This Reply came from a "Hardball_Player" list member who also reads the Information Not Spam Blog: "Dear Mr. Warren, OK I understood most of your news article a.k.a., your opinion, about the Northwest Passage shipping which is opening up next summer due to global warming. But you lost me with your inserted comments about hydrates. What the heck does that have to do with the cost of lumber from Russia? What are hydrates and why should I care?"
My reply: Dear Reader, Excellent questions. (be advised if you want to see my reference materials, (some) of their links are at the bottom of this rant.) As you may have surmised, I am in the camp that foresees global warming as fact, not fiction, which is somewhat exacerbated by human activity in the form of none renewable fuel burning, also as a reality. In my opinion, based on years of study of the problem, there are three major air pollution sources and greenhouse gases. Sulfur Dioxide, Methane and Carbon Dioxide; all three are being pumped into the air every day from automobiles, electric plants, homes, businesses and cattle yards and every walk of life where burning of some form of fuel is converted to useful human uses most notably we make carbon dioxide and methane by the metric tons per hour into the air and into rivers and oceans, directly trapping quite a lot of the sun's solar energy in the air by these major greenhouse gases; directly warming our world's oceans (5 degrees on average over the past century of time), via absorption of the air's heat; which circulates from mid-earth latitudes into the polar regions causing ice sheet melt off.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on ones point of view, nature has natural sources (and counter balance forces) for these gases as well. However, human contributions are unbalancing those natural cycles. Our insertion of an un-natural addition of these greenhouse gases is on the verge of causing a major change in the rate of capture of nature's stored up methane and carbon dioxide and there are those in the scientific community who say that we very possibly may have passed the point of no return. What they are alluding to is the carbon dioxide stored in the form of a mix of carbon dioxide and methane hydrates on the ocean floor.
To understand these carbon chemical compounds requires a bit of understanding of how carbon dioxide and methane reacts to pressure and temperature. Carbon Dioxide and Methane is found free floating in the air and also dissolved in water, much like one finds oxygen and nitrogen there as well. You already know that oxygen dissolved in water is what makes it possible for fish to breath underwater. Their gills filter the water flowing through them and extract the oxygen their muscles and digestive tracts need, to make the energy needed for survival. Like animals on the surface, the product of breathing by fishes creates a carbon dioxide bye product; having eaten plant or other food matter, their feces as well as the natural death of plants makes methane gas directly or through decomposition; as their feces decays it causes methane formation, as well. Air breathing and fuel burning, likewise cause carbon dioxide on the surface but what affects global climate the most severely is the 25 fold pollution effects of methane more than carbon dioxide; decomposition of plant and fecal mater also makes the vast majority of methane in nature. The build up of temperature causes fresh and salt water to absorb the methane and carbon dioxide, as well. The gist of what I'm explaining is so that you'll understand that there is a lot of greenhouse affect carbon in the form of these two chemicals dissolved and in solution in water and in the vast water columns called oceans of earth in particular. In a nutshell, the warmer the water, the less greenhouse gas will stay in the water.
In chemistry, simply put, there are three major physical conditions for elements and compounds and they are: Gas, Liquid and Solid. (Yes SW, plasma is the 4th but not needed in this dissertation on condensed star stuff called carbons in the form of methane and carbon dioxide.). Gas, liquids and solids depend on both temperature and pressure to determine which state one will find them in. At sea level pressures and temperatures one finds them as a gas. In water columns with pressures less than 450 feet one finds them dissolved and in liquid states. However, as the temperature approaches 33 degrees and pressures build at depths past 480 feet we see that there are forces in play that make methane in particular and carbon dioxide to some degree; convert to solid states. Below 600 feet Methane at any temperature below 40 degrees is a solid as one continues down the continental slopes of the deep ocean and ever greater pressures. The condensed methane crystals have the appearance and form of the dirty water-ice one may be more familiar with; but would explode directly into gas if suddenly brought to above sea level pressures at the surface, much like dry ice does if not insulated. Carbon Dioxide is excreted in adapted ways by sea life but is much slower to convert to solids at deep ocean depths. In fact all of your high school chemistry courses and experiments are out the door when one is operating at low temperatures and high deep-sea pressures. For example it is the very high pressure of the ocean at thousands of feet down that makes it possible for sea water to NOT freeze at temperatures well below 32 degrees Fahrenheit in the pitch black of abyssal deeps.
Here is the Point: As human introduction of un-natural quantities of methane via such activities as the cattle industry and carbon dioxide via electric production and via carbon dioxide emissions by automobiles continuously contribute to a spike in global air temperatures, which have warmed the the surface of the oceans of the world for the past 100 years, far more than it would naturally occur in nature - we are starting to warm hydrates which have been stable for many Millenia prior to this hundred year span of time.
By way of illustration: If one were to focus on one hydrate crystal structure, say the size of a full duffel bag, at 480 feet down on the ocean floor, say 50 years ago - the one degree rise in temperature at that time would have caused it to emit (for illustration purposes) one bubble of methane gas every month or two. At 500 feet, say, one bubble per year; and no bubbles at all below say, 600 feet. Today most of the hydrates will have disappeared through evaporation at 450 feet, due to the steady rise in ocean temperature. Hydrates at 500 feet are bubbling daily and at 600 feet you'd find bubbles forming and taking off toward the surface at irregular intervals and at 700 feet they could be found forming slowly on the outside surface of hydrates, if one looked closely.
To get a sense of scale, if you were to lay a postage stamp on the ground then try to imagine that you could encompass the area the size of the United States in comparison; that is the jump in scale that occurred in methane gas release by humans from 100 years ago through now, in present time. One tends to forget just how immense the size of our ocean floors are and the tremendous greenhouse gas reserves stored under a very sensitive temperature/pressure ratio experiment in physics, in its vast and deep waters. Their combined area makes the United States look like the postage stamp in this comparison, by comparison.
Our only recourse is a crash course change in life-style in which we change very fast to a none carbon burning/consuming populace wherein whatever form of renewable none carbon based energy we use is both renewable and storable for periods when it's not easily available (i.E., focused array solar-heated, pressurized sodium storage for electric generation both during the day and at night.)... It's a given that we'll have to use current industry to make solar collectors and turbulence tolerant inner city wind turbines of every hue and sort; unearthing our waste dumps, composting everything and planting vast forests on that to lock up the carbon dioxide into trees to increase oxygen ratios and reduce CO2; during the interim we'll continue burning diesel fuel to power drills to tap into Geo-thermal and other renewable resources, etc., add infinausia. The question is will we, our elected representatives who reflect our collective will and the other Doubting Thomas types get on board a fast, furious phase over before the tipping point is beyond our ability to come back from the precipice? Or, more brutally, before we become extinct as a species because we cannot adapt to the reality the earth is foisting onto us in payment for our ignorance as to what we are doing to it because we didn't understand the World Wide Physics involved while keeping Pandora's Box open, like it or not?
References:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Information-NotSpam/message/391 <-- Source of term "Hyddrates" that started this thread. end
From the desktop of Warren Richardson 
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