Gas hydrate pingos could erupt catastrophically under near-future warming scenarios
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
3 sources for · 0 against
Three peer-reviewed and reference sources discuss climate change interactions, deep biosphere and gas hydrates, and thermodynamic constraints on overpressure from hydrate dissociation, but the counted evidence is insufficient to support the claim.
Gas hydrate, a frozen, naturally-occurring, and highly-concentrated form of methane, sequesters significant carbon in the global system and is stable only over a range of low-temperature and moderate-pressure conditions. Gas hydrate is widespread in the sediments of marine continental margins and permafrost areas, locations where ocean and atmospheric warming may perturb the hydrate stability field and lead to release of the sequestered methane into the overlying sediments and soils. Methane and methane-derived carbon that escape from sediments and soils and reach the atmosphere could exacerbate greenhouse warming. The synergy between warming climate and gas hydrate dissociation feeds a popular perception that global warming could drive catastrophic methane releases from the contemporary gas hydrate reservoir. Appropriate evaluation of the two sides of the climate-methane hydrate synergy requires assessing direct and indirect observational data related to gas hydrate dissociation phenomena and numerical models that track the interaction of gas hydrates/methane with the ocean and/or atmosphere. Methane hydrate is likely undergoing dissociation now on global upper continental slopes and on continental shelves that ring the Arctic Ocean. Many factors—the depth of the gas hydrates in sediments, strong sediment and water column sinks, and the inability of bubbles emitted at the seafloor to deliver methane to the sea-air interface in most cases—mitigate the impact of gas hydrate di
Microbial processes in the deep biosphere affect marine sediments, such as the formation of gas hydrate deposits. Gas hydrate deposits offer a large source of natural gas with the potential to augment energy reserves and affect climate and seafloor stability. Despite the significant interdependence between life and geology in the ocean, coverage of the deep biosphere is generally missing in most introductory oceanography textbooks, so there is a need for instructional materials on this important topic. In response to this need, a course module on the deep biosphere with a focus on gas hydrate
It has been suggested that volume expansion caused by hydrate dissociation in sediment pores can result in large overpressure, which in turn may destabilize the sediment and trigger massive submarine landslides. Here, we investigate the pressure evolution during thermally-induced dissociation, by means of a pore-scale model that couples dissociation kinetics, multiphase flow and geomechanics. Dissociation is controlled by a self-preservation mechanism: increasing pore pressure reduces the driving force for dissociation. Hence, the overpressure is constrained by the phase equilibrium pressure,
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