Oceanographic Time Bomb!
Warmer Pacific Ocean Could Release Millions Of Tons Of Seafloor Methane
Off the West Coast of the United States, methane gas is trapped in frozen layers below the seafloor. New research from the University of Washington shows that water at intermediate depths is warming enough to cause these carbon deposits to melt, releasing methane into the sediments and surrounding water.
Researchers found that water off the coast of Washington is gradually warming at a depth of 500 meters, about a third of a mile down. That is the same depth where methane transforms from a solid to a gas. The research suggests that ocean warming could be triggering the release of a powerful greenhouse gas.
"We calculate that methane equivalent in volume to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is released every year off the Washington coast," said Evan Solomon, a UW assistant professor of oceanography. He is co-author of a paper to appear in Geophysical Research Letters.
While scientists believe that global warming will release methane from gas hydrates worldwide, most of the current focus has been on deposits in the Arctic. This paper estimates that from 1970 to 2013, some 4 million metric tons of methane has been released from hydrate decomposition off Washington. That's an amount each year equal to the methane from natural gas released in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout off the coast of Louisiana, and 500 times the rate at which methane is naturally released from the seafloor.
"Methane hydrates are a very large and fragile reservoir of carbon that can be released if temperatures change," Solomon said. "I was skeptical at first, but when we looked at the amounts, it's significant."
Methane is the main component of natural gas. At cold temperatures and high ocean pressure, it combines with water into a crystal called methane hydrate. The Pacific Northwest has unusually large deposits of methane hydrates because of its biologically productive waters and strong geologic activity. But coastlines around the world hold deposits that could be similarly vulnerable to warming.
"This is one of the first studies to look at the lower-latitude margin," Solomon said. "We're showing that intermediate-depth warming could be enhancing methane release."
Co-author Una Miller, a UW oceanography undergraduate, first collected thousands of historic temperature measurements in a region off the Washington coast as part of a separate research project in the lab of co-author Paul Johnson, a UW professor of oceanography. The data revealed the unexpected sub-surface ocean warming signal.
"Even though the data was raw and pretty messy, we could see a trend," Miller said. "It just popped out."
The four decades of data show deeper water has, perhaps surprisingly, been warming the most due to climate change.
"A lot of the earlier studies focused on the surface because most of the data is there," said co-author Susan Hautala, a UW associate professor of oceanography. "This depth turns out to be a sweet spot for detecting this trend." The reason, she added, is that it lies below water nearer the surface that is influenced by long-term atmospheric cycles.
The warming water probably comes from the Sea of Okhotsk, between Russia and Japan, where surface water becomes very dense and then spreads east across the Pacific. The Sea of Okhotsk is known to have warmed over the past 50 years, and other studies have shown that the water takes a decade or two to cross the Pacific and reach the Washington coast.
"We began the collaboration when we realized this is also the most sensitive depth for methane hydrate deposits," Hautala said. She believes the same ocean currents could be warming intermediate-depth waters from Northern California to Alaska, where frozen methane deposits are also known to exist.
Warming water causes the frozen edge of methane hydrate to move into deeper water. On land, as the air temperature warms on a frozen hillside, the snowline moves uphill. In a warming ocean, the boundary between frozen and gaseous methane would move deeper and farther offshore. Calculations in the paper show that since 1970 the Washington boundary has moved about 1 kilometer - a little more than a half-mile - farther offshore. By 2100, the boundary for solid methane would move another 1 to 3 kilometers out to sea.
Estimates for the future amount of gas released from hydrate dissociation this century are as high as 0.4 million metric tons per year off the Washington coast, or about quadruple the amount of methane from the Deepwater Horizon blowout each year.
Still unknown is where any released methane gas would end up. It could be consumed by bacteria in the seafloor sediment or in the water, where it could cause seawater in that area to become more acidic and oxygen-deprived. Some methane might also rise to the surface, where it would release into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, compounding the effects of climate change.
Researchers now hope to verify the calculations with new measurements. For the past few years, curious fishermen have sent UW oceanographers sonar images showing mysterious columns of bubbles. Solomon and Johnson just returned from a cruise to check out some of those sites at depths where Solomon believes they could be caused by warming water.
"Those images the fishermen sent were 100 percent accurate," Johnson said. "Without them we would have been shooting in the dark."
Johnson and Solomon are analyzing data from that cruise to pinpoint what's triggering this seepage, and the fate of any released methane. The recent sightings of methane bubbles rising to the sea surface, the authors note, suggests that at least some of the seafloor gas may reach the surface and vent to the atmosphere. - Underwater Times
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Woman Craves Toilet Paper
Jade Sylvester started consuming loo paper while pregnant and now eats a whole roll of it every day.
While some women have been known to develop unusual food cravings during pregnancy, a 25-year-old full time mother from Gainsborough took this to the extreme when she developed an insatiable desire to dine on toilet paper .
