It's cold down there - you are expecting an updraft of very cold air rising up through much warmer air, due to a high concentration of methane in the cold air. I'm wondering about the actual calculation - it seems to me possible that methane could be building up to those concentrations in the first place because there is little circulation of the cold air from the bottom of such a hole. ...
Thanks. I now understand what you are suggesting so lets do the calculations.
Moleculare weight of air is 98.97 and of CH4 it is 16. Thus the molecular weight of a 9.6% CH4 + 90.4% air mix is: 0.096x16 + 0.904x 28.97 = 27.725 so if down in the hole the temperature is 273K and at the surface the temperature is T, then also assuming the ideal gas law, for there to be net lift in the mix, 27.725 / 28.97 = 0.9570, the lighter molecular density lift must not by more than offset by the temperature contraction increase of the density, which is by the factor 273 / T.
I. e. for 9.6% methane concentration to rise up out of the hole, 0.957 < 273 /T is required. Or T < 273/ 0.957 = 285.266K, which in more familiar units is 12.266C or ~54F. I.e. there should be methane laden air flowing up out of the hole, probably mainly in the center with 54F or colder air descending in an annulus around the column of methane enriched air. On the warmest Siberian days there will also be CH4 enriched air flowing up too, but the CH4 concentration will be higher then than the 9.6% then.
This inflow of CH4 free air would of course reduce the concentration of CH4 in the hole so long as it continues, but a dynamic equilibrium would be reached with the CH4 inflow from the saturated thawing permafrost. The time scale for this dynamic "steady state" to be establish is certainly less than an hour. I.e. the observed 9.6% CH4 concentration was the steady state one when the temperature was about 54F.
Thus by my analysis, I tell you that at the time the 9.6% CH4 was measured, the surface air temperature was ~54F which I think quite reasonable for Siberia at that latitude, in June or July when they measured the 9.6% CH4 concentration. Further more in winter the concentration will be much lower. I.e. the CH4 will be streaming up about as fast as it is being released by the permafrost.
... you are expecting an updraft of very cold air rising up through much warmer air, due to a high concentration of methane in the cold air.
Yes. You are correct. That is exactly what I am expecting.
What we have is sort of a "natural pump" driving CH4 up from deep in the tundra.
Even more scary is that possibly this same natural pump is why CH4 is bubbling up fast in roughly circular olumns in the shallow Arctic Ocean in summer. Then wind mixing heat down not only helps the CH4 ice decompose as it raises the water temperature form it densest state temperature ~4C. During the cold winter night surface water cools to 4C and sinks within or around columns of the warmer than 4C water with actual bubbles of CH4 still in it being forced upward. Reason this is scary is than most believe these small bubbles have low terminal velocity of rise an will dissolve before they reach the surface. Fact is they are not doing so - I have given links showing them at the surface now occasionally in kilometer diameter columns. I. e. can anyone assure me that this "natural pump" does not operate in the ocean too so that the argument that CH4 bubble will dissolve before reaching the surface is ill- founded?
The "beautiful theory" that they will not reach the surface but dissolve is nice and comforting, but would not be the first "beautiful theory" to be destroyed by "ugly observations." If you want to see these 'UGLY FACTS" for your self, watch the 3 second video here:
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/ne...ubbling-up-from-the-arctic-ocean-floor/33078/
an read the only days old text, apart of which is:
"These hydrates are kept frozen by the extreme low temperature and crushing pressure at the bottom of the ocean, but with our oceans accumulating more heat all the time now, these hydrates could 'melt' and release the methane in gas form. If that were to happen, all that methane bubbling up to the ocean surface and into the atmosphere would likely result in the accelerated rate of climate change we're seeing
now turning into catastrophic abrupt climate change."
... scientists have noted that the 'end' of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, which is a relatively warm 'tongue' of water that flows past northern Europe
and through the Arctic Ocean towards East Siberia, may have been warming up in recent years. "Our SWERUS-C3 program is hypothesizing that this heating may lead to destabilization of upper portion of the slope methane hydrates," he wrote. "This may be what we now
for the first time are observing." Does this mean that the disaster scenario is now developing? Unfortunately, at the moment, that's an unknown. "
I have noted in several posts that in this regions sub's sonars no longer work in the patches of rising bubble clouds, but the never had this problem in WWII.
THIS CH4 BUBBLING UP IN DENSE "CLOUDS" {despite the comforting, "beautiful theory"} IS NEW AND SCARY!
