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Clathrate gun hypothesis - sea levels & extinction
Clathrate gun hypothesis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marine extinction intensity through time. The blue graph shows the apparent percentage (not the absolute number) of marine animal genera becoming extinct during any given time interval. It does not represent all marine species, just those that are readily fossilized. The labels of the “Big Five” extinction events are clickable hyperlinks; see Extinction event for more details. (source and image info)
The clathrate gun hypothesis is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures (and/or falls in sea level) can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost which, because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, leads to further temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization – in effect initiating a runaway process as irreversible, once started, as the firing of a gun.[1]
In its original form, the hypothesis proposed that the “clathrate gun” could cause abrupt runaway warming in a timescale less than a human lifetime,[1] and might be responsible for warming events in and at the end of the last ice age.[2] This is now thought unlikely.[3][4]
However, there is stronger evidence that runaway methane clathrate breakdown may have caused drastic alteration of the ocean environment and the atmosphere of earth on a number of occasions in the past, over timescales of tens of thousands of years; most notably in connection with the Permian extinction event, when 96% of all marine species became extinct 251 million years ago.[5]
‘Whiskey is for drinking, water for fighting”
(Source: lovethepnw)
Increasing demand and climate change threaten global water supplies – UN report
A young resident of Maslakh camp (Afghanistan) takes a drink of water. UN Photo/E. Debebe
12 March 2012 – An unprecedented rise in the demand for food, rapid urbanization and climate change are significantly threatening global water supplies, according to a United Nations report released today, which stresses that a radical new approach to managing this essential resource is needed to be able to sustain future consumption levels.
The UN World Water Development Report, which will be launched at the World Water Forum in Marseille, estimates that there will be a 70 per cent increase in demand for food by the year 2050, leading to a 19 per cent surge in water used for agriculture. At the moment, 70 per cent of freshwater is already being used for agricultural purposes.
“Freshwater is not being used sustainably, according to needs and demands,” states the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, in the report’s foreword. “Accurate information remains disparate, and management is fragmented. In this context, the future is increasingly uncertain and risks are set to deepen.”
The report, entitled “Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk,” notes that to respond to growing demand, countries have tapped into underground water sources, with water extraction tripling over the past 50 years. However, in some underground basins, water cannot be replenished and is now at critically low levels.
…(continued)
SEI: Bangalore, the city as a living organism
The more awareness we have of how we function and operate, the better. Very interesting case study of Bangalore via Stockholm Environment Institute.
SEI project, presented at the Bangalore World Water Summit, maps ‘urban metabolism’ to support planning for sustainability.
Rapid population growth and economic activity in Indian cities have overwhelmed their ecological support base, leading to chronic shortages in electricity, water and road space while polluting the physical environment.
Aiming to better understand these dynamics – and help stakeholders grapple with them – SEI last year launched the project Urban Metabolic Mapping: Securing the Biophysical Foundation of Indian Cities, with Bangalore as the initial focus.
The idea, says project leader (and Bangalore native) Vishal Mehta, is to look at the city as a “living organism” to show how economic, social and demographic characteristics drive consumption.
“Much like a living organism consumes resources and produces waste, a city also consumes resources, its waste re-entering the natural ecosystem,” he says. “What are the limits to our natural resource base? What is the impact of the city’s water consumption and waste-water patterns on the future availability of safe and adequate water? How does a city’s extraction of water resources impact other communities in the larger river basin? These are central questions to assessing sustainable management of resources.”
BANGALORE GATED COMMUNITY / FLICKR-ED YOURDON
Bangalore as a case study
Bangalore has been one of India’s great success stories, Mehta notes, booming as a high-tech capital. But this boom has also brought a surge in population: a 3 million gain in the last 10 years, to 8.5 million – three times the previous two decades’ growth. The local utilities and infrastructure can’t keep up with the growing demand for resources and services, resulting in disruptions and unmet needs.…
Bberg: Peak Water - the rise and fall of cheap H2O
The Earth’s surface is mostly water, yet across increasingly large swaths of the planet, H2O reservoirs are drying up. This isn’t a metaphor, and it’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact that’s changing the destinies of companies and nations.
