an infrared camera showing
massive amounts of the foul smelling gas billowing from the leak and called it “one of the biggest
leaks we’ve ever seen reported” and “absolutely uncontained.”’

http://sputniknews.com/us/20151229/1032427984/methane-spill-california-disaster.html

[TODD & NORA]

..........

[Sunny-side-up]

WoW I bet it is really hard and dangerous to deal with!

Bumping this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpcs4ear94k[/url]


It's all OVER......the place :(
http://frack-off.org.uk/locations/
http://www.theweek.co.uk/fracking/56818/fracking-plans-approved-by-mps-why-all-the-fuss

[Lifebringer]

Jerry is a government corporate bluedog. He will sell out the people for the state profits on resources. It's always been about the resources that pay money regardless of race creed or color, it's always about the greed. If you smell greed, it looks like greed, it's greed. Insatiable greed.

[Rocky_Shorz]

What Went Wrong at Porter Ranch?

Before she retired in 2014, Anneliese Anderle was a field engineer for the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermic Resources, which regulates oil drilling. She worked out of offices in Bakersfield, Cypress and Ventura, and for a while she was responsible for monitoring the massive natural gas storage field at Aliso Canyonouthern California Gas owns the facility, which distributes gas to 14 power plants and 21 million customers. In her years monitoring wells at Aliso Canyon, Anderle says she got to know the gas company as "a first-class operation."

The company tended to be conservative, and to do things rigorously and by the book. But the wells at Aliso Canyon were aging, and many were starting to wear out.

"They have a beautiful facility," she says. "It's gleaming. They have great roads and well-marked pipelines. Everything's painted. But just below the surface, it's junk."

On Oct. 23, gas company employees noticed a leak out of the ground near a well called SS-25. It was late afternoon, so they decided to come back in the morning to fix it.

The next day, however, their efforts were unsuccessful. Gas was now billowing downhill into Porter Ranch, an upscale community on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. Customers were beginning to complain about the smell.

Gas leaks are not uncommon, and it took a couple weeks for this one to become news. When Anderle heard about it, in early November, she pulled up the well record on a state website. The file dates back to when the well was drilled in 1953. As she looked it over, she zeroed in on a piece of equipment 8,451 feet underground called a sub-surface safety valve.

If it were working properly, the gas company would be able to shut down the well. The fact that SoCalGas hadn't meant, to her, that it must be broken. The records indicated that it had not been inspected since 1976.

"That's almost 40 years," she says. "It's a long time to leave it in the well."

As weeks went by and further efforts to stop the leak failed, it became clear that the company was dealing with an unprecedented catastrophe.

On Dec. 15, the Weekly interviewed Rodger Schwecke, a SoCalGas executive who is helping to coordinate the response to the leak. Asked about the safety valve, he said it wasn't damaged. It actually wasn't there.

"We removed that valve in 1979," he said.

He pointed out that the valve was old at that time and leaking. It also was not easy to find a new part, so the company opted not to replace it. If SS-25 were a "critical" well — that is, one within 100 feet of a road or a park, or within 300 feet of a home — then a safety valve would be required. But it was not a critical well, so it was not required.

"Now there's definitely going to be a push for changing the regulations," Anderle said, when told of the missing valve. "You get rid of a safety valve because it wasn't working? A safety valve would have shut the damn well down! They're in a bunch of trouble."

Gas has now been spewing out of the ground at Aliso Canyon for two months. The gas company expects it to continue for up to another three months. Methane is a potent contributor to climate change. By one estimate, the leak is producing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the tailpipes of 2.3 million cars.

The Aliso Canyon leak has increased the state's methane emissions by 21 percent. As of now, 2.3 percent of the state's entire carbon footprint is coming from one hole in the ground above Porter Ranch.

"This is an environmental disaster," said Mayor Eric Garcetti, who stopped by Porter Ranch Community School in November, just before flying to Paris for the United Nations climate change conference. "It's devastating. It makes you question the long-term sustainability of a carbon-based power system."....

http://www.laweekly.com/news/what-went-wrong-at-porter-ranch-6405804

[Rocky_Shorz]

This isn't from fracking, they pulled the shutoff valve out from 1.5 miles down in 1979 and never replaced it...

This leak started in November....

They could have shut this down with cement, but then they have the cost of redrilling a whole new well...

This has just been a storage well since 1976, now it is leaking with no cutoff below

http://images1.laweekly.com/imager/u/745xauto/6407402/feature1-3-gas-leak_1_.jpg

Strange coincidence to be noted...

The leak started right after the slow moving blue flame rocket launch... Can someone find its trajectory?

[avid]

People told to evacuate. Residents becoming very ill, nosebleeds, nausea.
Fn-kympLcDc from BPEarthWatch


http://enenews.com/doctors-very-unusual-infections-being-reported-around-massive-gas-blowout-los-angeles-youre-able-leave-im-telling-really-critical-official-plume-spreading-away-national-disaster-tv-living-scienc
Doctors: “Very unusual” infections being reported around massive gas blowout in LA… “If you’re able to leave do it now, I’m telling you it’s really critical” — Official: Toxic plume is spreading far away, it’s a national disaster — TV: “We’re a living science experiment” (VIDEO)

[TargeT]

they are saying it could take up to 4 months to stop (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/methane-leak-california-1.3385262)..... this is supposedly like 70x worse than "co2" for "green house gasses" yet still, no huge uproar, no "gulf oil spill" reaction..... very odd behavior from the MSM on this one.

[Althena]

http://i.imgur.com/oAFk1Ee.jpg


California Governor Jerry Brown finally declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, concerning the ongoing, currently unstoppable methane gas leak spewing from Aliso Canyon that has created a nightmare for residents of Porter Ranch.

“I will tell you, this goes well beyond Porter Ranch. We’ve had complaints from as far as Chatsworth, Northridge, and Granada Hills,” emphasized Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander during a Porter Ranch town hall meeting on December 28. “Apparently this plume of toxic chemicals and whatever it might be, doesn’t know zip codes […] This is the equivalent of the BP oil spill on land, in a populated community.”

Aliso Canyon sits less than two and a half miles from Porter Ranch and less than 30 miles from the city of Los Angeles — the second most populous city in the United States — whose outlying total statistical area includes nearly 18 million residents, as of 2013.

Brown has been widely criticized for lack of decisive action on the leak, which is erupting from its underground storage area with all the force “of a volcano.” Under Wednesday’s declaration, “all state agencies will utilize state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough state response to this incident.”

Porter Ranch residents have been evacuating the area for some time, though SoCalGas’ rather maladroit handling of the relocation procedure has been a nightmare — and the cause for a mounting number of lawsuits, including one from the L.A. city attorney’s office.

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a civil lawsuit last month concerning the massive methane leak’s impact on area residents’ health and damage to the environment — which alleged failure by SoCalGas to prevent the leak and further exacerbation of “the effects of that failure by allowing acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than a month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future.”

Pediatrician Dr. Richard Kang gave an ominous warning during the Porter Ranch meeting, saying, “Unfortunately, the only real way to get away from the symptoms is… you have to relocate — you have to get away from the environment.” Health complaints include severe headaches, nosebleeds, respiratory issues including increasing cases of asthma, and a number of other issues.

SoCalGas, in the meantime, stated they were “providing air filters for people’s homes,” but though “the odor added to the leaking gas can cause symptoms for some, the gas is not toxic and county health officials have said the leak does not pose a long-term health risk.”

But, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported on December 25, “Los Angeles County health officials said prolonged exposure to trace chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens, can cause long-term health effects.” Nevertheless, they also “cautioned that levels examined so far here are not believed to be associated with long-term health problems.”

¤=[Post Update]=¤

In fact, as Erin Brockovich pointed out, “no one really knows the long-term side effects of benzene and radon, the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.”

Additionally, area house pets seem particularly vulnerable — possibly acting the part of unwitting canaries — as veterinarian Dr. David Smith described in the town hall meeting. Noting he has seen dozens of sickened animals, Smith said, “I’ve seen dogs, cats, birds, pocket pets… the primary symptoms I’ve seen are gastrointestinal vomiting […]These are not things you should be inhaling.” He added, “We have seen dermatological issues as well, some very unusual bacterial infections in dogs,” including one case in which a dog had such an infection on its face, and “the client developed almost the exact same kind of symptoms soon after that […] their physician thinks it’s related [to exposure from the gas leak] and so I tend to think these correlations are real.”