Despite having given birth to her son Jaxo over a year ago she is still unable to break the bizarre eating habit and continues to consume an entire roll of toilet paper on a daily basis.
"Two months into the pregnancy, I started craving toilet roll. I still don't know why," she said. "I like the feeling of the texture in my mouth, rather than the taste. I like the dryness."
Jade suffers from a condition known as pica which is characterized by an anomalous craving for inedible objects. Some sufferers have been known to eat outdoor substances such as soil, sand and grass or household materials like carpet, paper or bath sponges.
"I thought the cravings would stop after I gave birth but they haven't. I can't quit. I keep coming back for more," said Jade. "It can't be doing my insides any good." Read more at Mother-of-five addicted to eating TOILET PAPER: 25-year-old gets through an entire loo roll a day after developing bizarre cravings during pregnancy
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I Went to a Witch Ritual and I’m Convinced They’re On to Something
This weekend I spent my Saturday night at a full moon ritual for witches. All of the people there — pagans, wiccans, and priestesses — had come together because they believed that if you didn’t like how things were going, you could invoke spirits to help you make changes IF the moon was full.
Everything about the women in the ritual room was witchy. One woman wore a glittery velvet black dress, her silver pentagram winking at me from her necklace. Another wore a pendant on her forehead. Some of their trailing temple cloths had symbols of Islam and Judaism. The stuff didn’t look like it could be purchased for Halloween.
I was willing to try it in case it worked. Maybe I could score a new Twitter follower out of it. Of course it would have been great if I could witness an evil person writhing in pain due to the spirit invocation, but being a witch was really about love and healing.
A handsome young guy approached me in a hooded robe. He offered me an anointment from his glass vial. He told me with complete conviction that it had lavender (for peace) rose (for love) and mugwort, which protected you from negative attachments to the evil spirit. It looked like a great way to knock yourself off, but fair enough.
What happened that night was almost identical to what you’ve seen in The Craft minus the bloodshed and visible magic. The table at the center of the room was furnished with wands, significant looking daggers, and dingy goblets, confirming that this was for real. Continue reading at Styleite
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OUCH!
Execution by cannon, in Shiraz, Iran, mid-late 19th century
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Non-Denominational Church Conducting Deliverance Classes
Leaders at the Lighthouse Church in Wyoming, Delaware, have begun conducting “Exorcism Classes” for the masses. They have even been advertising the program as a way to get closer to God and act as his holy army.
The practice of ridding a body of a troublesome spirit dates back thousands of years. But to date, we have trusted only ordained ministers of the church to liberate people from the clutches of evil. Now the kind ministers at the Lighthouse Church, nestled between two homes on Route 15 and just across the street from the Wyoming Town Hall, are conducting classes which aim to teach common folks the dangerous act of pulling out evil spirits from a live human being – a practice commonly referred to as an exorcism.
The church’s door is adorned with a large banner that urges people to enlist in “God’s Army” to help eradicate Satan through the church’s teachings. Alongside pink and white flowers, the church also hangs an Israeli flag and weapons like a broadsword to complete the effect and ensure people they mean business.
Christopher Gore, a deliverance minister for the church, regularly holds three-hour-long sessions which discuss, at length, the history and necessity, along with the biblical roots, of exorcisms, reported Delaware Public Media. He explains how Jesus Christ and his disciples alike would cast out demons, but laments how the practice has slowly and steadily fallen out of popularity.
He says it is his duty to eradicate the fear associated with performing exorcisms.
“There’s a general lack of education among believers. They don’t read their Bible. They are looking for more people to kind of spoon feed them a feel-good message. If you’re thinking of a demon randomly inhabiting someone, that’s generally not how it happen. Daily stress in life can chip away at your very being, almost creating a landing pad for demonic energy to latch.”
He stresses that an evil spirit just doesn’t decide to invade a body, but the event occurs after multiple instances of the person wounding himself or herself over a period of time.
“But over time with multiple events, there is that one trigger point that just kind of pushes the person over the edge and we call it the ‘one wounding event’.”
Gore insists that exorcisms aren’t harmful or detrimental, but in fact can be perceived as therapeutic. However, exorcisms can vastly vary, taking anywhere between a couple of hours to a whole day “from dawn to dusk.”
All exorcisms start with a quite prayer, before investigations about the person’s past. Once the history is known, the actual process begins, which can be quite traumatizing for both, explained Gore.
“They can be punching, kicking, biting. Obviously, they cuss. When they get in this enraged state, they’re very angry, they’re very upset. When these spirits come out to the forefront, they do not like being disturbed. They do not like us coming at them with the power of God trying to set this person free.”
Some of the most commonly seen manifestations of increasing demonic influence are rampant drug abuse, elevated cancer rates and other common public health issues, cautions the minister in the class. Classes at the Lighthouse Church will run through March, with Gore planning to offer more advanced classes in the future. - Inquisitr
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