The strange pyramid or cone mountain on Ceres raises some questions (Fig. 1).
The top view shows bright spots from what appear to be impacts from meteorites, indicating that this thing might be made out of the shiny material that causes the bright spots in the crater. named "Occator."
The larger question to me is why is there no sign of impact from the crater so near to this mountain, when that impact crater's edge is only tens or hundreds of meters from the edge of the pyramid / cone shaped mountain.
Yet there is no discernible damage to the mountain or to the impact crater's edge (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 Impact Crater & Mountain
An impact that close would more likely than not do serious damage to ice, powdered sand, clay, or similar material.
Perhaps it is made from a tough metal or white granite rock.
Or perhaps the meteorite melted underground material which then was squished upward to solidify in the odd pyramid / cone shape.
They are too much of perfect cones to have been impact craters like those around them.
A more likely scenario is that the impact object buried under the surface to encounter ice, which is converted to steam by the intense heat of the impact, then vents to the surface.
Something non-intuitive happened or the pyramid / cone is the tailings of an alien mine?
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
There is an interesting science news story I want to talk about.
It concerns how scientists using low-tech data discovered a surprise that scientists using the highest-tech data also discovered.
Both ends of the discovery had to do with an abrupt sea level change (SLC) event with invisible links to one another.
Another part of this news story is that neither the low-tech nor the high-tech scientific data concerning the same event are generally associated with abrupt SLC (by current SLC scientists at large).
In today's post, let's not believe why, instead, let's know why.
But, as regards the science of SLC, in the past "abrupt SLC" has generally been applied as a description only to describe a tsunami.
Not any more, in some cases, because what scientists observed using high-tech methods (and "tsunami" language) was not a tsunami:
"The latest findings by a team of scientists from the UK’s University of Bristol show that with no sign of warning, multiple glaciers along the Southern Antarctic Peninsula suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean starting in 2009 ... Prior to 2009, the 750 km-long Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change ... The study includes five years of measurements from ESA’s ice mission, CryoSat, which employs an advanced radar altimeter that can measure the surface height variation of ice in fine detail, allowing scientists to record changes in its volume with unprecedented accuracy."
(Univ. of Bristol, emphasis added). The business as usual model of Antarctic ice sheet and ice shelf science had been that the Antarctic Ice Sheet was very stable and had been so for centuries.
The old "nothing to see here folks, move along now" syndrome.
At the other end of this story was another abrupt SLC event that I will argue was connected to the high-tech abrupt SLC event:
"Our analysis of multi-decadal tide gauge records along the North American east coast identified an extreme sea-level rise event during 2009–2010. Within this relatively brief two-year period, coastal sea level north of New York City jumped by up to 128 mm [5.04 inches]."
(NOAA, An Extreme Event of Sea-level Rise, emphasis added). We are talking about a sudden and unexpected loss of ice sheet mass in W. Antarctica, in the same year as an unexpected SLC on the East Coast of the United States.
Let's talk about the connection, even though it is an invisible connection.
III. The Gravity Bone Is Connected To The Sea Level Bone
Regular readers know that around here lately we have been focusing on not using the bathtub model of SLC.
That is, following the scientific papers and presentations of Professor Dr. Jerry Mitrovica and Professor Dr. Natalya Gomez, we realize that sea level rise (SLR) and sea level fall (SLF) are two sides of the same SLC coin (see video below).
So, the gravity bone is connected to the sea level bone (Dem Bones).
Both teams of scientists who discovered the two ends of the same connection tried to link the "two events" to something else, such as currents, temperatures, and winds for example.
But, just as certain as tomorrow's tides, both the high tide SLR and the low tide SLF are the results of gravity and its associates.
As the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica melt and/or calve into the oceans around them, the gravity of their ice sheets diminishes accordingly.
The sea level around then falls as the ice sheet gravity weakens, and the water moves away from its gravity forced location near the shore, to be "relocated to a different elevation" by the august gravitational, axial, and rotational forces of the Earth.
IV. The East Coast Relocation Fingerprint
In yesterday's post I wrote about the fingerprints of SLC, and provided some examples
anything but an event like putting water into a bathtub or backyard pool.
While watching and expecting that bathtub or pool water level to rise as evenly as we once expected SLC to happen on the oceans of the world.
