Mantle Methane

High Rate of Spreading of the the Arctic Atmospheric Global Warming Veil South of the Gulf Coast is Driven by Deep Seated Methane Release from Giant Mantle Geopressured-Geothermal Reservoirs below the Siberian Craton at Depths of 100 km to 300 km and at Temperatures above 1200 Degrees Celsius

by Malcolm P.R. Light
February 28th, 2014

Abstract

During the Late Permian (Figures 16 to 19) there was a major global extinction event which resulted in a large loss of species caused by catastrophic methane eruptions from destabilization of subsea methane hydrates in the Paleo-Arctic (Figures 16, 17 and 13a)(Wignall 2009). Extreme global warming was caused when vast volumes of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere from the widespread eruption of volcanics in northern Siberia (Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province) (Figure 17; Wignall 2009) whose main source zone on land in northern Siberia is not a great distance from the present trend of the Gakkel Ridge and the Enrico Pv Anomaly extreme methane emission zone (Figure 17). Because the Arctic forms a graveyard for subducted plates, the mantle there is highly fractured and it is also primary source zone for mantle methane formed from the reduction of oceanic carbonates by water in the presence of iron (II) oxides buried to depths of 100 km to 300 km in the Asthenosphere and at temperatures above 1200°C (Figures 12, 13a and 15) (Gaina et al. 2013; Goho 2004; Merali 2004).

In addition to the widespread eruption of volcanics in Northern Siberia in the Late Permian (250 million years ago), swarms of pyroclastic kimberlites erupted between 245 and 228 million years ago along a NNE trending shear system in the mantle which extends up the east flank of the Lena River delta and intersects the Gakkel Ridge slow spreading ridge on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Figures 17 to 19, LIP 2013). Cenozoic volcanics also occur to the north and north east of the Lena River delta marking the trend of the slow spreading Gakkel Ridge on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Sekretov 1998). All this pyroclastic activity along the slow spreading Gakkel Ridge from the Late Permian to the present is evidence of deep pervasive vertical mantle fracturing and shearing which has formed conduits for the release of carbon dioxide and deeply sourced mantle methane out of the Arctic sea floor and then into the atmosphere (Figures 12, 13a, 15, 17, 18 and 19).

During the Late Permian these events initiated a massive eruption phase along the entire central and north eastern part of the Taimyr Volcanic arc producing an extremely wide and thick sheet-like succession of flood trap lavas and tuffs that spread south eastwards over the Siberian Craton (Figure 17). The massive volume of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during these cataclysmic eruptions produced extreme global warming in the air and oceans which dissasocciated the Paleo-Arctic subsea methane hydrates and the methane hydrate seals above the Enrico Pv Anomaly generating a massive seafloor and mantle methane pulse into the atmosphere (Figures 13a and 17)(Wignall. 2009). This release of methane caused the average atmospheric temperature to rise to 26.6°C producing the Major Late Permian Extinction Event (Wignall, 2009). Our present extreme fossil fuel driven carbon dioxide global warming is predicted to produce exactly the same methane release from the subsea Arctic methane hydrates and deep mantle methane from the Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone by the 2050's, leading to total deglaciation and the extinction of all life on Earth.

What mankind has done in his infinite stupidity, with his extreme hydrocarbon addiction and fossil fuel induced global warming, has opened a giant, long standing (Permian to Recent) geopressured, mantle methane pressure-release safety valve (Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone) for gases generated between 100 km and 300 km depth and temperatures above 1200°C in the asthenosphere (Figures 4, 6, 12 and 15). This is now a region of massive methane emissions (Carana, 2014). There is now no fast way to reseal this system because it will require extremely quick cooling of the Arctic Ocean, which cannot be achieved in the short time frame we have left to complete the job. Our only hope is to destroy the methane in the water before it gets into the atmosphere and simultaneously destroy the existing atmospheric methane using radio-laser systems (Alamo and Lucy Projects, Light and Carana, 2012, 2013). Scientists at Georgia Tech University have found that at very low temperatures in the ocean, two symbiotic methane eating organisms group together, consume methane in the presence of tungsten and excrete carbon dioxide which then reacts with minerals in the water to form carbonate mounds (Glass et al. 2013). This means that the United States must fund a major project at Georgia Tech to quickly develop the means to grow these methane consuming bacteria in massive quantities with their tungsten enzyme and find the means to deliver them to the Polar oceans as soon as possible.

Introduction

The Extreme Arctic Methane Eruption Zone (a) is located where the Gakkel mid-ocean ridge enters the Laptev Sea at the end of the Eurasian Basin (Figure 1, Wales from IBCAO, 2013). Methane eruption sites also appear at locations (b.) and (c.) north of Svalbard located above old mantle shear faults which also form plate boundaries (Figure 1). In Figure 1 the slow-spreading Gakkel mid-ocean ridge coverges toward the Laptev Sea and Siberia and is spreading in a wedge like fashion at 1.33 cm/year off Greenland to 0.63 cm/year off Siberia (Wales, 2013). The Gakkel mid-ocean ridge formed in the Cenozoic (Palaeocene) 58 million years ago (Wales 2013).

Figure 2 shows two views of the steep eastern end of the Eurasian Basin where the Gakkel Ridge enters the Laptev Sea. It is here that the Extreme Methane Eruption Zone is located as well as the Enrico Pv (pressure sound wave velocity) Anomaly (Gebco 1979; IBCAO 2000, Gusev 2013; Yakovlev et al. 2012). Linear zones of methane emissions north of Svalbard, almost at right angles to the trend of the Gakkel Ridge are probably more deeply sourced methane that has entered along mantle shear fault system and plate boundary zones (Figure 3a, Carana 2014).

The most Extreme Methane Emission Zone in the Arctic occurs at the transition of the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea where the Gakkel Ridge is covered by hydrothermal methane hydrates (Figure 3b and 4, Max and Lowrie 1993, Light 2012) and is most clearly defined on the USGS methane atmospheric concentration map where it forms methane clouds about 2.5 km to 3 km in height (Carana, 2013, 2014). Three distinctly different types of methane emission can be seen on Figure 4 (Light 2012 after Pravettoni, 2009). The western half of the Laptev Sea and Kara Seas were covered by low and fairly constant atmospheric methane concentrations between 2 and 2.5 ppm (Figure 4).

