Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching

GaryC · August 23, 2007

The poor old Scandinavian moose is now being blamed for climate change, with researchers in Norway claiming that a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year -- equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey.

Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting.

Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway's technical university, said a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a year.

Bacteria in a moose's stomach create methane gas which is considered even more destructive to the environment than carbon dioxide gas. Cows pose the same problem (more...).

Norway has some 120,000 moose but an estimated 35,000 are expected to be killed in this year's moose hunting season, which starts on September 25, Norwegian newspaper VG reported.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitge...,501145,00.html

almaty · August 23, 2007

those chopf##ks..the only moose i like is Bullwinkle...

one...two...tree · August 23, 2007

Gary, you should check out Real Climate:

About

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=227

Methane hydrates and global warming

There is an enormous amount of methane (CH4) on earth frozen into a type of ice called methane hydrate. Hydrates can form with almost any gas and consist of a 'cage' of water molecules surrounding the gas. (The term 'clathrate' more generally describes solids consisting of gases are trapped within any kind of cage while hydrate is the specific term for when the cage is made of water molecules). There are CO2 hydrates on Mars, while on Earth most of the hydrates are filled with methane. Most of these are in sediments of the ocean, but some are associated with permafrost soils.

Methane hydrates would seem intuitively to be the most precarious of things. Methane hydrate melts if it gets too warm, and it floats in water. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it degrades to CO2, another greenhouse gas which accumulates in the atmosphere just as fossil fuel CO2 does. And there is a lot of it, possibly more than the traditional fossil fuel deposits. Conceivably, climate changes could affect these deposits. So what do we know of the disaster-movie potential of the methane hydrates?

Ocean hydrates. Most of the methane hydrate is in sediments of the ocean. Of that, most is what can be called the stratigraphic-type deposits. Organic carbon from plankton is buried over millions of years. Hundreds of meters below the sea floor, bacteria produce methane from the dead plankton. If methane is produced quickly enough, some of it will freeze into methane hydrates. This type of deposit holds thousands of gigatons of carbon as methane [buffett and Archer, 2004; Milkov, 2004]. For comparison, the most abundant type of traditional fossil fuel is coal, which is typically credited with about 5000 Gton C [Rogner, 1997].

Sometimes the methane moves around in the earth, and collects someplace, forming what are called structural hydrate deposits. The Gulf of Mexico, for example, is basically a leaky oil field [MacDonald et al., 2005]. One implication of gas moving around and pooling like this is that the hydrate concentration can be higher, even to the point of what they call massive deposits, lumps of nearly pure hydrate. The second bottom line is that the hydrate can be found much closer to the sea floor, and even on the sea floor.

Hydrate melts if it gets too warm. The ocean is cold enough in a depth range from say 500 meters down (200 meters in the Arctic). Below the sea floor, the temperature increases with depth, along the geothermal temperature gradient. At some depth it becomes too warm for hydrate, so hydrate melts if it becomes buried deeper than this depth. There is often a layer of bubbles beneath the hydrate stability zone. The bubbles reflect seismic sound waves, and show up clearly in seismic surveys around the world [buffett, 2000]. Hills and valleys of the bubble layer follow hills and valleys of the sea floor, so this layer is called a bottom-simulating reflector (BSR).

Now let's warm up the water at the top of the sediment column. Ultimately, the new temperature profile will have nearly the same slope as before, the geotherm. The hydrate stability zone will get thinner with an increase in the sediment column temperature. The important thing to note is that it gets thinner from the bottom, not from the top. Hydrate at the base of the original stability zone finds itself melting.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Mister Fancypants

Dwarf_Ogress · August 23, 2007

I belch and fart alot, am I in trouble? :help:

GaryC · August 23, 2007

Gary, you should check out Real Climate:

About

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=227

Methane hydrates and global warming

There is an enormous amount of methane (CH4) on earth frozen into a type of ice called methane hydrate. Hydrates can form with almost any gas and consist of a 'cage' of water molecules surrounding the gas. (The term 'clathrate' more generally describes solids consisting of gases are trapped within any kind of cage while hydrate is the specific term for when the cage is made of water molecules). There are CO2 hydrates on Mars, while on Earth most of the hydrates are filled with methane. Most of these are in sediments of the ocean, but some are associated with permafrost soils.

Methane hydrates would seem intuitively to be the most precarious of things. Methane hydrate melts if it gets too warm, and it floats in water. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it degrades to CO2, another greenhouse gas which accumulates in the atmosphere just as fossil fuel CO2 does. And there is a lot of it, possibly more than the traditional fossil fuel deposits. Conceivably, climate changes could affect these deposits. So what do we know of the disaster-movie potential of the methane hydrates?

Ocean hydrates. Most of the methane hydrate is in sediments of the ocean. Of that, most is what can be called the stratigraphic-type deposits. Organic carbon from plankton is buried over millions of years. Hundreds of meters below the sea floor, bacteria produce methane from the dead plankton. If methane is produced quickly enough, some of it will freeze into methane hydrates. This type of deposit holds thousands of gigatons of carbon as methane [buffett and Archer, 2004; Milkov, 2004]. For comparison, the most abundant type of traditional fossil fuel is coal, which is typically credited with about 5000 Gton C [Rogner, 1997].

Sometimes the methane moves around in the earth, and collects someplace, forming what are called structural hydrate deposits. The Gulf of Mexico, for example, is basically a leaky oil field [MacDonald et al., 2005]. One implication of gas moving around and pooling like this is that the hydrate concentration can be higher, even to the point of what they call massive deposits, lumps of nearly pure hydrate. The second bottom line is that the hydrate can be found much closer to the sea floor, and even on the sea floor.

Hydrate melts if it gets too warm. The ocean is cold enough in a depth range from say 500 meters down (200 meters in the Arctic). Below the sea floor, the temperature increases with depth, along the geothermal temperature gradient. At some depth it becomes too warm for hydrate, so hydrate melts if it becomes buried deeper than this depth. There is often a layer of bubbles beneath the hydrate stability zone. The bubbles reflect seismic sound waves, and show up clearly in seismic surveys around the world [buffett, 2000]. Hills and valleys of the bubble layer follow hills and valleys of the sea floor, so this layer is called a bottom-simulating reflector (BSR).

Now let's warm up the water at the top of the sediment column. Ultimately, the new temperature profile will have nearly the same slope as before, the geotherm. The hydrate stability zone will get thinner with an increase in the sediment column temperature. The important thing to note is that it gets thinner from the bottom, not from the top. Hydrate at the base of the original stability zone finds itself melting.

Lighten up Steven, this one was meant as a joke.

one...two...tree · August 23, 2007

Gary, you should check out Real Climate:

About

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=227

Lighten up Steven, this one was meant as a joke.

...but seriously, do check out Real Climate.