Three of the world’s greatest rivers, the Colorado in the U.S., the Nile in Egypt and the Yellow River in China, have been so depleted by cities, farms, factories and dams along their banks that they often no longer reach the sea. Growth in the desert city of Las Vegas, which depends on Colorado River water contained by the Hoover Dam, has been stunted not only by a spectacular real estate crash, but by a 46 percent drop in the amount of water in Lake Mead, behind the dam. Simply put, there’s no more water to be taken.
Read Bloomberg’s energy & sustainability news.
It’s not that the world is running out of water, says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, an environmental research organization in San Francisco. It’s that there’s not enough water where it’s needed, and it can’t be easily transported. Globally, the amount of renewable water available for each inhabitant has dropped from over 10,000 cubic meters in 1990 to 7,770 in 2010. It could trickle to 4,870 by 2050, as the world’s population grows.
Economics and Water Concerns Alter the Solar Landscape in the US West
Economics and Water Concerns Alter the Solar Landscape in the US WestTuesday, 31 January 2012 16:23The falling price of photovoltaic panels and public concerns about aquifers and rivers in the western United States are boosting solar energy technologies that save water.
In December, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) approved a 300-megawatt (MW) solar energy project on public land in southwestern Arizona on condition that the developer changes the plant’s design from concentrated solar thermal collectors — which use mirrors and fluids to generate steam to run a turbine — to photovoltaic (PV) panels.
Oft overlooked groundwater, satelite study reveals critical shortages across the globe
Extremely significant to figuring out how we’re going to sustain life on this planet.
Professor Simmons said the groundwater crisis was driven by a competition for increasingly scarce water supplies between “megacities”, the energy sector, manufacturing and farming.
Groundwater shortage ‘critical’
23 Jan, 2012 04:00 AMGROUNDWATER is a key driver of the global economy - but water will be scarce in critical food production regions by 2030 unless urgent steps are taken to protect it from over-extraction and pollution, international water scientists have warned.A satellite study has proven groundwater tables in the United States, North Africa, India, the Middle East and China, are falling.
Professor Craig Simmons, Director of Australia’s National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) and member of the UNESCO’s global groundwater governance program, said global groundwater use had more than doubled between 1960 and 2000 and continued to soar.
“Groundwater currently makes up about 97 per cent of all the available fresh water on the planet and presently accounts for about 40pc of our total water supply,” he said.
“Almost everywhere, there is clear evidence that water tables are falling.
“Not many people think of groundwater as a key driver of the global economy - yet it is.
“If it becomes depleted, entire industries may be forced to shut down or move. Whole regions could face acute water scarcity.”
Professor Simmons said the groundwater crisis was driven by a competition for increasingly scarce water supplies between “megacities”, the energy sector, manufacturing and farming.
“The blunt fact is that most countries and local regions did not know the size of their water resources when then began extracting them, nor how long it took to recharge. In some cases this can take centuries or even millennia.
“As a result they are now extracting their water unsustainably.”
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Minds Meet on Shale Gas, Fracking by Bill Chameides
Interesting Read. Check it out
The Takeaway: We Gotta Get Natural Gas Right
After yesterday’s session, a small group of us retired to the Faculty Commons for a glass of wine, dinner, and conversation. We were treated to a short talk by Richard Newell, a Duke professor and the director of Duke’s Energy Initiative, who returned last fall from a stint in the Obama administration as the head of the Energy Information Administration. Richard provided a fascinating overview of the issue from the perspective of someone who has spent the last two years trying to make sense of the nation’s long-term energy future.
Some relevant history: Hydraulic fracturing is as old as … well if not quite the hills, let’s just say it’s not new. A kind of hydraulic fracturing was first done in the late 19th century using nitroglycerin (see here, here and here [pdf]). Horizontal drilling is also not all that new, dating back to the 1950s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the two were put together, and the application of the process to extract shale gas didn’t really begin until the middle part of the last decade, but since then, it’s become a game changer — initially responsible for a percent or two of all natural gas production, it’s now producing about 30 percent of U.S. supply.
The economic impact has been huge. For instance, in 2006, the federal government was discussing ways to accelerate the construction of billion-dollar port facilities for processing imported liquified natural gas because it was believed we faced an imminent natural gas shortage that would put our electricity supply at risk. Today we have an overabundance of natural gas, prices are down and few are lining up to invest in such a facility.
Another point Richard made: The global shale gas resource is huge, so large that exploiting it will dominate supply and therefore set natural gas prices at least for the next decade. So from today’s perspective, shale gas is here to stay, a resource that will be exploited. So we’d better get it right.