To the east higher more variable methane concentrations occur above the shallow part of the Laptev Sea and East Siberia Sea (2.5 to 5.75 ppm)(Figure 4). A zone of extreme methane emissions lies between these centred at latitude 132° (range 125° to 135°) where the atmospheric methane concentration peaks at about 8.3 ppm (Pravettoni 2009).

The Extreme Methane Emission Zone at the junction of the Laptev Sea and the Eurasian Basin is marked by a particular type of methane hydrate associated with hydrothermal emanations from the slow-spreading Gakkel Ridge (Figure 5; Max and Lowrie 1993). Another belt of these Gakkel Ridge hydrothermal methane hydrates also occurs along the plate boundary zone north and west of Svalbard (Figure 5; Max and Lowrie, 1993). This suggests a much deeper source zone for the methane in these hydrothermal methane hydrate regions than found elsewher in the Arctic.

The location of the Enrico Pv (sound pressure wave velocity) Anomaly at the junction of the Eurasian Basin and Laptev Sea is shown in Figure 6 at 100 km and 220 km depth within the asthenosphere part of the Earth's mantle (from Yakovlev et al. 2012). The Enrico Pv Anomaly occurs beneath the region (Figure 2) where there are deep hydrothermal methane hydrates (Figure 5; Max and Lowrie 1993) and the Extreme Methane Emission Zone occurs (Figure3b Light 2012; Carana 2013, 2014). The centre of the Enrico Pv Anomaly is marked by a pressure sound wave velocity anomaly (dv/V)% of about -1.6 (Yakovlev et al. 2012).

A plate-tectonic oceanic-slab graveyard underlies the Arctic region and is represented by positive anomalies on Figure 7. which probably represent cold subducted oceanic crust and lithosphere (Gaina et al. 2013). The Enrico Pv Anomaly located on the updip edge of one of these subducted oceanic slabs (Figure 7; Gaina et al. 2013).

The global atmospheric methane concentration levels in the last quarter of 2013 and in January 2014 are shown on Figures 8, 9a, 9b (from Carana, 2014; Harold Hensel pers com. 2014).

The latitudinal front of the Methane Global Warming Veil for an 1850 ppb atmospheric methane concentration is clearly visible (the southern boundary of the orange zone) crossing the north end of Baja California and running parallel to, but north of the Gulf Coast (Carana 2014).

The southwards movement of the 1850 ppm atmospheric methane concentration front during one year (Figure 9a from Carana 2014) was used to determine when the Methane Global Warming Veil will completely envelop the Earth.

The likely pressure of the methane source was also estimated, here assumed to be the Extreme Methane Eruption Zone at the transition from the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea.

The rate of spreading of the Methane Global Warming Veil and the fast escalation of the methane concentrations in the Arctic atmosphere through time (Carana, 2012, 2013, 2014) were used to calibrate the actual tropospheric and stratospheric atmospheric methane concentration curve (Figure 10).

This curve fixes the time when the 8°C atmospheric temperature anomaly will be exceeded indicating that total deglaciation and major extinction will occur by about 2053 (Figure 10).

The buildup of the global atmospheric methane concentration (Figure 11) indicates that the oceans should start to boil off at 115°C to 120°C when the atmospheric methane concentration anomaly exceeds 20,000 ppb (20 ppmv) by 2080. The atmospheric temperatures will approach those on the surface of Venus (460°C to 467°C) when the atmospheric methane concentration anomaly reaches 80,000 ppb (80 ppmv) by 2100 (Figure 11).

Bubbles of methane formed from reactions between iron oxide, calcite and water at high temperatures and pressures, during the simulation of conditions in the Earth's Mantle (asthenosphere) (Figure 12, Goho 2004).

The yellow zone on Figure 13a is the region in the asthenosphere below 100 km depth where methane is stable and is generated from the reaction of water and calcite in the presence of iron (II) oxide at temperatures above 1200°C (Merali 2004; Goho 2004; Scott et al. PNAS).

Shallower methane can also be generated in sea water convection cells on the flanks of mid-ocean ridges (Figure 13b), but the required pressure source for the expanding 1850 ppb Global Methane Warming Veil is far to high for this to be the origin of the Extreme Methane Emission Zone.

The relative vertical micro-crack porosity of the Enrico Pv (sound pressure wave velocity) Anomaly has been calculated from sound wave velocities by the O'Connel model (Liu et al. 2001) calibrated to the known porosity of the Anderson et al. model (Figure 14a, Liu et al. 2001; Anderson et al. 1974; Anderson 1989).

The relative porosity of the standard crust and mantle using PREM data (Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981) has also been determined by the same method (Figure 14a).

Typical pressures, temperatures and depths within the Earth's interior are shown in Table 1 with part of the asthenosphere methane generation zone shown in yellow (Braile 2012, Merali 2004; Goho 2004; Scott et al. PNAS). In the Earth's mantle elongated olivine crystals form a large part of the rock (Table 1) and become aligned by vertical flow in the asthenosphere between 100 km and 350 km within rising mid ocean ridge magmas (e.g. the Gakkel Ridge) and in downwelling subduction zones such as the High Arctic (Figures 14b and 14c, Anderson 1989 and Gaina et al. 2013). 

These also represent regions (such as the Enrico Pv Anomaly) where vertical gas filled micro-crack fractures form in regions where geopressured-geothermal methane is generated by the reaction of of calcite, water and iron (II) oxide at temperatures above 1200°C and depths between 100 km and 300 km (Merali 2004; Goho 2004; Scott et al. PNAS).