Though the declaration of emergency states “the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources shall continue its prohibition against Southern California Gas Company injecting any gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility,” it does not make that moratorium dependent on stoppage of the leak; rather, only “until a comprehensive review, utilizing independent experts […] is completed.”

Physician Dr. Brooks Michaels, addressing the town hall meeting, gave the sternest advice to those still in the area surrounding the unprecedented leak:

If you have a chance to leave, if you’re able to leave… if you have a chance to relocate, do it now. I’m telling you, it’s really critical.

Understandably, Brown’s state of emergency seems almost too little, too late for many.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

The gas company says, ‘This is just the smell you’re reacting to, it’s just temporary, it’s not a problem, it’s not serious’ — these people aren’t stupid,” said attorney Rex Paris. “How could somebody possibly say that? We have children whose noses are bleeding every day, we have people who suffer from chronic headaches [and] are nauseous every, single day. How does that not become a serious issue? Why are they saying something nobody here believes? […] They’re trying to convince everybody that it’s all in our heads. It’s a trick.


exfJ8VPQDTY

[TargeT]

Governor declares state of emergency in connection with California methane leak
No state funds will be used to fix it, but some gas storage sites must now be monitored.
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GovBrown_Visit3-300x461.jpg
On Wednesday evening, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County in connection with a massive natural gas leak that’s ongoing at a Southern California Gas Company storage facility. The leak, which began on October 23, has been spewing methane into the air at a rate of tens of thousands of kilograms (PDF) per hour.

Governor Brown’s declaration of a state of emergency requires that SoCal Gas and other gas storage facility operators throughout California start conducting daily inspections of well heads and implement infrared imaging technology to detect leaks. Facility operators will have to monitor the wells for mechanical integrity, gas pressure, and safety on an ongoing basis.

The emergency declaration doesn’t earmark any state funds to help fund a cleanup, but it orders the California Public Utilities Commission to "ensure that Southern California Gas Company covers costs related to the natural gas leak and its response, while protecting ratepayers.”

The leaking storage facility is located in the Aliso Canyon area, just north of Los Angeles, close to the community of Porter Ranch. SoCal Gas has insisted that the leaking methane is not damaging to human health, but it has relocated thousands of Porter Ranch residents due to the fact that the odorless, colorless, very flammable methane is treated with chemicals that can cause headaches, nausea, and nosebleeds.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/governor-declares-state-of-emergency-in-connection-with-california-methane-leak/



Get up dates here: http://www.caloes.ca.gov/ICESite/Pages/Aliso-Canyon.aspx

[3(C)+me]

I kind of boycotted the LA times last year as I was done with MSM and their CIA staff members posing as "journalists" but they have a article on this leak here as follows;

“My entire family is sick”

By Daniela Gerson and Priya Krishnakumar
contact the reporters


Jan. 7, 2015

Bloody noses for the first time in 40 years. A Christmas Eve spent vomiting in urgent care. No health impacts whatsoever.

This is how Porter Ranch-area residents responded to an L.A. Times questionnaire on the massive Aliso Canyon gas leak’s impact on their health. We culled through scores of responses and mapped them, with the permission of respondents. Read about their experiences or add your own below.


I have headaches, runny nose, cough, blurry vision, diarrhea. I had smelled gas one day when I was in the garage and went out and bought a gas detector at Walmart's before I was even aware there was a gas leak. We have two dogs and three grandchildren...My wife and I are both in our mid to late sixties, and have health concerns for us and our small pets.

—Gary Rubin


Symptoms: Dizziness, Headaches, Nosebleeds

When did you move to the area? 1990-2000

Why did you move to Porter Ranch? An attractive community with nice homes and neighborhoods.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Full coverage »
How is the Porter Ranch leak impacting you? Please help us share the story of the leak’s effects on your community by telling us about your experience. View survey

http://graphics.latimes.com/porter-ranch-residents/

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-porter-ranch-gas-leak-live-htmlstory.html

[ghostrider]

Silly humans and some thought Fukushima would just go away ... those cores are moving around in the earth's mantle ...
.

[Cidersomerset]

An article on todays headline page...


How Corporate Greed Caused the Massive California Methane Leak

By David Icke on 9th January 2016

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Corporate Greed Caused the Massive California Methane Leak
Tuesday, 05 January 2016 16:30
By The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed


‘If you don’t live on the West Coast of the United States, you might not have heard
about the massive gas well leak that’s been venting natural gas into the atmosphere
at a rate of more than 100,000 pounds per hour for more than two months.

Infrared video that the Environmental Defense Fund captured in December shows
that the natural gas is billowing like a volcano just above Burbank, California, on a
hilltop in the Aliso Canyon area.

That video was taken over a month after the leak started on October 23, after the
well had already ejected an estimated 80,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere.’


http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2016_01/2016_0105dt_.jpg
A massive gas well leak in Burbank, California may not be plugged for another three
months. In 1979, the Southern California Gas Company had the original safety valve
removed from the well and never replaced it as they weren't required to by law.
(Image: Safety valve via Shutterstock)


Read more: How Corporate Greed Caused the Massive California Methane Leak


http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34298-how-corporate-greed-caused-the-massive-california-methane-leak

[Wide-Eyed]

From zero hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/doctors-urge-california-residents-leave-nowwhile-you-can-gas-leak-fears-grow

[avid]

http://enenews.com/state-emergency-issued-la-gas-blowout-oil-begins-raining-down-homes-concern-sinkholes-geysers-being-created-official-brink-pandemonium

State of Emergency now underway for L.A. gas blowout — Oil begins raining down on homes — Official: “It’s on the brink of pandemonium” — Many worry plume will ignite, cause explosion — Concern over geysers, sinkholes being created — Company: Experts have “never seen anything like this”

I looked at other references on this site (off topic) - horrifying toxicity in west coast, very sad....

[Bill Ryan]

http://enenews.com/state-emergency-issued-la-gas-blowout-oil-begins-raining-down-homes-concern-sinkholes-geysers-being-created-official-brink-pandemonium


From that page... a stark summary:

Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-porter-ranch-20160105-story.html), Jan 5, 2016 (emphasis added): Utility is installing screens to contain oily mist at leaking well near Porter Ranch… The structures under construction on the west side of the well head are designed to capture airborne droplets of a brine solution that “may have contained trace amounts of oil naturally occurring within the leaking well’s reservoir,” said Trisha Muse, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas… Now, a mixture of brine water and oil is rising up into the gas company’s natural gas storage zone, then traveling up the well and into the air. As a result, local residents are finding droplets of dark brown residue on their homes, vehicles, fish ponds and gardens… [The company] acknowledged that some residents had asked about “dark brown spots on their property.” “We sampled it and, according to our retained toxicologist and medical expert,” the company said, “the residue contained heavier hydrocarbons (similar to motor oil) but does not pose a health risk.”… On Monday, plaintiffs’ attorneys sent a letter to state regulatory officials [and] demanded that state regulators “explain what is happening with the petroleum now surfacing.”… “There is a complete lack of information in the well files,” their letter says, “to show where the gas and petroleum migrates underground and the risk for creating sink holes and geysers.”

Los Angeles Daily News (http://www.dailynews.com/environment-and-nature/20160105/oily-mist-surfaces-at-porter-ranch-gas-leak-as-well-pressure-drops), Jan 5, 2015: [A]n oily mist… has been surfacing… The seepage is the result of changing dynamics deep underground… “They (the demister pads) are necessary because as the reservoir pressure declines, fluids (oil and water) encroach into the reservoir and are then carried to surface with the gas.

BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35257861), Jan 8, 2016: Residents… point out cars, outdoor furniture and houses which have been marked with brown, oily spots… Tim O’Connor, a lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, has called it “an environmental and public health catastrophe,” said . “In terms of timelines this is going to surpass the gulf oil problem by a mile.”

New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/us/california-governor-declares-emergency-over-los-angeles-gas-leak.html), Jan 6, 2016: Gov. Jerry Brown, faced with mounting public anger and no end in sight to the leak, declared a state of emergency… Mitchell Englander, the Los Angeles city councilman who represents Porter Ranch [said] “This is one of the most disruptive, catastrophic environmental events that I’ve seen. It’s a truly chaotic crisis.”… Many who have stayed have taken to wearing surgical masks when they garden to keep out the rotten-egg smell and the oily mist that sometimes leaves brown residue on their cars… Dennis Arriola, the president of Southern California Gas Company [said] that experts had “never seen anything like this.”

Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/porter-ranch-california-methane-gas-leak-crisis-412807), Jan 7, 2016: SoCalGas and public officials have turned [Porter Ranch's Matt Pakucko] and his fellow residents into “guinea pigs.”… [Sally Benson, who runs an energy storage lab at Stanford University] shares a worry of many in Porter Ranch as they deal with the mundanities of the leak: that the gas plume will somehow become ignited, leading to [an] explosion… “They’re really fortunate that this one hasn’t caught fire,” Benson says… [The FAA] has imposed a no-fly zone above Porter Ranch “out of concerns that fumes from the gas leak could be ignited from the air.” Schwecke, the SoCalGas vice president, says workers near the relief well are taking every precaution, not using their cellphones and working with brass hammers, which don’t spark… [David Balen, a local businessman on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council] showed me photographs of a white dust that had collected on concrete surfaces around his property; an expert was coming to test the substance, which Balen thought was something toxic.

BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35244634), Jan 7, 2016: The governor of California has declared a state of emergency in a suburb of Los Angeles over the leaking of methane gas… the company is installing large mesh screens around the leak site to try and hinder the oily mist from spraying down on the community.

Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-05/l-a-residents-flee-as-sempra-s-gas-leak-menaces-neighborhood), Jan 5, 2016: The sulfurous scent of a natural-gas leak hangs in the air as mail carriers wearing gas masks make rounds… “This is the biggest community and environmental disaster I’ve ever seen, bar none,” said Mitchell Englander, who has represented Porter Ranch on the Los Angeles City Council since 2011. “Life there is not on hold — it’s on the edge and it’s on the brink of pandemonium.”

See also: Doctors: “Very unusual” infections being reported around massive gas blowout in LA… “If you’re able to leave do it now, I’m telling you it’s really critical” — Official: Plume is spreading far away, it’s a national disaster — TV: “We’re a living science experiment” (VIDEO) (http://enenews.com/doctors-very-unusual-infections-being-reported-around-massive-gas-blowout-los-angeles-youre-able-leave-im-telling-really-critical-official-plume-spreading-away-national-disaster-tv-living-scienc)

Watch footage of the leak from Reuters here (http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/01/08/footage-of-methane-gas-leak-in-californi?videoId=366961495)

[Rocky_Shorz]

Could this gas be feeding into storm clouds to create the punch hole clouds we have seen recently in Southern California?

32525

32526

It took Thorium in the chemtrails being sprayed, so does anyone know if Thorium is being released through this massive gas leak?

Thorium was leaking in the gulf spill of the BP oil volcano...

[Sierra]

This isn't from fracking, they pulled the shutoff valve out from 1.5 miles down in 1979 and never replaced it...

This leak started in November....

They could have shut this down with cement, but then they have the cost of redrilling a whole new well...

This has just been a storage well since 1976, now it is leaking with no cutoff below

http://images1.laweekly.com/imager/u/745xauto/6407402/feature1-3-gas-leak_1_.jpg

This makes me nuts. They could just pour a bucket of concrete down the damn well.

That "they" haven't, implies "they" won't, and when will people wake up to the ramifications that truthfully, they are helpless in the grip of a greedy industry/government alliance of psychopaths that could care less about their health?

Even the rich, and entitled are no longer safe in the gated neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

[Rocky_Shorz]

In one disaster all the greenhouse gases saved by clean automobiles over the last 30 has been erased...

The standoff in Oregon means nothing to anyone, you want a cause, bring the 99% together with greenpeace protected by the militia against environment destruction caused by greedy bankers...

Run a 24 hour environmental broadcast instead of lunatics spewing insanity, bring in the news to force recognition to what is happening. .

[Rocky_Shorz]

I was just looking at a map of the area, the clouds show movement to the south, this air is blowing to San Diego...

http://wxug.us/1m3u8

http://wxug.us/1m3u8
link (http://wxug.us/1m3u8)

I have seen more people with lingering deep coughs since Christmas...

the part to note, is everyone started coughing within a day of each other


looking at the Jet Stream, right now winds blow south then connect with a main stream blowing at the Eastern US

http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_init_00.gif

from there it blows South to Africa or Antarctica...

http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_atl_init_00.gif

is someone directing greenhouse gasses to help melt the South Pole?

[Rocky_Shorz]

now let's take a look at the fallout map from North Korea's Hydrogen Bomb Test...

wow...

http://www.stormsurfing.com/stormuser2/images/dods/npac_250_78hr.png

Kim just figured out how to rain Nuclear fallout on Washington DC

should make for a toxic combo, of course nothing to see here folks...

just move along, it isn't on headline news, so nothing to worry about...

[Hervé]

State of Emergency: Radioactive material, byproduct of Uranium, released from massive gas blowout in LA (http://enenews.com/tv-reports-radioactive-material-being-released-massive-gas-blowout-la-byproduct-uranium-expert-lot-being-measured-area-very-dangerous-be-coming-ground-peoples-living-rooms-bedrooms-nurseries.com/state-emergency-issued-la-gas-blowout-oil)


Energy News (http://enenews.com/tv-reports-radioactive-material-being-released-massive-gas-blowout-la-byproduct-uranium-expert-lot-being-measured-area-very-dangerous-be-coming-ground-peoples-living-rooms-bedrooms-nurseries.com/state-emergency-issued-la-gas-blowout-oil)
Sat, 09 Jan 2016 04:05 UTC


http://www.sott.net/image/s14/294811/medium/la_me_0104_gas_leak_lawsuit_20.jpg
© @latimesgraphics - Approximate location of safety valve. (not scaled to specs or shape) Source: Southern California Gas Co.



Expert: "A lot" has been detected [radon], very dangerous
Official: "Levels can cause "significant health risks." Robert Kennedy Jr., Jan 8, 2016: Their animals are dying... their fish are dying in their fish bowls, their dogs are dying, their cats are getting sick. And their children are getting sick — they're suffering nose bleeds, they're suffering terrible debilitating migraine headaches, asthma attacks, respiratory infections, eye infections, ear infections, stomach ailments...

The health impact — it's not just methane coming out of that hole... This is global crisis, more importantly this is a local crisis. Because not only do you have methane — you have benzene, toluene, xylene, which are carcinogenic. You have hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide — which are neurotoxic, which can injure your brain, affect memory, injure your kidneys, your liver, your other bodily organs. There's also a lot of radon gas being measured in the area. People believe — we don't know if this is true — the gas that is leaking at 2 miles deep is now coming out and pushing that radon up into people's living rooms, their bedrooms, their nurseries.


UBYpL3JDCzA
Lawyers and Settlements, Jan 7, 2016: The leak has caused a continuous flow of gases and fluids. Methane alone is leaking 100,000 pounds per hour, according to Los Angeles city attorney Mike Feuer. Along with that greenhouse gas is methyl mercaptans (odorants added to gas to aid in leak detection) and aromatic hydrocarbons. More concernedly, health officials have identified benzene and radon, both known carcinogens.

Full article: http://www.sott.net/article/310140-State-of-Emergency-Radioactive-material-byproduct-of-Uranium-released-from-massive-gas-blowout-in-LA

[Rocky_Shorz]

Wow, I just spoke with an Oil Safety and Emergency specialist...

He says it could have been contained within days using the same technology used at all of our landfills, at this point if they admit they could have stopped it the fines will be astronomical for Sempra Energy...

Someone needs to get Occupy Wall Street out in front of Sempra...

time for the 99% to say stop the greed

it must have an enormous cost for a system like this for them to let so much gas go to waste including environmental pollution they will be forced to clean up, not even counting health damage from those involved...

Nope, a simple system like this...

http://hy-bon.com/files/cache/196b5739456f7b9d5bcb338aeb9e3a25_f430.jpg

and yes, those skids mean it is portable not needing to be built onsite...

It's not that they are greedy, they just don't care...

2 solutions, one that could have started in October, the other far more dangerous health wise to the surrounding communities affected by the toxins, that will take months more to complete.
burnoff gas to lower pressure enough to seal it or capture everything and turn it into fuel until the pressure from this massive well drops enough to cap it...

[Carmody]

Perhaps it was meant to leak for as long as possible.

This sort of thing does not happen by chance when a minimum of hundreds of minds are 'on it' .....and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. (and moving into the billions of $ in costs of cleanup, etc)

The question becomes -----why have it leak for as long as possible?