Oh, SLC does and will continue to seem quite slow and uniform, on the local level, however on the global scene it varies according to "the fingerprint."
The fingerprint science is a mind-blower, shaking "the faith" of some:
In climate science and throughout earth and planetary science, these “fingerprints” and the complex mathematical methods behind them have gained wide acceptance. But even now, when Mitrovica talks with scientists from other fields about the finding that sea levels will fall in some places, he is reminded that the idea is “so counterintuitive that sometimes they don’t believe it. Or they think it must be dependent on some weird model parameter. But it isn’t. It’s just Newton sitting under the tree and the apple hitting him on the head.”
(Harvard Magazine, emphasis added). How odd when scientists doubt the fundamentals ... even more odd than religionists not believing it.
V. The U.S.A. Gets The Finger
That fingerprint does not bode well for the future of sea ports, especially those on the shores of the East Coast in the U.S.eh?
When it dawns on the general populace, if it ever does, that the government has been manipulated into a corner by Oil-Qaeda a.k.a. The Private Empire a.k.a MOMCOM, let's just say they will be "disappointed."
When the coastal sea ports begin to have to be shut down, they may become Disappointed, and later when they are put in camps, they may become DISAPPOINTED (You Are Here - 5).
That is because they have been given the shaft, and also because the deceivers have been given the mine (for a little while anyway).
I don't usually do two posts from the same series back to back, one after the other, but today I am doing so (The Evolution of Models, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).
The reason I am doing so is that two scientific papers concerning the magnitude of sea level rise (SLR), which have recently gone public, come to very different conclusions about SLR.
I am going to argue, today, that the most likely reason for the contrast is that the researchers who came to the same old business-as-usual conclusion that has been ongoing for half a century, is that they are not aware of the concept that sea level change (SLC) does not take place in a gravity free environment.
II. The Gravity of SLC
A post on the Ecocosmology Blog discusses the yet-to-be-widely-acknowledged, yet very essential ingredient of SLC discussions (The Gravity of Sea Level Change; be sure to watch the video below. or at that link).
Not exercising that knowledge when crafting SLC models would be like a modern Sherlock Holmes not being aware of the usefulness of fingerprints when solving various unknowns.
That is because an important part of SLC science is understanding the gravity of ice sheets, and the discernible fingerprints which gravity, axial location, and the rotation of the Earth have on SLC.
Another part of the SLC fingerprint is sea level fall (SLF) (ibid).
III. A Quick Example To Illustrate The Point
A relatively short time ago, observers on the East Coast of the United States noticed that a sudden SLR had taken place over only a two year period of time:
Our analysis of multi-decadal tide gauge records along the North American east coast identified an extreme sea-level rise event during 2009–2010. Within this relatively brief two-year period, coastal sea level north of New York City jumped by up to 128 mm [5.04 inches].
(NOAA, An Extreme Event of Sea-level Rise). They did not mention that this is a fingerprint indicating ice sheet melt or calving in a specific location.
That specific location is Antarctica, of all places.
Yes, SLC on the East Coast of the U.S. is a sign, a fingerprint, of ice mass events in Antarctica, because the U.S. is in the long term SLC sights of Antarctica.
Notice that there is a reality so strong, concerning those SLC fingerprints, that scientists who know can tell what ice sheet caused the SLR of "128 mm in a two year period" on the East Coast, or anywhere else for that matter:
Fingerprint: some SLR, SLF, and No-deviation
However, the collapse of polar ice sheets produces a distinct geometry, or fingerprint, of sea-level change, which must be accounted for to accurately infer peak eustatic sea level from site-specific residual highstands.
Had the scientists, who discovered the 128 mm quick rise mentioned above, understood this and had they taken the fingerprints, they would have suspected and cuffed W. Antarctica (You Are Here - 5).
"Book 'em Danno."
IV. The Two Conflicting Papers
The paper I am criticising today, European SLR model ("European Paper"), indicates that a global mean average (a.k.a. "eustatic sea level") of "an extreme" 20 cm (8 inches) is all that will take place over the remainder of this century.
That is, by 2100.
That European Paper SLR amount, at their current W. Antarctica ice stream rate-flow-projections, is their "global mean," their full expectation, over the remainder of this century.
That, even though the European Paper also says that the glacial ice streams will disintegrate a lot, and retreat significantly.
