Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing

Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by eagsalazar2 on Friday August 25, 2017 @12:48PM (#15099968)

Is there a site out there that details what the actual scenarios are and how to survive them (if at all possible)? I mean if there is a giant methane burp from the ocean floor, can I and my family survive by wearing gas masks for 7 days? I honestly have NO IDEA. Just curious if anyone has gone through this methodically and developed survival plans.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by stcredzero on Friday August 25, 2017 @12:59PM (#15100100)

If we get to 6 degrees global warming, it's probably into the mass extinction realm. (As in the Permian–Triassic (P–Tr or P–T) extinction event)

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by jackmott on Friday August 25, 2017 @02:04PM (#15100742)

humans have already caused a mass extinction. so it would be like....double secret mass extinction.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by stcredzero on Friday August 25, 2017 @02:08PM (#15100766)

The best way to keep a secret is to make sure that everyone is dead.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by ansible on Friday August 25, 2017 @04:23PM (#15101882)

My favorite bit about this is from a lecture by Daniel Dennett. 10K years ago, Humans and their associated animals (livestock, pets) accounted for less than 1% of the land animal biomass. Now, we account for 98% (mostly cattle).

This has had a drastic effect on the biosphere.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by mikeash on Friday August 25, 2017 @06:42PM (#15102848)

Should that be 98% of land mammals? Because I think the insects still outweigh us by quite a lot.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by Gustomaximus on Friday August 25, 2017 @08:47PM (#15103438)

I looked it up as the 98% felt quite wrong. Amazed to see the amount earthworms made up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by mikeash on Friday August 25, 2017 @11:28PM (#15103902)

I had no idea either. I guess earthworms are mostly beneath (heh) our notice.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by sbierwagen on Friday August 25, 2017 @02:29PM (#15100942)

>can I and my family survive by wearing gas masks for 7 days?

Methane isn't poisonous, the only way it can kill you is by displacing oxygen. Gas masks can't filter it, you would need an oxygen mask. Sheltering in place is slightly more practical: sealing doors and windows, using CO2 sorbents to absorb CO2, and oxygen canisters to replace consumed oxygen. Would be pretty expensive-- I wouldn't bother unless you lived next to Lake Nyos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by Scaevolus on Friday August 25, 2017 @12:57PM (#15100082)

Methane out-gassing is not a short-term catastrophe, it's a long-term one.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by missbit on Friday August 25, 2017 @06:28PM (#15102763)

comforting.

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by ChuckMcM on Friday August 25, 2017 @04:41PM (#15102036)

Not to pick on you but this is the sort of question that click baity articles generate because they don't actually explain the context, only the scary bits.

Unless you are living on the permafrost then you won't see a problem. When people and livestock have been killed by sudden outpouring of gas it has been in situations where something else constrained the mixing with the regular atmosphere, or if you are in the path of the dumping of a large gas reservoir[2].

Generally the dumping of these gasses back into the atmosphere will not be the thing that kills you.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster

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Re:Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing by stevenwoo on Friday August 25, 2017 @02:35PM (#15101004)

This was released recently but not sure if this is the exact same scenario you are talking about or if it is just a probability update on the worse case scenario based on similar studies of the phenomena.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/natural-methane-time-bomb-unli...

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