Qui bono? Who benefits?

[Rocky_Shorz]

gas prices getting too low, so releasing reserves to hold the price up made much more sense to the bean counters...

too bad Sempra's adviser had an IQ under 70 and his little brain couldn't comprehend it would affect residents half a mile away...

Maybe we are seeing a Public Company about to be absorbed by local governments...

time for California's resources to be taken over by we the people...

has anyone looked to see how many storage operations had the safety valve removed and not replaced?

what happens if the big one hit and suddenly 30 wells like this one open up with a crack in the ground?

[CD7]

UN F'ING REAL.............Stay Tuned next week for another episode of CHOREOGRAPHED H E L L......



How Long....before people say enough?.....

[Rocky_Shorz]

my Nephew flew into LA and stayed overnight, this morning on his way down he started coughing, this all the way to the toes whooping cough. 3 I know here in San Diego started having that cough the same day as a southerly breeze from LA... it's been coming up on 3 weeks and they all still have it...

this isn't funny...

[3(C)+me]

This is ridiculous...let the lawsuits begin, that is the only thing that will stop them.

[Rocky_Shorz]

I just talked to a friend, his Dad up in LA just checked into emergency with the same cough as others I know...

This is just from my small circle, how many are really going through this?

[Violet]

Good news then.

It was on our local national radio today, in the morning news show.

Some Belgian journalists who happened to be in LA for another documentary by coincidence (the details of which I missed) got introduced to this problem.

[giovonni]

the latest ...

The invisible catastrophe sickening families in California

From PBS


Porter Ranch seems like a picturesque Southern California town, but an environmental disaster has been unfolding there for several months. Natural gas has been spewing from an underground storage facility, causing health issues for residents and forcing temporary relocations for thousands of households. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports.

Published on Jan 18, 2016


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBvoZWgIxbk

[KiwiElf]

This is ridiculous...let the lawsuits begin, that is the only thing that will stop them.

It's OBSCENE! I'm amazed the lawsuits haven't already started (with the council or mayor or whoever is responsible for GETTING IT FIXED!)

[Rocky_Shorz]

Porter Ranch Methane Leak Spreads Across LA’s San Fernando Valley

It now looks like the catastrophic Porter Ranch gas leak, which has spewed more than 83,000 metric tons of noxious methane for nearly three months, has spread across Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander called on the Southern California Gas Co. to extend residential relocation assistance to residents in Granada Hills, Chatsworth and Northridge who live near the Aliso Canyon gas leak above Porter Ranch. These residents reported symptoms related to the exposure of natural gas such as nausea, vomiting, headaches and respiratory problems.

http://ecowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/porterranchgasleakmap.png


“Whatever else may be in the gas—benzene, toluene, xylene—that is what people may be breathing,” Phillips told Inside Climate News. “Even though we’re not measuring things other than methane, there is a legitimate concern that there is that other nasty stuff in there.”...

http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/15/porter-ranch-methane-leak-spreads/

[TargeT]

I'd rather see it on fire... at least then the toxins would be mostly visible & people would have sensational video to force resolution of the issue...

[Sean]

I'm currently living(temporarily) about 15 miles from this leak, in Van Nuys, CA. I've experienced mild respiratory issues, but nothing too heavy. Still if anyone can point me to resources re: detoxing form benzene/radon exposure,I'd greatly appreciate it.

[onawah]

Major Radiation Emergency Los Angeles
Newsroom - Feb 03, 2016
https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/849


I don't know how much of this article is genuine and how much is fear porn, but whatever the case, it doesn't look good for L.A..( I couldn't get the images to embed, so please go to the article if you want to see them.)



A leaking natural gas well is spewing LETHAL LEVELS of naturally-occurring Uranium, Radon and other radioactive materials into the air around Los Angeles. Parts of the city may be "uninhabitable" for years!

In October, 2015, a gas well began leaking in the Aliso Canyon gas storage field, in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles. Now, it has been revealed that naturally-occurring radiation from ground Uranium, has also been spewing out of that leaking well and so much has come out, that the situation constitutes a "Massive Radiation Emergency."
The photo below shows how severe the well is leaking. The photo is INFRA-RED so you can see the otherwise invisible gas:

https://cdn.superstation95.com/images/InfraRedGasLeak.jpg

As you can see from the image above, the leak is huge, and the plume of gas stretches literally for MILES above heavily populated and wealthy areas of Los Angeles.

Southern California Gas is trying to seal the leak, but things aren't going as planned. Below is a graphic showing how the Company hopes to seal the leak:

https://cdn.superstation95.com/images/gaschart.png

RADIATION

According to experts from the International Association for Protection from Ionizing Rays (AIPRI) in France, lethal levels of naturally-occurring radiation are coming out of the well and people will die from that radiation.

The “methane” coming out of the well is usually called Natural Gas. It normally contains “natural radioactive materials” that are made in the inside of exploding stars. They are things like Uranium 238 and Radon which have been here since the planet was formed. They are in the very dirt of the Earth and thus are in natural gas, naturally. You can’t have one without the other.

AIPRI notes the rogue well is spewing huge amounts of Natural Gas and about 1.91 Curie an hour maximum of natural radioactive material in the natural gas. Not much, you think? That is about 45.95 Curies per day. It is a really, really big leak of natural gas and the radiation it always carries.

A Curie is a unit of measure used in the United States to describe very large radioactive releases easily and this is a very big radioactive release.

The French Becquerel is a much more human sized unit of measure for radiation. One Becquerel is one Radioactive Disintegration (Count) per Second. One Curie equals 37 Billion Becquerels or Radioactive Counts per Second. One point Seven Trillion Becquerels per day spew from the Natural Gas well. That’s a number with a bunch of Zeros – a real Fukushima-class disaster number, right here in the USA.

From Europe, AIPRI finds:

“In 80 days of viscous and gaseous fumes at a breakneck pace of 1.7 million m3 per day (1115 tons per day at a rate of 46 tons per hour escape from the underground storage), 136 million m3 Natural gas dispersed in the air could carry with them having TBq 301.24 (3,01E14 Bq) is 8.14 KCI natural radioactivity for respirable (breathable) emanation of 12.060 Million Sieverts is equivalent 2.41 million potential lethal doses by inhalation according to the same dose coefficients from the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).”
Recently, however, officials in California began to publicly acknowledge that the amount of gas spewing from the well had been dramatically under-estimated. In fact, officials now admit that THREE TIMES AS MUCH GAS has been leaking as originally thought!

Using the same analysis from the AIPRI and the ICRP but with the newest numbers as to the amount of gas leaking, AIPRI amended their report to say the following:

If the leak, as it is now admitted, is actually 3 times greater i.e. 5.1 million m3 of effluent per day (3346 tons per day), with the same content per meter cube of radon 222 the natural radionuclides contained in the underground gas would skyrocket to 30.75 MBq (3.53 mCi) per second, of 470.69 GBq (12,72 Ci) per hour, 11.30 TBq (305.31 Ci) per day for an excursion in 90 days 1.02 PBq (27,48 KCi) a dispersion of 40.7 million Sieverts representing 8.14 million lethal doses by inhalation.
What it all means is it is time for people in LA and the San Fernando Valley to get out of town. All the homes in the path of the gas leak are now contaminated with radiation. It is on the roofs, on the sidewalks, the grass, the furniture in the backyards, children's swings, sliding ponds, play toys and sand boxes outside. It has drifted INSIDE those homes via open windows. It's on the floor where you walk into the house, on the chairs where you sit (after it fell on your clothes outside as you walked into the house). It's on your pillows in bed, after radiation got onto your hair outside, and on your bed sheets, from exposed body parts where radiation fell on them outside. It's everywhere.


NOSEBLEEDS, VOMITING are from RADIATION SICKNESS!

Many residents of Chatsworth, Northridge and Granada Hills have been complaining of nosebleeds, vomiting and diarrhea which they attribute to smelling the gas or the chemical odorant added to it to allow people to smell it. But the symptoms of nosebleeds, vomiting and diarrhea are ALSO signs of radiation sickness! Sadly, no one has bothered to ask their Doctors to check them for radiation sickness, even though the cause of these troubles can be directly linked to that exact cause!


EXPLOSION DANGER GROWING

Natural Gas can explode if exposed to an ignition source like a pilot light on a stove or in a hot water heater. Less likely is a spark from a light switch, or a bad distributor cap or spark plug wire in a car.