An estimated relative vertical micro-crack porosity of 0.9% at 220 km depth in the Enrico Pv Anomaly (Figure 15) is 3.5 times larger than the relative horizontal micro-crack porosity of the mean asthenosphere at 220 km calculated from from PREM data (Dziewonski and Anderson 1981). 

At a depth of 100 km in the Enrico Pv Anomaly, the relative vertical micro-crack porosity has halved to 0.43% but it is now almost 11 times higher than the relative horizontal micro-crack porosity of the mean asthenosphere/base lithosphere at 100 km depth (PREM data, Dziewonski and Anderson 1981). It is possible that the relative vertical porosity in the Enrico Pv Anomaly may reach 14% at shallow depths (10 km to 4 km) as this is the estimated carbon dioxide volume in pyroclastic gas charged volcanics at depths of 4 km on the Gakkel Ridge (Sohn 2007). This makes the Enrico Pv Anomaly a very effective vertical conduit for the escape of geopressured-geothermal methane generated in the asthenosphere which will allow it to vent upwards into the lithosphere, crust, ocean and thence into the Arctic atmosphere to form the fast expanding Methane Global Warming Veil.

Note that in the average asthenosphere (PREM data Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981) there appears to be a zero porosity seal line forming a transition from relative horizontal micro-crack porosity within the underlying horizontally micro-cracked and convecting asthenosphere which drives plate tectonics and the relative vertical micro-crack porosity within the upper asthenosphere between 114.4 km and 100 km where vertically rising partial melt magmas accumulate at the base of the lithosphere (Figures 14 and 15). The vertically micro-fractured zone between 114.4 km and 100 km in the asthenosphere also corresponds to the zone between 100 km and 110 km where normal island arc volcanics form vertically rising magmas above a subduction zone from the effect of fluids released into the asthenosphere due to dehydration of the subducting slab of oceanic crust (Lecture 5 2014; Columbia, 2014).

Figure 15 is a north-south schematic cross-section over the Enrico Pv Anomaly (100 km to 220 km depth-Yakovlev et al. 2012) which corresponds to the zone of most extreme methane eruptions along the slow-spreading pyroclastic Gakkel Ridge at the point where the Eurasian Basin abuts the Laptev Sea (Pravettoni 2009; Light 2012). 

This also represents a zone of hydrothermal methane hydrates formed from hydrothermal methane emissions (Max and Lowrie 1993). 

Using the 1850 ppb atmospheric concentration calculated methane global warming veil spreading rate and the estimated pressure of the source regions, the timing of when different depths will be subjected to depressurization in the Enrico Pv Anomaly are shown as dates on the right of the Enrico Pv Anomaly in Figure 15. 

The 1850 ppb methane global warming veil is presently drawing from slightly deeper than 112 km in the upper vertically micro-fractured asthenosphere within the mantle methane generation zone (Merali 2004; Goho 2004; Scott et al. PNAS) and will reach the South Pole by 2046. 

The entire column of geopressured-geothermal methane in the asthenosphere between 100 km to 300 km depth will start to drain via the Enrico Pv Anomaly into the Arctic ocean and atmosphere by 2053 by which time the Earth's atmospheric temperature anomaly will have exceeded 8°C and we will be facing total global deglaciation and a major extinction event (Figure 15).



During the Late Permian (Tartarian - 250 Ma) the tectonic plates were arranged as in Figure 16 (Lawver et al. 2009). This was the time the Siberian Trap volcanics (Large Igneous Province) erupted releasing vast volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which destabilized the subsea methane hydrates in the Paleo-Arctic and resulted in a major global warming and mass extinction event (Wignall 2009). A Paleo-Arctic Ocaen already existed in the Late Permian, 250 Ma ago as did the location of the Enrico Pv Anomaly extreme methane emission zone (Figures 16 and 17). The Enrico Pv Anomaly which presently forms an extreme Arctic methane emission zone developed at the intersection of the trend of the Gakkel Ridge, the Kara Subduction Zone in the south and the southern plate boundary of the Paleo Arctic Ocean to the north (Figure 17). The Enrico Pv Anomaly was probably also a massive mantle methane eruption vent during the Late Permian Major Extinction Event (Figures 16 and 17).

The widespread Siberian Trap basalts (Large Igneous Province) erupted along the Taimyr Arc on the NW side of the Taimyr Fold Belt and the Siberian Craton (Figures 16, 17 and 18; Ivanov et al. 2008; LIP 2013). Siberian trap carbonatites and alkaline complexes sourced from less than 100 km depth and kimberlites from below 150 km depth intruded between 245 Ma and 225 Ma due to continued easterly subduction along the Taimyr Arc (Late Permian to Triassic) which was partly driven by oceanic crust spreading along the Kara rift on the Barents Plate (235 Ma to 218 Ma)(Figures 17 to 19)(Khain 1994; Zohenstain et al. 1990; LIP 2013; Petrology 2013). 

Present zones of atmospheric methane eruptions occur offshore Svalbard where the Gakkel Ridge is cut by a plate boundary (Figure 17). A linear zone of atmospheric methane eruptions mark out an old shear fault systems in the Gakkel Ridge which is an extension of a north Greenland plate boundary (Figure 17). The distribution of different aged Kimberlites on the Siberian Craton that define a NE trending mantle shear zone are shown in Figures 18 and 19 (Petrology 2013; LIP 2013). The kimberlites get younger to the NE and a major HALIP kimberlite swarm has intruded into the Laptev Sea, as have other Cenozoic intrusives along the probable trend of the Gakkel Ridge across the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (LIP 2013; Sekretov 1998).

The eruption of subsea methane torches from shallow methane hydrate deposits produce a pock-marked ocean floor in the Arctic (Figure 20a, Paull et al. 2007; Carana 2011). These pock-marks contain carbonate mounds (C1, C2) and methane hydrate pingoes (P1, P2) at the top end of methane emission conduits formed by vertical fractures/faults/shears in sediments (Hovland et al. 2006; Carana 2011). 