Professor Mitrovica and Professor Gomez would say that the 128 mm (5.04 inches) of SLR that took place on the East Coast of the U.S., in 2009-2010, is a likely fingerprint from Antarctica.
That severe 128 mm / 5 inches of SLR, which is only 3 inches less than the European Paper's entire 85 year projected amount (8 in.), took place in only two years.
The other paper I mentioned ("The Hansen Paper"), which conflicts with that European Paper's SLR model conclusions, says that if "a ten year doubling" takes place, a ten foot SLR would take place by 2050.
"The European problem" in the scientific literature (elaborated on in the video below @14:40 as having developed because they were "clueless") was caused by either scientific unawareness, ignorance, or both.
They were unaware / ignorant of the major impact that ice sheet gravity has on SLC (like the rest of us were for awhile too).
Unaware of the discernible fingerprints that Greenland and Antarctica ice sheet melt and disintegration have on sea level when physics applies.
Europe has zero SLR when the Greenland Ice Sheet melts, but other places have significant SLR from the same melting events.
The global mean average business as usual, described as being like "water rising uniformly in a bathtub," is a total illusion (again, see the video below @14:50).
Yet, engineers who build sea ports have been and are working under that illusion.
They are digging and pouring concrete thinking that sea level is going to rise in places where actually it is going to drop a lot (Peak Sea Level - 2).
The fingerprint-science for SLC is out there for those who are going to work on software projection models.
If scientists contemplate doing a model they must understand the nature of SLC and the part gravity plays.
I think that perhaps the models should have a section which focuses on SLR areas, another section that focuses on SLF areas, and a third that focuses on the very few areas where the sea level will not significantly deviate (see the colorful "fingerprint" graph in Section III).
Otherwise, it is like fishing, surfing, scuba diving, etc. without knowing what gravity is doing with the tide scene (high, low, in-between).
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
About the gravity of ice sheets and its impact on sea level change fingerprints:
In the previous post of this series I presented some variations in software modelling which "length of doubling" produces in sea level change (SLC) projections.
"Doubling" is a description that scientists use to describe the observance of ice loss on ice sheets in the sense that if the sheet loses "x amount" of ice in one year, then a number of years later that "x amount" of ice loss per year doubles (x * 2, 2x), then that is considered a "doubling."
If it takes ten years for x to double, that is a "ten year doubling," and if it takes seven years for x to double, that is a "seven year doubling."
II. Recent Scientific Papers
One recent paper by 17 scientists, including James Hansen, indicates that with a ten year doubling, sea level rise (SLR) could be in the vicinity of ten feet by 2050 (A Paper From Hansen et al. Is Now Open For Discussion).
A more recent paper indicates that calving and melting of glaciers around the world is doubling faster than probably at any other time in recorded history:
"Observations show that glaciers around the world are in retreat and losing mass. Internationally coordinated for over a century, glacier monitoring activities provide an unprecedented dataset of glacier observations from ground, air and space. Glacier studies generally select specific parts of these datasets to obtain optimal assessments of the mass-balance data relating to the impact that glaciers exercise on global sea-level fluctuations or on regional runoff. In this study we provide an overview and analysis of the main observational datasets compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). The dataset on glacier front variations (~42 000 since 1600) delivers clear evidence that centennial glacier retreat is a global phenomenon. Intermittent readvance periods at regional and decadal scale are normally restricted to a subsample of glaciers and have not come close to achieving the maximum positions of the Little Ice Age (or Holocene). Glaciological and geodetic observations (~5200 since 1850) show that the rates of early 21st-century mass loss are without precedent on a global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history, as indicated also in reconstructions from written and illustrated documents. This strong imbalance implies that glaciers in many regions will very likely suffer further ice loss, even if climate remains stable."
Generally, when scientists publish the type of information mentioned in Section II above, they are chastened for being "alarmist" in the unspoken Jim Crow law sort of way (Blind Willie McTell News).
The psychological denial of things civilization is out of control about, such as global warming induced climate change, has now wormed its way into the institutions of science.