Those of you who have seen stories in the past about "gas explosions" in homes or buildings, know that such explosions are utterly devastating. The photo below shows the results of a single home exploding in Indianapolis, IN. The explosion destroyed thirty (30) homes!

This is what Chatsworth, Northridge and Granada Hills will look like if the gas plume floating above those homes, ignites! The only difference will be that the entire communities would be flattened, not just a few homes. The deaths and injuries from such an event would be mind-boggling, yet people are not being told how dangerous this leak is, and many are remaining in the area!


KEPT QUIET - DELIBERATELY

Why the public in Los Angeles is not being told this by authorities is simple to understand: They don't want a panic on their hands and, more importantly, they don't want business and industry to be shut down, costing jobs and billions in tax revenues to be lost.

Put simply, it is better for the government to keep you in the dark to collect tax money than it is for them to admit what's happening, have you leave, and thus cut-off their cash from your labor. The fact that many of you will die is really not important to them.

Don't believe us? Buy your own little Geiger Counter and take some readings yourself. Folks in the area where this gas is blowing will see radiation counts exceeding 2,000 counts-per-minute. In some cases, exceeding that by many times. Then ask the California Highway Patrol what their criteria is for a "Radiation Emergency?" They'll tell you "Any reading of 500 Counts-Per-Minute CPM or higher is considered a radiation emergency." It's been their protocol for years. Same thing with the LA Fire Department. Ask them. They'll tell you.


Sources:

AIPRI Report
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://aipri.blogspot.com/&prev=search

ICRP Web Site with Standards and Safe Level Information
http://www.icrp.org/

Documentation of Nose Bleeds and Vomiting on mass scale
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/630416/Thousands-suffer-nose-bleeds-and-vomiting-during-Worst-environmental-disaster-since-BP

Documentation of Radiation Sickness Symptoms (Nosebleeds, vomiting, diarrhea)
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000026.htm

Documentation of Explosive range for methane gas (Upper Explosive Limit UEL and Lowest Explosive Limit LEL)
https://www.mathesongas.com/pdfs/products/Lower-(LEL)-&-Upper-(UEL)-Explosive-Limits-.pdf

[Rocky_Shorz]

South of Tijuana is a refinery and they do continuous burnoff of what is pouring out of the ground in LA...

the downwind community has a 700% higher birth defect rate than other parts of Mexico

this is no secret

the fact it could have been stopped in October makes this criminal...

when are we going to get some police officers with some balls, to step in and start arresting these greedy bastards who think they are too big to jail?

how many will be killed by this leak? we won't know for years...

now for those of you thinking what about the farms in the area down wind from these leaks...

"Plants draw radioactive isotopes into their organic structure, and concentrate them into their tissue. Among vegetable foods know to be more radioactive are white potatoes, sweet potatoes, coconuts, spinach, bananas, Brazil nuts, and cocoa powder – a major ingredient in chocolate.

But the radiation danger associated with food does not end in your grocery bag. The natural gas you cook with also contains radioactive radon gas. And this brings me to the topic of the gas from Barnett Shale, that comes from under Fort Worth, Texas.

Shale contains small but significant concentrations of radioactive uranium and thorium. This would most certainly be the case with Barnett Shale. Natural gas is extracted from Barnett shale by hydraulic cracking. As water is injected into natural gas wells a tiny amount of radioactive materials including uranium, and radium get leached into the water. Some of the water inevitably enters the ground water, and the contamination spreads. Sometimes it reaches the surface through water recovery, wells or springs. This is one source of radiation hazard associated with natural gas extraction from Barnett Shale. According to the Denton Record-Chronicle, there are 140 radiation cleanup sites in Texas, most involving radioactive materials from natural sources. (see also stories here, here, and here.) Twenty-five of those radiation clean up sites are were in Denton, Tarrant, and Wise Counties, areas where gas is extracted from Barnett shale. Radioactive contaminated sites include gas wells and equipment storage yards. A thousand barrels or radioactive contaminants have been removed from cleanup sites in North Texas, and hundreds of thousands of barrels of radioactive materials associated with oil and gas radiation cleanup, have been removed from sites in Texas, during the last 20 years..." link (http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/04/20/the-radioactive-texans/)

We have containment systems that could be brought in to capture all of it, California should step in and take over the recovery operation, if the state was smart. it would put a buy in on all the $20/Barrel crude it could get it's hands on and pump it into this underground storage, there isn't a person on this planet that doesn't know gas is eventually going back up. when it does, it can sell off the reserves the money made put back into the pensions that were drained, the rest spent on infrastructure projects and disaster cleanup.

Speaking of Fracking and health disasters not related to Mosquitoes...

Flint Michigan Fracking (http://drillfrackingnews.com/FlintMichiganfracking)

they wouldn't happen to be upriver...

" Michigan's Flint River is a 142-mile-long river that flows through Flint, Michigan, and the counties of Genesee, Lapeer, and Saginaw. The city of Flint, Michigan, is located on the river Flint River Michigan about 60 miles north of Detroit and is the fourth largest city in Michigan. Other cities near or along the Flint River Mi. include Montrose, Flushing, Genesee, Columbiaville, and Lapeer.

The river is supplemented by four major creeks, according to Wikipedia: the Kearsley (draining the south and central portions of the east side of Genesee County), Thread (draining the south central part of the county), Swartz (draining the Swartz Creek area), and Misteguay creeks (draining the area near the northern section of the border of Genesee and Shiawassee Counties)"

strange, a river that goes through Flushing twice really doesn't sound like water anyone should drink... maybe it's just me...

let's spot where this fracking is happening...

http://media.mlive.com/kzgazette_impact/photo/class-ii-wells-1jpg-97cfaee8fea04905.jpg

Doesn't look like any of the fracking operation are on the flint river...

http://banmichiganfracking.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/fracking-poster-819x1024.jpg

look at all those sludge pools, just think, now that no one can drink from the flint river, frackers will be able to work on even more wells... free water for them and everyone else pays more...

wait, why are there disposal wells next to Flint if there isn't fracking?

the state gets 5-6% on sales, but have to take care of cleanup so they have sludge pools...

let me look for the right thread...

3 BILLION GALLONS of Fracking Wastewater Pumped Into Clean California Aquifiers: “Errors Were Made” State Admits (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?77148-3-BILLION-GALLONS-of-Fracking-Wastewater-Pumped-Into-Clean-California-Aquifiers---Errors-Were-Made---State-Admits)

nope, not that one...

ooh someone was asking for this earlier

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?61389-25-Way-to-detox-from-heavy-metals...&p=704659&highlight=fracking+clean+drink#post704659

[Rocky_Shorz]

continuing my search...

Radioactive black goo source located (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?87864-Radioactive-black-goo-source-located&p=1033423&highlight=fracking+filter+thorium#post1033423)

not that one, but this is important


Fracking and Drinking Water Map: This Map Shows Where You Shouldn’t Drink Tap Water in the USA Posted by admin on 10 July 2013 under Fracking, Take Action

http://strangesounds.org/2013/07/fracking-and-drinking-water-map-this-map-shows-you-where-you-shouldnt-drink-tap-water-in-the-usa.html

Fracking For Natural Gas is turning the beautiful America into a toxic hell!

This map shows two important information: The US rivers in blue and the main US fracking areas (natural gas reserves) superimposed in red. And Woah! It’s just terrifiying!

http://strangesounds.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/MapUS.jpg



"There is just one thing I would say about this terrifying map: Be careful if you live in a red area near a fracking site, your tap water may be contaminated and poisoned by the chemicals and other toxic substances used for fracking as described in Chemicals Used In Hydraulic Fracturing. You are not in danger everywhere in these red areas. The risk of contamination is related to your distance to a well.

Just to clarify, NOT ALL OF THESE RED AREAS ARE CONTAMINATED (again, they represent US natural gas reserves), but they have a higher risk of contamination due to a high concentration of fracking activity."

finally I found it, a cheap purification system all fracking operations should use on any planet inhabited by humans...

run it through the purifier, then put it back in the ground...

"AltelaRain® has significant and noteworthy benefits when compared to competing evaporative platforms including less energy usage, lower capital costs for the equipment and the option to beneficially re-use a clean, distilled water product following purification.