The pingoes were formed, when methane escaping from methane hydrates depressurized and adiabatically cooled the fractures developing an icy seal for the escaping gas (Hovland et al. 2006; Carana 2011). Similar seals must have formed at the top of the vertical micro-crack fractures in the extreme methane eruption zones during the cooler past, but have now been breached by fossil-fuel carbon-dioxide-pollution-induced global warming, opening the taps on an immense geopressured-geothermal methane reservoir in the mantle between 100 km and 300 km depth (Figures 13a, 15, 20a and 20b). 

The supply of mantle methane gas is so vast that if we are not able to destroy it in the oceans and the atmosphere it will soon lead to our extinction by the mid century (2053)(Light 2014).

Extreme Arctic Methane Eruption Centre and the Origin of the Gas in the Earth's Mantle

Images from NASA (Figures 8, 9a and 9b, Carana 2014) clearly define the low level atmospheric Arctic Methane Global Warming Veil and allow its rate of advance to be determined from the southwards latitudinal movement of the various fronts of the concentration profile (Carana 2013 and 2014). Three atmospheric methane concentration levels are shown on these maps, 1750 ppb; 1850 ppb and more than 1950 ppb (Carana 2013 and 2014). The 1750 ppb methane concentration front is now in the southern hemisphere of the Earth, completely surrounds and is very close to Antarctica (Figure 9b). Its exact boundary is very diffuse and has not been used in this analysis. The atmospheric methane concentration rise between 1850 ppb and 1750 ppb is the reason for the extreme summer heating, with uncontrollable wildfires in Australia which has resulted in a 0.22°C temperature rise in 2013 (Light 2013). At this rate of temperature increase the temperature anomaly in 33 years will be more than 8°C (7.26°C + 0.8°C, the present temperature anomaly) and the world will be facing total deglaciation and extinction between 2047 and 2053.

The southward movement of the 1850 ppb atmospheric methane concentration anomaly is more clearly visible in the northern hemisphere and has been imaged over two identical time periods one year apart (January 1 - 11, 2013 and 2014) by Carana (2014)(Figure 9a). On enhanced versions of these figures the southerly latitudinal advance of the 1850 ppm boundary was determined by its intersection with the coastline of the United States and the determined latitudes used to find the rate of expansion of the growing Arctic methane global warming veil for heights below about 7 km altitude as below (Figure 9a).

The surface area of a spherical zone on a hemisphere of the Earth is equal to 2*Pi*r*h (Larousse and Auge, 1968).

Where:-
r = the mean radius of the Earth = 6371 km
(Lide and Frederickse, 1995)
h = the vertical height of the zone in km

In January (1-11) 2013 the front of the 1850 ppb atmospheric methane global warming veil was close to 35.2° North (Figure 9a). By January (1-11) 2014, the front of the atmospheric global warming veil had moved south so that it now lay near the Gulf Coast at a Latitude of 32° North (Figure 9a). The surface area (a) between these two latitudinal lines which equals the surface expansion of the atmospheric methane global warming veil in one year and can be solved as below:-

a = 2*Pi*r*(h1 - h2) Where:-

h1 = the height of the 35.2° north latitude zone in km
h2 = the height of the 32° north latitude zone in km
r = the mean radius of the Earth = 6371 km
(Lide and Frederickse, 1995)
h = r*Sin(Latitude)

Therefore:-

a=2*Pi*r*r*(Sin (35.2o) - Sin (32o)) = 11727381.43 square km

The area (a) of the Earth that was covered in exactly one year (365.25636 days - Lide and Frederickse 1995) by the spreading 1850 ppb atmospheric methane global warming veil between January (1-11¬), 2013 to 2014 is 11727382.43 square km. Therefore the 1850 ppb methane global warming veil is spreading at 32107.3 square km per day or 3.21073*Ten power 14 square cm per day. At 32° north the small circle latitude line is 2*Pi*r*Cos (Latitude) = 33947.5125 km long. Hence at a latitude of 32°, the 1850 ppb atmospheric methane global warming veil is advancing south at about 946 metres per day (Figure 9a). The 1850 ppb atmospheric methane global warming veil will reach the South Pole in 2047 and when it passes over Australia will cause even more extreme temperature anomalies than the country has already had to face during the last few years. Almost identical results were found using the 1860 ppm front for the Methane Global Warming Veil imaged on different maps by Carana 2014 so the results for the 1850 ppb front are discussed, as this boundary is the most continuous and well defined (Figures 8, 9a and 9b).

Gas flow rates per unit methane "diffusion coefficient" (flow rate constant at 20°C and one atmosphere pressure) are directly proportional to the partial pressures of the methane gas when standardised to 20°C. This is close to the maximum Arctic atmospheric temperature anomaly (Carana 2013, 2014) and atmospheric pressure at the surface of the ocean (Marero and Mason 1972; Kostin et al 1984) at the Extreme Methane Emission Zone that occurs at the transition from the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea (Figures 3 and 4). Therefore the relative methane partial pressure can be estimated at the sea surface above the extreme Arctic methane emission zone by multiplying the ratio of the rate of expansion of the 1850 ppb atmospheric methane global warming veil to methane "diffusion coefficient" multiplied by the partial pressure of an atmospheric methane concentration of 1850 ppb measured at 20°C and atmospheric pressure (Lide and Frederickse, 1995).