Scientists are treated like teenagers with an allowance that is taken away if the scientists publish things that cannot be spoken:
"I suspect the existence of what I call the `John Mercer effect'. Mercer (1978) suggested that global warming from burning of fossil fuels could lead to disastrous disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, with a sea level rise of several meters worldwide. This was during the era when global warming was beginning to get attention from the United States Department of Energy and other science agencies. I noticed that scientists who disputed Mercer, suggesting that his paper was alarmist, were treated as being more authoritative. It was not obvious who was right on the science, but it seemed to me, and I believe to most scientists, that the scientists preaching caution and downplaying the dangers of climate change fared better in receipt of research funding. Drawing attention to the dangers of global warming may or may not have helped increase funding for relevant scientific areas, but it surely did not help individuals like Mercer who stuck their heads out. I could vouch for that from my own experience. After I published a paper (Hansen et al 1981) that described likely climate effects of fossil fuel use, the Department of Energy reversed a decision to fund our research, specifically highlighting and criticizing aspects of that paper at a workshop in Coolfont, West Virginia and in publication (MacCracken 1983). I believe there is a pressure on scientists to be conservative. Papers are accepted for publication more readily if they do not push too far and are larded with caveats. Caveats are essential to science, being born in skepticism, which is essential to the process of investigation and verification. But there is a question of degree. A tendency for `gradualism' as new evidence comes to light may be ill-suited for communication, when an issue with a short time fuse is concerned."
There is no doubt that the ice sheets of Greenland (Fig. 1) and Antarctica are, like glaciers elsewhere, "in a hurry" to melt and calve:
"Satellite images show that the world's fastest moving glacier lost a piece of ice measuring nearly 5 square miles over two days. Scientists say it is one of the most significant calving events on record. Radar images of the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, taken from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-2A weather satellites between July 27 and Aug. 19, show the massive glacier advancing westward before its front rapidly retreated as a huge chunk fell off it front, sometime between Aug. 14 and Aug. 16. The ESA estimates that the ice is about 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) thick, meaning that the piece lost has a volume of about 17.5 cubic km, which is enough to cover the island of Manhattan in a layer of ice almost 1,000 feet deep."
(CBS News, emphasis added). So, what does this have to do with SLC modelling software that uses a doubling scheme?
V. Believing SLC Software Models
A. The Code
I wrote a simple SLR software model that does an "oscillating doubling" of 10,7,5,3,2 year sequences, as follows.
The code below is in bold, comments are in regular text between "/** */" C++ comment markers.
The SLR program is listed between the following horizontal lines: #include <iostream> #include <iomanip> #include <fstream>
/** csv comma delimited header (percent is % of maxMeanSLR) */ const char *pColumnNames = "Year,SLR,Rate,Percent";
/** reoeating doubling cycle */ const int doublingYrs[5] = {10,7,5,3,2};
/** current max est. SLR per year @ East Coast (0.866141732 in.) */ const double incPerYear = 0.022;
/** number of years to project (36 for yr. 2050; 86 for yr 2100) */ const int yearsToProject = 86;
/*************************************
This program uses a 10,7,5,3,2 year
repeating "doubling sequence."
This is designed to vary the ice
sheet melt/calving as different
zones are traversed and cycles of
global warming events wax and wane.
The rate of melt changes each
10 then 7 then 5 then 3 and then
2 years, and then repeats itself.
------------------------------------
all sea level values are in meters
*************************************/ int main() {
/** current sea level rise since 1750 @East Coast of U.S. */ double meanSLR = 0.4572;
/** set initial SLR per year @East Coast (0.022 m, 0.0722 ft, 0.866 in.) */ double incThisYear = incPerYear;
int doublingElement = 0, doublingCount = 1;
/** print results to a .csv text file */ freopen("slr-lite.csv", "w", stdout);
/** csv header: write column names and commas at top of page */ cout << pColumnNames << endl;
for (int year = 0; year < yearsToProject; year++) { if (meanSLR < maxMeanSLR) {
/** simulate ice sheet melt rate of increase */ meanSLR += incThisYear;
/** store year to year values in csv format */ cout << year + 2015 << "," << setprecision(5) << meanSLR << "," << incThisYear << "," << (meanSLR / maxMeanSLR) * 100 << endl;
/** check doubling settings */ if (doublingCount == doublingYrs[doublingElement]) {
/** variable "incThisYear" records values in a 10,7,5,3,2 year cycle */ incThisYear += incPerYear;
/** test for end of 10,7,5,3,2 cycle */ if (doublingYrs[doublingElement] == 2) {
/** reset to beginning, repeat cycle */ doublingElement = 0;
/** reset to original doubling amount */ incThisYear = incPerYear; } else /** go to next doubling value */
{ doublingElement++; }
/** reset the cycle counter */ doublingCount = 1; } else { doublingCount++; } } else /** all ice has been depleted, so don't record data */ { cout << year + 2015 << " - maximum SLR reached (" << maxMeanSLR << ")" << endl; } } return 0; }
B. The Resulting Data and Graphs
When set to an ending in the year 2100, it prints the following csv ("comma separated values") file, which I used to do two graphs.