AltelaRain® has been effectively treating complex waste fluids for the past decade. Waters treated to date include frac flowback, produced water, and re-concentrating completion brines from oil & gas operations, landfill leachate, and RO concentrate. In our field operations, we are treating these wastes with TDS levels up to 180,000 mg/L*. These waste streams are processed into a concentrated wastewater stream and a distillate water stream meeting NPDES discharge limitations.

Waste heat, co-gen applications, and alternate fuel sources (for example, landfill gas “LFG”) have the potential to reduce utility costs by as much as 80% – thereby increasing the return on investment. AltelaRain® is unique in its ability to use low level waste heat. The AltelaRain® process is able to utilize waste heat gas and liquid streams with temperature as low as 250°F... link (http://altelainc.com/altelarain/)

the filters will gather heavy metals that most likely can be sold instead of making children drink it... pretty easy choice

[Violet]

As far as fracking is concerned, there are/were(?) activities defined as onshore gas drilling in and around Groningen, the Netherlands. Couple of years ago, there was a scandal. Apparently the oil company tried to buy off the earth quake victims (link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/10162343/Earthquakes-from-onshore-gas-drilling-threaten-a-disaster-warn-residents-of-Dutch-city.html), for full story, consider this article only as a starting point). And the Northern African region is also seeing recurrent earth quakes by the Strait of Gibraltar, the last one of which reached 6.3 on the scale of Richter just last month. Locals have been reporting earth quakes since ca. three years, but lots of fogginess (http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2014/09/137920/morocco-san-leon-energy-finds-shale-oil-in-its-timahdit-permit/) as to exact cause, plus the quakes seldom make the news.

[Rocky_Shorz]

did you know Michigan just volunteered to take fracking waste from around the country and will inject it deep in the ground, which according to the same experts that said there is no Climate change, say it is completely safe for ground water supplies and rivers...

Like Flint who is having their lead pipes dissolve...


South of Tijuana is a refinery and they do continuous burnoff of what is pouring out of the ground in LA...

the downwind community has a 700% higher birth defect rate than other parts of Mexico

this is no secret

the fact it could have been stopped in October makes this criminal...

when are we going to get some police officers with some balls, to step in and start arresting these greedy bastards who think they are too big to jail?

how many will be killed by this leak? we won't know for years...

now for those of you thinking what about the farms in the area down wind from these leaks...

"Plants draw radioactive isotopes into their organic structure, and concentrate them into their tissue. Among vegetable foods know to be more radioactive are white potatoes, sweet potatoes, coconuts, spinach, bananas, Brazil nuts, and cocoa powder – a major ingredient in chocolate.

But the radiation danger associated with food does not end in your grocery bag. The natural gas you cook with also contains radioactive radon gas. And this brings me to the topic of the gas from Barnett Shale, that comes from under Fort Worth, Texas.

Shale contains small but significant concentrations of radioactive uranium and thorium. This would most certainly be the case with Barnett Shale. Natural gas is extracted from Barnett shale by hydraulic cracking. As water is injected into natural gas wells a tiny amount of radioactive materials including uranium, and radium get leached into the water. Some of the water inevitably enters the ground water, and the contamination spreads. Sometimes it reaches the surface through water recovery, wells or springs. This is one source of radiation hazard associated with natural gas extraction from Barnett Shale. According to the Denton Record-Chronicle, there are 140 radiation cleanup sites in Texas, most involving radioactive materials from natural sources. (see also stories here, here, and here.) Twenty-five of those radiation clean up sites are were in Denton, Tarrant, and Wise Counties, areas where gas is extracted from Barnett shale. Radioactive contaminated sites include gas wells and equipment storage yards. A thousand barrels or radioactive contaminants have been removed from cleanup sites in North Texas, and hundreds of thousands of barrels of radioactive materials associated with oil and gas radiation cleanup, have been removed from sites in Texas, during the last 20 years..." link (http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/04/20/the-radioactive-texans/)

We have containment systems that could be brought in to capture all of it, California should step in and take over the recovery operation, if the state was smart. it would put a buy in on all the $20/Barrel crude it could get it's hands on and pump it into this underground storage, there isn't a person on this planet that doesn't know gas is eventually going back up. when it does, it can sell off the reserves the money made put back into the pensions that were drained, the rest spent on infrastructure projects and disaster cleanup.

Speaking of Fracking and health disasters not related to Mosquitoes...

Flint Michigan Fracking (http://drillfrackingnews.com/FlintMichiganfracking)

they wouldn't happen to be upriver...

" Michigan's Flint River is a 142-mile-long river that flows through Flint, Michigan, and the counties of Genesee, Lapeer, and Saginaw. The city of Flint, Michigan, is located on the river Flint River Michigan about 60 miles north of Detroit and is the fourth largest city in Michigan. Other cities near or along the Flint River Mi. include Montrose, Flushing, Genesee, Columbiaville, and Lapeer.

The river is supplemented by four major creeks, according to Wikipedia: the Kearsley (draining the south and central portions of the east side of Genesee County), Thread (draining the south central part of the county), Swartz (draining the Swartz Creek area), and Misteguay creeks (draining the area near the northern section of the border of Genesee and Shiawassee Counties)"

strange, a river that goes through Flushing twice really doesn't sound like water anyone should drink... maybe it's just me...

let's spot where this fracking is happening...

http://media.mlive.com/kzgazette_impact/photo/class-ii-wells-1jpg-97cfaee8fea04905.jpg

Doesn't look like any of the fracking operation are on the flint river...

http://banmichiganfracking.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/fracking-poster-819x1024.jpg

look at all those sludge pools, just think, now that no one can drink from the flint river, frackers will be able to work on even more wells... free water for them and everyone else pays more...

wait, why are there disposal wells next to Flint if there isn't fracking?

the state gets 5-6% on sales, but have to take care of cleanup so they have sludge pools...

let me look for the right thread...

3 BILLION GALLONS of Fracking Wastewater Pumped Into Clean California Aquifiers: “Errors Were Made” State Admits (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?77148-3-BILLION-GALLONS-of-Fracking-Wastewater-Pumped-Into-Clean-California-Aquifiers---Errors-Were-Made---State-Admits)

nope, not that one...

ooh someone was asking for this earlier

Detox from Heavy Metals (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?61389-25-Way-to-detox-from-heavy-metals...&p=704659&highlight=fracking+clean+drink#post704659)

[Rocky_Shorz]

this is from back in 2010, but a reminder of why pumping toxic waste in the ground is almost as smart as dropping 20,000 metal barrels of Nuclear Waste in the ocean off San Francisco expecting them not to rust for 250,000 years all sheer stupidity driven by greed.


Mysterious menominee crack is unusual geological pop-up feature (http://phys.org/news/2016-02-mysterious-menominee-unusual-geological-pop-up.html)

February 9, 2016


http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2016/mysteriousme.jpg (http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2016/mysteriousme.jpg)
A photo taken in 2010 of the Menominee Crack, a 'pop-up' geological feature. Credit: Wayne Pennington/ Michigan Technological University


Seismologists studying a massive crack in the ground that appeared north of Menominee, Michigan in 2010 now think they know what the unusual feature might be. But as they explain in their study published this week in the journal Seismological Research Letters, there are still some mysteries to clear up about the strange geological occurrence in the rural Michigan woods.

A team of scientists led by Wayne Pennington of Michigan Technological University says that the crack, which lies along the crest of a two-meter-high ridge that appeared at the same time, is probably a "pop-up" feature. Pop-ups occur in places where shallowly-buried rock layers spring upward after having been weighed down by rock or ice. Pop-ups—sometimes called "A-tents" for their shape—may develop in places where the earth rebounds upward after an overlying glacier shrinks away, or when rock overburden is removed in a quarry.

However, the last glaciers retreated from Menominee 11,000 years ago—and there isn't any quarrying in the area.

"One of our reasons for publishing this was that in our search of the literature we could find no other mention of modern pop-ups that didn't occur at something like the base of a quarry, where people had removed massive amounts of rock earlier," Pennington explained. "As far as we can tell, this is a one-of-a-kind event."

Residents near Menominee heard a loud noise and shaking in the early morning of October 4, 2010, and soon discovered the crack when they went into the nearby woods to clean up the debris left from removing a big double-trunked white pine tree a few days earlier. The crack split the ground for 110 meters, and was as deep as 1.7 meters in some places. Tree trunks tilted at precarious angles on either side of the fracture.


http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2016/1-mysteriousme.jpg (http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/2016/1-mysteriousme.jpg)
Trees tilt away from either side of the Menominee Crack 'pop-up' feature. Credit: Wayne Pennington/ Michigan Technological University


Pennington went to visit the site on his way back home from a scientific conference, he recalled. He paced off some measurements in his dress shoes and collected some GPS data with his phone. "I was completely blown away by it, because it wasn't what I was expecting when I saw it," he recalled. "It wasn't like anything I had seen before."