The temperature anomaly at the Arctic Ocean sea surface in the Extreme Methane Emission Zone at the junction of the Eurasian Basin/Laptev Sea has exceeded 20°C during the winters of 2013 and 2014 (Figures 3 and 4, Light 2012; Pravettoni 2009; Carana 2013 and 2014). Therefore we can roughly assume a standard temperature-pressure regime of 20°C and one atmosphere at sea level for the moment that the erupting deeply sourced methane gas comes in contact with the base of the Arctic atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil. This is the moment when these deeply sourced methane eruptions are in pressure continuity with the partial pressure of the 1850 ppb methane in the Arctic atmospheric global warming veil. In other words, the emission rate of the mantle methane is such that it links the deeply sourced pressure field of the mantle source zone with the partial pressure field of the 1850 ppb methane atmospheric concentration at sea level, at one atmosphere pressure and a temperature of 20°C. At 20°C and one atmosphere pressure (1.01325*Ten power 5 Pascals), the diffusion rate of methane ("diffusion coefficient") in air is 0.106 square cm per second which is 9158.4 square cm per day (Lide and Frederickse 1995). At atmospheric pressure, the flow rate of methane is proportional to the product of the diffusion coefficient and partial pressure so long as the gas lies in a regime where binary collisions predominate (Marreo and Mason 1972; Kestin 1984). Consequently we find that the high rate of spreading of the 1850 ppb Arctic atmospheric methane global warming veil at sea level and 20°C is 3.5058 * Ten power 10 times as fast as the natural diffusion rate. This means that a massively high methane pressure field must be being tapped in the Arctic to cause such high rates of expansion of the Arctic atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil over the Earth.

The high rate of expansion of the 1850 ppb methane global warming veil of 32107.3 square km per day caused by the excessive rate of subsea methane emissions at the extreme methane emission zone is equivalent to a relative methane pressure field at the source of the methane of 35979 atmospheres or 36.4 kilobars/3.64*Ten power 9 pascals/3.64 Gpa (Gigapascals). This is equivalent to a depth of about 112.2 km (with temperatures near 1220°C) in the upper part of the Earth's mobile asthenosphere, the horizontal convection of which drives the Earth's plate tectonic overturning (Figures 13a and 15, Table 1)(Windley, 1986). It is clearly evident that humanities addiction to fossil fuel, which has caused the extreme carbon dioxide pollution increase and global warming of the Earth's atmosphere has seriously angered somebody down there deep in Mother Earth with fatal consequences for our continued existence.

In the same way that erupting subsea lavas on mid-ocean ridge systems (Figure 13b) are almost at the mantle temperatures (1200°C) which exist below 100 km at the top of the mobile asthenosphere, the massive methane emission flow rates on the Arctic Ocean sea surface above the Extreme Methane Emission Zone at 20°C and atmospheric pressure reflect the exteme pressures of their source zone beneath 100 km in the Earth. This methane is formed from the reaction of calcite with water in the presence of iron (II) oxide below 100 km depth and temperatures above 1200°C (Figures 12 and 13a)(Merali, 2004, Goho 2004; Scott et al., PNAS). The extremely high methane flow rates on the surface of the Extreme Arctic Methane Emission zone are a consequence of existing high rock load pressures within the Earth at depths below 100 km and temperatures above 1200°C that cause the locally generated methane to accumulate in giant geopressured-geothermal reservoirs within the vertically fractured Enrico Pv Anomaly (Extreme Arctic Methane Emission Zone)(Figure 3 to 7, 12, 13a and 15).


The Generation of Mantle Methane

Methane is generated in the mantle of the Earth by the reduction of calcite with water in the presence of Fe (II) oxide at temperatures above 1200°C and depths from 100 km to more than 300 km within the Asthenosphere which is the horizontally convecting part of the mantle that drives plate tectonics (Figures 12 and 13a)(Windley 1986). Partial melt magmas and volatiles accumulate at the top of the asthenosphere between 100 km and 110 km depth later to rise and be erupted as major pyroclastic volcanoes along slow spreading mid-ocean ridge systems such as the Gakkel Ridge (Merali, 2004, Goho 2004; Scott et al., PNAS; Sohn et al. 2007)(Figures 12, 13a and 13b). Russian researchers have generated methane with hydrocarbons up to C10H22 by reacting calcium carbonate, water and iron oxide under mantle pressures and temperatures (Kenney et al. 2002). These compounds are abundant in subduction zones and the mantle (Figures 13a and 13b) (Wales, 2013). Hydrogen also reacts in water with dissolved carbon compounds to form methane and more complex carbon compounds (MacDonald 1988). The formation of methane in the absence of biological reactions is confirmed by the abundance of hydrocarbons in comets (Huebner 1990, Zuppero DOE) and in the atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn's moons (Glasby 2006; Hook et al. 2010).

Mantle methane will most likely to be formed over regions of subducting oceanic plates where deeply buried zones of previously water, carbonate, organic carbon, iron oxide rich rocks are abundant (Goho 2004). Water has been detected to a depth of at least 12 km (Smithson et al. 2000) although metamorphic reactions in kimberlites indicate its activity within the mantle (Winkler, 1976). The North Arctic Basin is a slab graveyard for subducted oceanic plates making it a prime source zone for the generation of mantle methane within the overlying asthenosphere between 100 km and 300 km depth (Figures 7 and 13a) (Gaina et al. 2013; Goho 2004; Merali 2004). The genesis of methane in the presence of serpentinites is restricted to mid -ocean ridges (like the Gakkel Ridge) and the upper levels of subduction zones (such as the Arctic Ocean slab graveyard Gaina et al. 2013) (Figures 7 and 13a). Methane, carbon dioxide and mantle helium 3 are present in the gases and fluids of mid-ocean ridge spreading centre hydrothermal fields (Figure 13a and 13b)(Chapelle et al. 2002) which have formed the hydrothermal subsea methane hydrates at the Extreme Methane Eruption Center on the Gakkel Ridge at the transition from the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea (Figures 3 to 6)(Max and Lowrie 1993; Pravettoni 2009; Light 2012; Carana 2013). Helium 3 of mantle origin is also found in natural gas fields (Figure 13b)(Peterson USGS; Mineral Commodities - Helium, USGS).