The data are on the left side, the two graphs (Fig. 2, Fig. 3) are on the right side.
Years = 2015-2100. SLR = sea level rise in meters. Rate is the value associated with the 10,7,5,3,2 doubling. Percent is the percent of the total ice on Earth (equating to the 80.32 meters of potential global mean SLR) that has melted or calved by that year. Year,SLR,Rate,Percent
2015,0.4792,0.022,0.59661
2016,0.5012,0.022,0.624
2017,0.5232,0.022,0.65139
2018,0.5452,0.022,0.67878
2019,0.5672,0.022,0.70618
2020,0.5892,0.022,0.73357
The csv file printout shows the "0.22" Rate repeating for 10 yrs., then the "0.44" rate following for 7 yrs., the "0.66" rate following that for 5 yrs., and so on.
Then, when the first sequence (10,7,5,3,2) completes in the yr. 2041, the sequence begins anew to repeat itself.
One effect this technique has is that in 2050 the SLR is 1.9972 meters, or 6.6 ft. instead of the 10 feet using only the 10 yr. doubling (as shown here).
The point is that projection software is probably better if it has oscillating variation, because it is not realistic to expect the same rate for each year as the old style models tend to do ("linear" projections).
The graphs reflect the sequence end, and a new beginning, in a sawtooth type of look, reflecting what the zone effect can and should look like (e.g. The Evolution of Models - 5).
That is, the graphs reflect a sawtooth look which is reflective of uneven melt rates from year to year, with an upward trend nevertheless.
VI. Conclusion
The ice sheets continue to melt and calve, with an acceleration built into that melting and calving (because of the increase in fossil fuel use and green house gas emissions).
Software models and scientific papers need to take that into consideration.
Public officials also need to take that into consideration (You Are Here - 5).
In fact, everyone else needs to take that reality into consideration.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here. 01:30 Warming is concentrated in the Arctic ... this pattern has been evident for decades 02:45 These same models that began development in the late 60's always had an Arctic amplified warming because the physics of that reflectivity is simple. 02:55 Removal of reflective cover absorb more sunlight. The primitive models got that and its of course validated by observation. 04:32 Within our lifetimes we will bear witness to this story unfolding rather rapidly. 04:40 The red line shows observations of sea ice area. It depicts how sea ice is retreating at twice the rate [doubling] that our best model projections show. 05:05 The models still don't get the true fidelity of climate, the rapidity of sea ice loss ... 05:30 ... retreating at a rate four times [doubling * 2] what model projections currently get ... the models are if anything underestimating ... 06:28 Greenland is absorbing an additional amount of solar energy that equals twice the energy use of the U.S. each year 07:53 Just in the past ten years science reveals more sensitive response than was previously encoded in models.
This series is about the history of the oil industry, as well as the various and sundry attempts financed by the oil industry, to revise that history (e.g. The Peak of the Oil Lies, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
Another nickname ("The Private Empire") used in this series was coined by Steve Coll.
The graphic shows a war machine in the image of a church towing an oil derrick, because religion plays a big part in the origin of the oil wars and the original addiction of Western Civilization to oil (The Universal Smedley - 2; A History of Oil Addiction, 2, 3, 4).
Today, let's look at another deceitful philosophy distributed by the Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire's propaganda machine.
The purpose of their internet propaganda is to diminish and/or destroy the notion of Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire guilt for being a drug dealer that has addicted all civilization to fossil fuels (see video Merchants of Doubt below).
The gist of the philosophy is:
In Daoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole.
(Wikipedia, Yin Yang). If bad is just a form of good, then the Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire can't be blamed for addicting civilization to fossil fuels.
Creating the infrastructure that produced global warming induced climate change, which now threatens billions of members of humanity, according to the Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire is guilt free.
"You are just as guilty as we are because you use cars, and so is all of humankind," is one of their mantras.
