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Methane release

Retreat of Arctic sea ice releases Methane Gas

Earlier this week during the American Geophysical Union meeting in Bay Area Dr Semiletov released Alarming results,  Dramatic and unparalleled plumes of methane are bubbling to the top of Arctic Sea discovered by researchers undertaking a comprehensive survey from the region.
 
Methane is roughly 25 times as potent at trapping heat as carbon dioxide over the course of a century. Igor Semiletov, belonging to the Asian branch from the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained he hasn't before observed the scale and pressure from the methane being released from underneath the Arctic seabed.
 
The dimensions and amount of the methane release has shocked the mind from the Russian investigation team that has been surveying the seabed from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for almost 2 decades.
 
"Earlier we found torch-like structures such as this however they were only hundreds of metres across. This is actually the very first time that we have found ongoing, effective and impressive leaking structures, in excess of 1,000 metres across. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov stated. "I had been most astounded by the massive scale and density from the plumes. On the relatively small area we found a lot more than 100, but on the wider area there must be 1000's of these.
 
Researchers estimate that you will find 100s of immeasurable tonnes of methane gas locked away underneath the Arctic permafrost, which in turn stretches in the landmass in to the seabed from the relatively shallow ocean through the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Probably the greatest fears is the fact that using the disappearance from the Arctic ocean-ice in summer season, and rapidly rising temps over the whole region, that are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane might be all of a sudden launched in to the atmosphere resulting in rapid and severe global warming.
 
Dr Semiletov's team released a study this year determining the methane pollutants out of this region were about eight million tonnes annually, however the latest expedition suggests this can be a substantial underestimate from the phenomenon.
 
Previously, the Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev carried out a comprehensive survey around 10,000 square miles of ocean from the East Siberian coast. Researchers used four highly sensitive instruments, both seismic and acoustic, to watch the "fountains" or plumes of methane bubbles rising towards the ocean surface from underneath the seabed.
 
"In an exceedingly small area, under 10,000 square miles, we've counted a lot more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling with the water column and injected into the atmosphere in the seabed," Dr Semiletov stated. "We completed inspections at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of the fantastic scale - I believe on the scale not seen before. Some plumes were a km or even more wide and also the pollutants went into the atmosphere - the concentration would be a hundred occasions greater than usual.
Cern OPERA experiment reports anomaly

Cern OPERA experiment reports anomaly

 

OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight duration of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso

Geneva, 23 September 2011. The OPERA1 experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN2 730 km away at Italy’s INFN Gran Sasso Research laboratory,have presented brand-new results in a seminar located at CERN.

The OPERA result are based on the observation of over 15000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature’s cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. This is why the OPERA collaboration has decided to open the result to broader scrutiny. The collaboration’s result is available on the preprint server arxiv.org: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897.

The OPERA measurement is at odds with well-established laws of nature, though science frequently progresses by overthrowing the established paradigms. For this reason, many searches have been made for deviations from Einstein’s theory of relativity, so far not finding any such evidence. The strong constraints arising from these observations makes an interpretation of the OPERA measurement in terms of modification of Einstein’s theory unlikely, and give further strong reason to seek new independent measurements.

“This result comes as a complete surprise,” said OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern. “After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation.”

 “When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements.”

In order to perform this study, the OPERA Collaboration teamed up with experts in metrology from CERN and other institutions to perform a series of high precision measurements of the distance between the source and the detector, and of the neutrinos’ time of flight. The distance between the origin of the neutrino beam and OPERA was measured with an uncertainty of 20 cm over the 730 km travel path. The neutrinos’ time of flight was determined with an accuracy of less than 10 nanoseconds by using sophisticated instruments including advanced GPS systems and atomic clocks. The time response of all elements of the CNGS beam line and of the OPERA detector has also been measured with great precision.

"We have established synchronization between CERN and Gran Sasso that gives us nanosecond accuracy, and we’ve measured the distance between the two sites to 20 centimetres,” said Dario Autiero, the CNRS researcher who will give this afternoon’s seminar. “Although our measurements have low systematic uncertainty and high statistical accuracy, and we place great confidence in our results, we’re looking forward to comparing them with those from other experiments."

“The potential impact on science is too large to draw immediate conclusions or attempt physics interpretations. My first reaction is that the neutrino is still surprising us with its mysteries.” said Ereditato. “Today’s seminar is intended to invite scrutiny from the broader particle physics community.”

The OPERA experiment was inaugurated in 2006, with the main goal of studying the rare transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos. One first such event was observed in 2010, proving the unique ability of the experiment in the detection of the elusive signal of tau neutrinos.

 

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