A mantle origin for some methane is confirmed by the presence of hydrocarbon inclusions in diamonds which are generally sourced from about 150 km depth (Figure 13a) (Liu et al. 2004). Diamondiferous kimberlites are also massive carbon dioxide driven, pyroclastic mantle eruptions caused by the reactions between silicates and the rising carbon dioxide charged magmas and they are located along the surface expression of a deep crust-mantle shear zones in the Northern Siberian Craton that extends towards the Gakkel Ridge in the Lena River delta area (Figures 17 to 19)(Yirka 2012). Other swarms of kimberlites occur in the Arctic Basin on the N flank of the Gakkel Ridge ,the HALIP swarm 130 - 90 Ma in age (Figures 17 and 19, LIP 2013). Kimberlites get progressively younger to the NE from 320 Ma in the SW to 90 Ma in the NE where this mantle shear in the Siberian Craton has bisected the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean (HALIP swarm, Figure 17 and 19) To the west of this shear, carbonatites and alkaline complexes also occur and probably have their origin at depths less than 100 km, in remobilised subducted carbonate formations from the subducted Arctic Ocean plate graveyard (Figures 6 and 7; Gaina et al. 2013, Yakovlev et al. 2012). The exposed N-S trend of part of this subduction zone may lie to the east in the region of the Lena River (Figures 6, 17 to 19). A north trending and east dipping subduction zone east of the Lena River is represented by the red zones in the 220 km map which extends eastwards into Siberia from the Enrico Pv Anomaly along the Gakkel Ridge (Figure 6; Yakovlev et al. 2012).


The Permian Exinction Event a Remarkably Accurate Analog for the Present Day Carbon Dioxide Driven Methane Emission Extinction Event

During the Late Permian there was a major global extinction event which resulted in a large loss of species caused by catastrophic methane eruptions from destabilization of subsea methane hydrates in the Paleo-Arctic (Figures 16 to 19;Wignall 2009). Extreme global warming was caused after vast volumes of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere from the widespread eruption of volcanics in northern Siberia (Siberian Trap Large Igneous Province)(Wignall 2009). The main source zone of these Siberian Trap volcanics on land in northern Siberia, is not a great distance from the present trend of the Gakkel Ridge and the Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone (Figure 16, 17 and 19). Because the Arctic forms a graveyard for subducted plates (Figures 6 and 7), the mantle there is highly fractured and it is also primary source zone for mantle methane formed from the reduction of deeply buried oceanic carbonates by water in the presence of iron oxides (Figures 12 and 13a) (Gaina et al. 2013; Goho 2004; Merali 2004).

In addition to the widespread eruption of volcanics in northern Siberia in the Late Permian (250 million years ago, LIP 2013; Figures 17 and 19), swarms of pyroclastic Kimberlites erupted between 245 and 228 million years ago along a NE trending shear system in the mantle which intersects the Gakkel Ridge slow spreading ridge on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Figures 17 to 19, LIP 2013). A smaller swarm of kimberlites also erupted in the same time interval to the west of this shear associated with carbonatites and alkaline complexes all forming part of the Late Permian (250 million year old) Siberian Trap volcanic Large Igneous Province (LIP 2013). This is a further indication of deep mantle shearing in the Late Permian, which would have produced routes for the escape of deeply sourced carbon dioxide and mantle methane to the surface (Figures 12 and 13a) (Gaina et al. 2013; Goho 2004; Merali 2004).

A large swarm of kimberlites (Cretaceous HALIP event, 130 to 90 million years old) also intruded the axis of the Gakkel Ridge just south of the Enrico Pv anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, while a smaller HALIP event kimberlite swarm occurs south west of the Lena River delta on the major NE trending mantle fracture (Figures 16 to 19, LIP 2013). Cenozoic volcanics also occur to the north and north east of the Lena River delta marking the trend of the slow spreading Gakkel Ridge on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Sekretov 1998). All this pyroclastic activity along the slow spreading Gakkel Ridge from the Late Permian to the present is evidence of pervasive vertical deep mantle shearing which has formed conduits for the release of carbon dioxide and mantle methane to the Arctic sea floor and atmosphere and the surface of the northern Siberian craton (Figures 12 to 19).


Locating the Late Permian Taimyr Volcanic Arc

The location of the Late Permian (250 Ma - LIP 2013) Taimyr Volcanic Arc within the Taimyr Fold belt was determined by tracing the exposed edjes of the wide regions within which the Late Permian Siberian Trap volcanic flood basalts flowed back to their likely volcanic throat origin points (Figure 17). The western volcanic flood basalts converge on a single point of origin at the western end of the Taimyr Fold belt (Figure 17). The eastern Late Permian Siberian Trap volcanics appear to be a giant sheet-like flood of basalts fed from a whole string of linked volcanoes or a major fissure eruption along the central part of the Taimyr Fold Belt (Figure 17).

The subducting Kara plate first intersected the front of the Siberian Craton at the south west end of the Taimyr Fold Belt at a depth of some 172 km where the ambient temperature of the Asthenosphere had reached about 1040°C. (Figures 17 and 13a). These thoeliitic magmas rose some 28.5 km driven by high geothermal geopressured carbon dioxide released by the Kara plate before they passed into the solidus+water zone (Figure 13a).

The initial Siberian Trap volcanics on the SW end of the Taimyr Volcanic Arc erupted from a single group of volcanoes producing a radial zone of flood basalts. The subducting Kara plate then progressively struck the Siberian cration at about 194 km in the centre of the Taimyr volcanic arc and then 216 km at its NE end while the temperature of the surrounding asthenosphere rose from 1100°C to 1150°c (Figures 17 and 13a). These much higher temperatures and the fact that the subducting Kara plate immediately entered the solidus + water zone at the north east end of the Taimyr Volcanic Arc meant that the thoeliitic volcanics here were extremely fluid and contained large volumes of free water and carbon dioxide (Figure 17 and 13a). The determined temperature range for the Taimyr Volcanic Arc magmas between 1040°C to 1150°C with a mean of 1100°C (Figure 13a) are exactly within the magma temperature range for flood basalt provinces (1000°C to 1200°C) (Baker et al. 1999) and the mean 1100°C is very close to the determined melting temperatures of the extensive Columbia River flood basalts (1080°C to 1100°C)(Wales 2014).