Many people who are influence by eastern mysticism, see it like this:
... Shame and guilt are illusions that help to bind us to those standards. When we fail to meet them, guilt and shame are a system of punishment enacted to encourage us to "do better" next time. So let go of those standards. Let go of guilt and shame. Stop trying to be who and what you think you should be, or what others think you should be, and start being who and what you really are.
In the War College, as pointed out by the previous link, propaganda is taught as an old Chinese philosophy.
One which has been perfected by MOMCOM, a nickname for Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire that Dredd Blog coined (A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 4).
If you are aware of their tactics (see the second video below) you will see how far and wide the lies of the Oil-Qaeda / Private Empire / MOMCOM have spread, and how they have pulled out all stops in an effort to cover up their guilt and shame:
Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation — a deliberate campaign to deceive the public that continues even today.
For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.
Each collection provides an illuminating inside look at this coordinated campaign of deception, an effort underwritten by ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Peabody Energy, and other members of the fossil fuel industry.
In this series we ponder the almost inexplicable dearth of long-term scientific research associated with atmospheric methane (CH4).
The sources of CH4 in the atmosphere are not as well known as the sources of CO2 are (Fig. 2), nor are the records as extensive for CH4 (Fig. 1).
The watchers at Moana Loa observatory, in Hawaii, keep records for both of those green house gases (GHG) and are considered to be a standard source of information (Moana Loa CO2).
In the first post of this series, it was pointed out that methane (hydrate, clathrate, etc.) research in the Arctic is in its infancy:
Currently, scientists do not have a tool to say with certainty how much, or if any, atmospheric methane comes from hydrates. ... No one can yet say with certainty how the methane release in the Arctic will develop with global warming, either in the ocean or on the land. This research is still in its infancy.
Methane was steadily increasing in the 1980's, it's growth rate slowed in the 1990's, and it has had a near-zero growth rate for the last few years.
(NOAA ESRL). At this time competent researchers use inexact language in several categories:
"In this paper we present 2 years of data obtained during the late summer period (September 2003 and September 2004) for the East Siberian Arctic shelf (ESAS). According to our data, the surface layer of shelf water was supersaturated up to 2500% relative to the present average atmospheric methane content of 1.85 ppm, pointing to the rivers as a strong source of dissolved methane which comes from watersheds which are underlain with permafrost. Anomalously high concentrations (up to 154 nM or 4400% supersaturation) of dissolved methane in the bottom layer of shelf water at a few sites suggest that the bottom layer is somehow affected by near-bottom sources. The net flux of methane from this area of the East Siberian Arctic shelf can reach up to 13.7 × 104 g CH4 km− 2 from plume areas during the period of ice free water, and thus is in the upper range of the estimated global marine methane release. Ongoing environmental change might affect the methane marine cycle since significant changes in the thermal regime of bottom sediments within a few sites were registered. Correlation between calculated methane storage within the water column and both integrated salinity values (r = 0.61) and integrated values of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (r = 0.62) suggest that higher concentrations of dissolved methane were mostly derived from the marine environment, likely due to in-situ production or release from decaying submarine gas hydrates deposits. The calculated late summer potential methane emissions tend to vary from year to year, reflecting most likely the effect of changing hydrological and meteorological conditions (temperature, wind) on the ESAS rather than riverine export of dissolved methane. We point out additional sources of methane in this region such as submarine taliks, ice complex retreat, submarine permafrost itself and decaying gas hydrates deposits."
(Sharkova). Arctic methane research is increasing rapidly, so tools and methods should improve over time, so that more exact language can be used.
The research into this potentially dangerous area is not as mature, by any stretch of the imagination, as sea level change (SLC) research is.
Tidal gages have been used for over a hundred years, satellites of all sorts (e.g. GRACE, Cryosat-2, etc.) have measured the sources of sea level rise (SLR) and sea level fall (SLF), and they are well known without controversy.
Those who rant on about the "non-issue" of SLC but "the human species destroying methane danger" will be seen, and should be seen, as kooks by public infrastructure managers.
That is because SLC is a known clear and present danger (a must-read for that perspective: You Are Here - 5).
An expert on SLC addresses those issues (which are relatively hidden in plain sight) in one video below (Mitrovica), and an expert on Arctic methane release does the same in the other video (Sharkova).