Although the crack was the most dramatic feature, Pennington was intrigued by the new ridge underneath it. "I kept trying to think of ways that there could have been an uplift from a thrusting earthquake or something, but anything like that requires such a huge amount of displacement in order to produce that amount of crustal shortening, that nothing made sense."

He shared the photos and data with his colleagues, until Stanford University geophysicist Norm Sleep pointed out that the feature formed from a shallow-buried layer of limestone, and looked like a pop-up. "This made perfect sense to us," Pennington said, "except for what caused it. And that then became the puzzle."

The researchers needed to get a better look at the rock underneath the ridge to confirm that it was a pop-up, so they turned to a technique called seismic refraction. The technique measures the speed of seismic waves as they travel within layers of the earth, as determined at different distances from the seismic source. In this case, the seismologists used a sledgehammer to strike a large metal ball lying on the ground, and captured the resulting seismic waves.

In broken rock, the waves travel faster as they move parallel to cracks in the rock, and slower when they move perpendicular to the cracks and have to travel across the fractures. The scientists found a pattern of refraction speeds that seemed to be consistent with the intense bending and then fracturing of the brittle limestone of a pop-up feature.

But what caused the pop-up to...pop-up? Without the usual suspects in play, Pennington and his colleagues had to do a little detective work. The limestone in the area may have been stressed almost to the point of cracking when the last glaciers retreated, they say. The recent removal of the double-trunked pine, which may have weighed as much as 2000 kilograms—over two tons—could have been the final straw, allowing the rock to bend upward when that weight was removed.

"There's a 60% chance that this explanation we provide is the right one," Pennington noted. "But since we haven't seen this kind of thing elsewhere, and the tree is such a small effect, we wonder if there might be something else."

The seismologists studied aerial photos of the region to see how soil has been removed in the past 50 years from road work and a re-design of the area's drainage system. These changes might have channeled more rainwater below the surface, potentially weakening the rock (http://phys.org/tags/rock/) as it froze and thawed, the scientists suggest.

Pennington said "no one should be losing sleep" over the strange feature, which technically counted as the first natural earthquake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula—measuring less than magnitude 1.

"It may be a one-of-a kind phenomenon," he said. "But if it happens again, we'll be all over it, trying to figure it out."

Explore further: Menominee County shakeup was an earthquake, says researcher (http://phys.org/news/2010-10-earthquake-menominee-county-researcher.html)

More information: "Menominee Crack: Bedrock Pop-Up Event near Menominee, Michigan," dx.doi.org/10.1785/0220150161 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1785/0220150161)

Journal reference: Seismological Research Letters (http://phys.org/journals/seismological-research-letters/) http://cdn.phys.org/tmpl/v5/img/img-dot.gif (http://phys.org/journals/seismological-research-letters/) http://cdn.phys.org/tmpl/v5/img/img-dot.gif (http://www.seismosoc.org/publications/srl/)
Provided by: Seismological Society of America (http://phys.org/partners/seismological-society-of-america/)


===============================================



There is an alternate explanation for this feature which the above geologists and geophysicists seem to overlook and that is the result of a horizontal compression stress resulting in a buckling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling) of the limestones layers and permanent strain of these layers into a fold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_%28geology%29) exhibiting tensile strain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_axis) (cracks/veins) along the hinge line of the outer layers and compression (pressure-dissolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_solution)) in the inner layers.

I am mentioning this alternate explanation due to the occurrence of earthquakes in places there shouldn't be any (North American Craton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentia)) as well as my recall of a presentation on the existence of parallel, low "ridges" in fields somewhere in Southern Ontario.

Accordingly, the above would be indicative of a continental scale, sub-horizontally oriented stress field with resulting permanent strain (plastic = folds / brittle = rupture) of rock formations.

[Violet]

I heard they managed to close it. Is that correct?

[TargeT]

Yes it is capped, but it may just have been the first of many failures as the aging infrastructure of the US starts to fail.


California’s gas leak is finally capped, but the next disaster could be right around the corner
Engineers have finally staunched a leaking gas well in southern California’s Aliso Canyon. Since the leak was discovered four months ago, the well has bled 96,000 metric tons of methane, the equivalent of running an extra 505,000 cars on the road for a year.

For neighbors, it’s been a nightmare. Residents started complaining of bad smells, headaches, and nausea in October. Under a court order, the well’s owner, Southern California Gas Co., has temporarily relocated more than 11,300 people. They’ll have seven days to move back home once regulators confirm that the well is permanently sealed.

The disaster in Porter Ranch, like the lead contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, is the result of aging infrastructure. In California, it’s a corroded storage well; in Flint’s case, rusting water supply pipes are to blame. The question isn’t if another Flint or Porter Ranch will happen; it’s where, and when, and how long a community will have to shout before someone hears them.

Like a negligent homeowner, the US is woefully behind on repairs to its most basic systems. Existing roads, bridges, ports, water systems, and other infrastructure need an estimated $1.6 trillion in upgrades, according to a 2010 report from the Department of Homeland Security.

Take a look just at the oil and gas sector. Drilling in California began a century ago. Only a tiny fraction of wells were safely sealed after their operators abandoned them for more productive or better constructed options. Today, the state is littered with 20,000 idle oil and gas wells.

Even active production and storage facilities are worryingly neglected. The gas well at Aliso Canyon was drilled in 1953 and converted to storage in 1973, without a single upgrade. The state regulator responsible for the wells has all but admitted that its inspection program is useless. The agency’s own report dated Oct. 8—less than three weeks before the leak’s discovery—found “outdated regulations that in some cases do not address the modern oil and gas extraction environment.”

“It’s been a long-standing concern that this agency is too close to the industry that it regulates,” said Briana Mordick, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In California, the NRDC is lobbying for a complete overhaul of the regulatory system.

Infrastructure failures could cost the US $3.1 trillion by 2020, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates. By their count, an annual investment of $157 billion a year could stave off the worst disasters. In an era of strapped budgets, the likelihood of states taking proactive action on a budget item that can almost always be convincingly delayed is slim.

It doesn’t help that most of the worst risks are in low-income communities, which typically have to fight a lot harder to be heard. While nobody should have to put up with environmental catastrophe on their doorstep, the response times for the disasters in California and Michigan are striking. The gas leak lasted four months in Porter Ranch, a predominantly white, upper-middle-class community.

In Flint, a lower-income, predominantly black city, regulators dismissed residents’ complaints of water that looked, smelled, and tasted bad for almost two years, even as scientists and doctors reported elevated lead levels in the water and the people who were drinking it. No one has been relocated. Flint is still charging residents for water that makes them sick.

“It’s a game of as long as its not happening to you, you don’t think about it,” said Casey Dinges, senior managing director at ASCE. “People can always convince themselves to do nothing.”
http://qz.com/616369/californias-gas-leak-is-finally-capped-but-the-next-disaster-could-be-right-around-the-corner/

[Bob]

About 1/2 of the 8000 families who left due to the situation are still in limbo.


But nearly half of the 8,000 families who left home at some point have yet to return, many still worried about the possibility of another leak and potential health hazards from chemicals in the gas that spewed uncontrollably for almost four months.

As the state investigates the cause of the blowout, the 114 other wells in the field are undergoing rigorous tests before the company can resume injecting gas into wells a mile-and-a-half underground. The company said it expects to resume operations by the end of the summer.

Concerns in Porter Ranch and surrounding communities were reinforced last weekend by a small gas leak and oil spill at another company operating in the Aliso Canyon, one of the nation's largest natural gas storage fields and the major supplier for Southern California.

(Sources - Penn Energy, O&G News, and AP)

[TargeT]

About 1/2 of the 8000 families who left due to the situation are still in limbo.


But nearly half of the 8,000 families who left home at some point have yet to return, many still worried about the possibility of another leak and potential health hazards from chemicals in the gas that spewed uncontrollably for almost four months.

As the state investigates the cause of the blowout, the 114 other wells in the field are undergoing rigorous tests before the company can resume injecting gas into wells a mile-and-a-half underground. The company said it expects to resume operations by the end of the summer.

