Response
of Methane Hydrate Systems to Environmental Change.
These new projects, managed by the Energy Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory, will focus research on field programs for deepwater hydrate characterization, the response
of methane hydrate systems to changing climates, and advances in the understanding of gas - hydrate - bearing deposits.
Not exact matches
«But it's not like the
hydrates are just building up over time, because we're also losing
methane out
of these
systems.»
Even if engineers could construct a
system to bring a load
of hydrate to the surface before it disappeared, extracting the
methane from the matrix
of mud and rock would still present a problem.
Pachauri outlined the potential for major changes to the climate
system, which could overwhelm human response strategies - breakdown
of the thermohaline circulation, disintegration
of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, a shift in mean climate towards an El Nino - like state, reduced carbon sink capacity,
methane release from
hydrates, and a rearrangement
of biome distributions.
Knowledge
of the timescales
of gas
hydrate dissociation and subsequent
methane release are critical in understanding the impact
of marine gas
hydrates on the ocean — atmosphere
system, says Shyam Chand, researcher at NGU / CAGE.
Indeed, the long lifetime
of fossil fuel carbon in the climate
system and persistence
of the ocean warming ensure that «slow» feedbacks, such as ice sheet disintegration, changes
of the global vegetation distribution, melting
of permafrost, and possible release
of methane from
methane hydrates on continental shelves, would also have time to come into play.
Dramatic warming and upheaval
of the carbon
system at the end
of the Paleocene Epoch have been linked to massive dissociation
of sedimentary
methane hydrate.
They claim that salt allows the
methane hydrate deposits to be at the «triple point»
of the
system making the
system much more temperature sensitive than low salt deposits.