The dehyration and melting events above the Kara Plate beneath the Late Permian Taimyr Volcanic Arc initiated a massive eruption phase along the entire central and north eastern part of the arc producing an extremely wide and thick sheet-like succession of flood Trap lavas and tuffs that spread to the SE over the Siberian Craton (Figure 17). The massive volume of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during these cataclysmic eruptions produced extreme global warming of the atmosphere and oceans which disocciated the Paleo Arctic subsea methane hydrates and the methane hydrate seals above the Enrico Pv Anomaly generating a massive seafloor and mantle methane pulse into the atmosphere (This Paper; Wignall. 2009; Carter 2013). This release of methane caused the average atmospheric temperature to rise to about 26.6°C producing the Major Late Permian Extinction Event (Wignall, 2009). Our present extreme fossil fuel driven, carbon-dioxide global warming is predicted to produce exactly the same methane release by the 2050's with total deglaciation and the extinction of all life on Earth (except perhaps at the deep oceanic black smokers (Figure 13b).


The Japan Subduction Zone Compared to the Kara Subduction Zone. The Taimyr Volcanic Arc and its Relevance to the Extreme Volcanicity of the Siberian Trap Basalts

During the Late Permian (250 Ma) the Kara subduction zone (suture) was located some 670 km northwest of the NNE trending mantle fracture zone along which a series of kimberlites intruded between 245 Ma and 228 Ma (Figures 17 to 19; LIP 2013). Mantle pressure-temperature data indicate that these kimberlites must have been erupted with abundant water and carbon dioxide, rising vertically above the dehydrating Kara subducting plate when it was between 250 km and 300 km depth (Figure 13a). The presence of similar aged (250 Ma to 228 Ma) kimberlites NW of the main NE trending kimberlite mantle fracture zone imply that the main fracture to the SE most closely represents an approximate 300 km deep contour line, representing the cut off depth for kimberlites on the upper surface of the Kara subducting plate. This gives a mean dip of the Kara Subduction Zone of 24.2°. This 300 km cut off depth for kimberlites also corresponds to the contour line on the upper surface of a subducting plate where earthquake foci change from tensional (above 300 km) to compressional below 300 km (Allen and Allen, 1990).

The 5 Ma time difference between the age of the Siberian Trap lavas (250 Ma) and the earliest time of Late Permian kimberlite eruption (245 Ma ) suggests that the Kara plate began to be subducted around 259.6 Ma in the Middle Permian at a rate of some 4.8 cm/yr beneath the Siberian Craton (Figure 17 to 19; LIP 2013). 100 million years ago, the mean subduction rate along the Japan suture beneath the Asian continent was 12.7 cm/year and the suture had a dip angle of some 40 degrees (Windley, 1986; LIP 2013). The mean dip of subduction zones beneath continental regions lies close to 53° (range from 40° to 70°) with a mean rate of subduction of 8.6 cm/yr (range 5.8 cm/yr to 12.7 cm/yr)(Windley 1986). However in Peru the subuction zone has a mean dip of 14o beneath South America (Allen and Allen, 1990). For plates that subduct only slowly, they may heat up a sufficient amount to prevent earthquakes (Allen and Allen, 1990).

The reason for the shallow dip of the subducting Kara plate (24.2°) may have been caused by the proximity of the Kara mid-ocean ridge rift and the Kara suture. This meant that the Kara subducting plate had a very narrow fetch of ocean to cool in and was consequently less dense than the present oceanic plates in the Pacific subduction zones, so its increased buoyancy meant that it subducted at a much shallower angle (24.2o) under the edge of the Siberian Craton (Figure 17). Because of the very slow rate of subduction of the Kara plate (4.8 cm/yr) it had a long residence time in contact with the continental crust allowing metamorphic reactions and dehydration to go to completion throughout the entire depth of the oceanic crust (Winkler, 1976). Consequently when the Kara plate contacted the hot asthenospheric wedge between 172 km and 216 km beneath the Siberian Craton at temperatures between 1040°C and 1100°C (Figure 13a), the entire oceanic crustal section was remobilised and erupted as the widespread Siberian Trap lavas and tuffs and was also injected as sills (Ivanov et al. 2008; LIP 2013).

The Siberian Trap flood basalts, tuffs and associated intrusives are the largest magmatic igneous province emplaced on continental lithosphere (Ivanov et al 2008). They cover an area of 7 million square km and represent a volume estimated between 4 and 16 million cubic kilometres (Ivanov et al. 2008). The width of the Taimyr Volcanic Arc is estimated at 453 km (from Ivanov et al. 2008) and if we assume the entire 10 km thickness of oceanic crust was remobilised during this massive eruptive event then some 884 km to 3535 km of ocean crust would need to be subducted to generate the volume of the Siberian Trap Large Igneous Province. As the Kara plate was being subducted at 4.8 cm/yr this suggests that the Siberian Trap lavas were erupted in the Late Permian (250 Ma ago) over a time period somewhere between 18,400 years to 73,650 years in length (LIP 2013).

Subduction appears to have begun on the NE end of the Kara Subduction Zone 6 Ma before it began on it's SW end which suggests that the giant transform on the SW side of the Kara subduction zone was active between 263 Ma and 257 Ma allowing the ocean floor to expand without being subducted (Figure 17). This giant transform/shear zone can be tracked right into Central Siberia along the SW margin of the Siberian Trap sheet flood basalt flows (Figure 17). Although the start of subduction moved SW along the Kara subduction zone at some 7.1 cm/yr, the kimberlites which fill the NE trending mantle fracture SE of the Taimyr Volcanic Arc get younger to the NE at a rate of 2mm/yr related to the general NE younging of the Subduction zones from the Upper Silurian - Lower Devonian Scandinavian Caledonian suture in the SW to the Late Permian Kara Subduction Zone in the NE (Figure 17 and 19, LIP 2013).


Porosity in the Shallow and Deep Arctic Crust and Mantle

Sohn et al. 2007 outlined how in the Arctic Ocean, the sequence of extreme pyroclastic mantle magma eruptions developed along the Gakkel Ridge (85o E volcanoes) at an ultra-slow spreading rate (< 15 - 20 mm/year). These volcanoes formed from the explosive eruption of gas-rich magmatic foams. Long intervals between eruptions during the slow spreading caused huge gas and other volatile buildup at extremely high storage pressures very deep in the crust (Sohn et al. 2007).