Concerns in Porter Ranch and surrounding communities were reinforced last weekend by a small gas leak and oil spill at another company operating in the Aliso Canyon, one of the nation's largest natural gas storage fields and the major supplier for Southern California.

(Sources - Penn Energy, O&G News, and AP)

That would be terrible.. I can't imagine how they feel; I certainly would not want to return to that area probably ever.

[Foxie Loxie]

Glad I was going through past posts! We need to be "informed"!

[Bill Ryan]

.
From http://interestingengineering.com/siberian-soil-bounces-random-craters-forming-going (and other sites):

Siberian Soil Bounces and Random Craters are Forming – What is Going On?

Have you ever been walking through the park and all of the sudden the ground beneath your feet becomes like a bouncy house? Well, that exact thing is happening in the Siberian soils (http://interestingengineering.com/engineering/) this hot summer and it could mean bad things for the environment. A group of research scientists exploring Belyy Island off Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula discovered large areas of bouncy soil, caused by trapped pockets of methane and carbon dioxide. The country is undergoing an unusually hot summer this year, and it is believed that the gas was previously frozen deep underground. You can check out the trippy video below.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06Xc3LtZRWo
Most of the Siberian soils are made up of a high-density organic matter which has been compacted over thousands of years, according to Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/this-bouncy-siberian-soil-is-a-troubling-sign-for-our-p-1784033816). As the organic matter is broken down, methane and carbon dioxide are released only to become trapped in the ground. The hot summer Siberia is currently experiencing has melted some of the thick permafrost, which allowed the gasses to percolate to the surface.

One of the biggest fears around this odd release of gasses is the continued rise in global temperatures. As the gas released was mostly methane, which has an 84 percent higher warming potential over CO2, researchers fear that this release of gasses could only make things worse. Other than the bouncy soils, locals are also finding gigantic craters appearing overnight in the region. It is believed that these are caused by gas pockets that were frozen in ice, suddenly bursting, and giving way to the soil overhead. Either way, there are some crazy things going on beneath the Siberian soil.

[Sueanne47]

What's going on at Yellowstone :

XH30PFWUznY

[GrayWolfBG]

The early , and deep ,snow cover over swathes of Siberian Tundra will surely leave us with issues? Be it the winter insulation of the Permafrost below from the frigid conditions above or from the spring flooding should we see the spring trends in ever earlier melt out dates. Spring flooding will flood the melted permafrost causing a more rapid degradation but also , as we saw this melt season, flood out onto the coastal ice lowering albedo and hastening break up/melt out. The record temps over Summer will have already done damage to the permafrost ( onshore and offshore) in Siberia but those impacts will not be seen until spring next year.

[Sueanne47]

The methane gas is causing massive sinkholes in the earth :

vUfIr8E9j7s

[Hervé]

The methane gas is causing massive sinkholes in the earth : Sueanne: Most of these are NOT sinkholes -- the natural kind.

Most of them are artificially created by incompetent human design of inefficient, flawed, disrepaired plumbing systems (most are deficient, flawed, broken storm drains/sewage/waste water systems)...

... and certainly NOT caused by methane releases!

Would you mind quitting your spreading fear porn? Inform yourself better?

[Sueanne47]

Okay, some of them under roads maybe not natural, but some of them in the earth are very deep. "Rainwater becomes acidic when it absorbs carbon dioxide in the air & ground. Over time it can eat away at the rock leaving caverns, caves and sinkholes"

I found your statement about me spreading fear porn...when I am just passing on news to Avalonians Herve ~ very patronising to say the least.

[Frenchy]

Okay, some of them under roads maybe not natural, but some of them in the earth are very deep. "Rainwater becomes acidic when it absorbs carbon dioxide in the air & ground. Over time it can eat away at the rock leaving caverns, caves and sinkholes"
Hi Sueanne,
Please continue to add all News you believe to be of even the slightest value, if this is of interest to even ONE member, then you've done that member a service, Thank you...

In return, might I ask whether you follow " UKColumn.org " ?

and, on the subject of holes.... " https://thesinkhole.org/ " ...
FWIT, I truly believe that the ' Energy Weapon 'described by Dr Judy Woods; is being now used ( and ' played with ' ) , to create SOME sinkholes. Bear in mind that GRP [Ground Penetrating Radar ], can be employed PlaneT-wide, so these sickos { sorry not sure to spell psycopaths ! ? } so while it seems the majority are caused by Man's stupidity, I believe the Energy weapon, { which dis-associates, the individual atomic bonds - John Hutchinson / DR Woods... } is certainly NOT being left on the shelf, doing nothing ! !

all the best !

[Sueanne47]

*Thank you* dear Frenchy, but no, I wont be posting news anymore.......in fact I dont think I'll be posting at all from now on. :ohwell: I will still like to be a member for reference on Avalon, and I'll check out UKcolumn.org

Sue

[GrayWolfBG]

In 2013 we discovered, via the team studying Siberian caves, that a rise in temp of just 1.5C would lead to the loss of the Permafrost ( and all the lovely GHG's they contain). Last Feb global temps saw 1.5c above pre-industrial reached. It was during a Nino and limited to 1 month but the same as we saw when CO2 first touched 400ppm, it don't take long for that figure to become the 'average' , and then be surpassed.

Currently we sit over 1c above pre-industrial ( 1.2c some agencies say?) . Since 2014 the 'naturals' , blamed for 'The Pause' when they were negative, flipped positive. Since the middle of the noughties China has fought to control its inner city pollution. Unlike the west who had to develop solutions when we introduced 'clean air' acts the Chinese could buy technology 'off the shelf' to scrub out their pollution. This also appears to be having impact esp. in the areas downwind of the 'Asian Brown Cloud'. Was the naturals flipping positive 'natural' or were they being forced as 'dimming' reduces over the areas allowing more energy through to the surface?

I digress. The GHG forcing we sit under will take decades to fully warm the planet to that particular loading. By then there will be another 50ppm aloft. Odds are that 400ppm is more than enough to see global temps above 1.5c above pre-industrial.

Unless we can find a way of soaking up the CO2 we are done. Dead man walking the green mile.

With open water existing in the Arctic basin for longer and more extensively each year the thermal forcing placed on the permafrost is increasing. Will we see a slow 'drip, drip' of emissions or are there any 'methane burps' along the way?

We found worrying 'chimneys' forming under the waters of the shelf seas off Siberia ( East Siberian Sea)that were venting methane direct into the atmosphere ( not being absorbed by the water column above) back in 2010.

The features were metres across.

On their return in 2012 they found the features up to 1 km across.

In 2014 they returned to find hundreds of such feature now covering the shelf ( around the time we were seeing the first 'craters' forming on land in the Yamal?).

Another few warm years and I feel we will see noticeable amounts of CH4 being released each year no matter what human emissions do.

[Bill Ryan]

From Zero Hedge, yesterday:


https://zerohedge.com/energy/massive-methane-cloud-visible-space-leaks-above-louisiana

Massive Methane Cloud Visible From Space Leaks Above Louisiana

Here comes the crowd of "climate justice" activists ready to pounce on the perpetrators responsible for producing a massive cloud of methane gas that's purportedly visible from space.

https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/MAP_9.jpg?itok=tkX6xKjr

According to one of Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-14/louisiana-investigates-massive-methane-cloud-seen-from-space?sref=i4qXzk6d)'s sources, the plume represents one of the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse gas to appear in the atmosphere in years.

Geoanalytics firm Kayrros estimated an emissions rate of 105 tons of methane an hour was needed to generate the plume, which stretched more than 56 miles (about 90 km) across multiple parishes and was the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse since October.

The state of Louisiana is now investigating the source of the massive cloud of gas, which appeared over the state.
The state began its investigation after Bloomberg News contacted the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration about a cloud of invisible gas detected Jan. 21 by Kayrros SAS.
The geoanalytics firm estimates an emissions rate of 105 tons of methane an hour was needed to generate the plume, which stretched more than 90 kilometers (56 miles) across multiple parishes and was the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse gas spotted by the Sentinel-5P satellite in the U.S. since October
If the leak that released the gas plume was broken down and compared with cars, it would be equivalent to the annual impact from 1,900 cars. The release appeared to originate within 7 km (4.3 miles) of a gas pipeline owned by Energy Transfer, LP, Kinder Morgan and Boardwalk Pipelines.