green105

Green 105

A history lesson

The instability of methane hydrates (also known as methane clathrates) in ocean sediments represent a real tipping point ready to topple. Human-made global warming (expected to be around 5 degrees Celsius) is threatening to 'boil off' (release) vast reservoirs of greenhouse deposits, as happened 250 million years ago. The expected effect of this release would be to amplify global warming massively to 10 degrees Celsius. At the end of the Permian, global warming, caused initially by natural volcanic activity, and then by the consequent release of methane from oceanic sediments, roasted the Earth for 80,000 years. This heating of the planet by 10 degrees Celsius caused the greatest mass extinction event the Earth had ever, and has ever, seen, bringing the Palaeozoic to a close. The resulting near-tabula rasa (95% of all species of life were erased) cleared the way for the rise of the dinosaurs. We are stumbling towards the same precipice.