A swarm of earthquakes at 85° E occured over 3 months but was followed by other earthquakes caused by large implosions due to the explosive discharge of pressurized magmatic foam. This pressurized mgmatic foam was sourced from a deep lying magma chamber, accelerated rapidly vertically and then expanded and decompressed through the fractured chamber roof. There were many periods of widespread explosive gas discharge from 1999 over two years which were detected by small-magnitude sound signals recorded in seismic networks on the ice (Sohn et al. 2007).

Pyroclastic rocks at the 85° E volcanoes contain bubble wall fragments and were widely distributed over an area of more than 10 square km. 

This deep oceanic fragmentation was caused by the accumulation of a volatile rich gas foam within the magma chamber, which then fractured, formed a pyroclastic fountain 1 to 2 km high in the Arctic Ocean which spread the pyroclastic material over a region whose size was proportional to the depth of the magma chamber (Table 2). 

A volatile carbon dioxide content of 14% (Wt./Wt. - volume fraction 75%) is necessary at the 4 km depth in this part of the Eurasian Basin (Arctic Ocean) to completely fragment the erupting magma (Sohn et al. 2007). This is evidence for a very high existing porosity (14%) in the Gakkel Ridge, slow spreading mid-ocean ridge magmas along the trend of the Arctic Ocean - Eurasian Basin (Figures 1 and 17).

Pyroclastic rocks at the 85° E volcanoes contain bubble wall fragments and were widely distributed over an area of more than 10 square km. This deep oceanic fragmentation was caused by the accumulation of a volatile rich gas foam within the magma chamber, which then fractured, formed a pyroclastic fountain 1 to 2 km high in the Arctic Ocean which spread the pyroclastic material over a region whose size was proportional to the depth of the magma chamber (Table 2). A volatile carbon dioxide content of 14% (Wt./Wt. - volume fraction 75%) is necessary at the 4 km depth in this part of the Eurasian Basin (Arctic Ocean) to completely fragment the erupting magma (Sohn et al. 2007). This is evidence for a very high existing porosity (14%) in the Gakkel Ridge, slow spreading mid-ocean ridge magmas along the trend of the Arctic Ocean - Eurasian Basin (Figures 1 and 17).
The pressure and shear wave velocity of sound passing through the Earth's crust and mantle rocks containing flat, oriented, gas-filled cracks depends on the elastic constants of the rock, its porosity, the direction the sound wave is travelling and the aspect ratio of the cracks (Figures 14a and 14b)(Anderson et al. 1974). The aspect ratio of the gas-filled, penny-shaped, ellipsodal, aligned cracks (ratio width to diameter) has been assumed to be 1/20 (Anderson et al. 1974). The cracks could contain different amounts of other fluids, producing more variables in the equations but only dry, gas-filled cracks are considered here (Figure 14c)(Anderson et al. 1974). The most common mineral in mantle rocks, elongated olivine crystals are usually oriented parallel to the vertical cracks and the mantle flow direction beneath mid-ocean ridges and in subduction zones (Figure 14b)(Anderson, 1989).

O'Connel (Liu et al. 2001) determined that the crack porosity N (volume percentage of micro-cracks in the rock) can be determined as below:-

N = (c/a)*((4*Pi*E)/3) = (4/60)*Pi*E = (Pi*E)/15 Where c/a = 1/20
E = crack density for dry gas-filled fractures

E = ((45/16)l(V-V")/(1-(V"*V"))l*(2-V"))/(((1+3V)*(2-V")) - (2*(1-(2*V))))

Where V = Poissons Ratio for uncracked rock
          V" = Poissons Ratio for cracked rock

Poissons Ratio V = (1/2)*(((Vp/Vs)*(Vp/Vs))-2)/(((Vp/Vs)*(Vp/Vs))-1)

Where Vp = pressure velocity of sound waves in the rock
          Vs = shear velocity of sound waves in the rock
(See:- Liu et al 2001; Anderson 1989; Anderson et al. 1974)

Sound wave velocities are slowed in the direction at right angles to the plane of gas-filled cracks and elongated olivine crystals in mantle rocks (See Figure 14b and 14c in Anderson 1989). The vertical micro -crack gas filled porosities for the Enrico Pv Anomaly at 100 km and 220 km depth were calculated from pressure wave dv/V% anomalies ( Yakovlev et al. 2012; Gaina et al. 2013) and are shown on Figures 14a and 15. To give a relative comparison, the mean horizontal gas filled porosities in the mantle outside the Enrico Pv Anomaly were determined using the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) from Dziewonki and Anderson (1981)(Figures 14a and 15).

Figure 15 shows that the gas-filled vertical crack porosity within the Enrico Pv Anomaly decreases from about 1.2% at 300 km depth to 0.43% at the top of the mantle methane generation zone in the asthenosphere at 100 km depth and then rises again to 14% in the crust where pyroclastic magmas beneath the Gakkel Ridge require these high carbon dioxide volumes to produce the extreme pyroclastic eruptions at subsea depths of 4 km in the Arctic Ocean (Sohn 2007). For comparison, the average porosities around the Enrico Pv Anomaly determined from mean PREM data (Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981) are generally less than 0.26% above 220 km depth (Figure 14a and 15).

Note that in the average asthenosphere (PREM data Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981) there appears to be a zero porosity seal line at 114.4 km forming a transition from horizontal micro-crack porosity within the underlying horizontally micro-cracked convecting asthenosphere which drives plate tectonics. This horizontally convecting asthenosphere contains horizontally oriented elongated olivine crystals. Above 114.4 km, vertical micro-crack porosity occurs within the upper asthenosphere, where vertically rising partial melt magmas (with verically oriented elongated olivine crystals) accumulate at the base of the lithosphere at 100 km (Figures 14a and 15). The vertically micro-fractured zone between 114.4 km and 100 km in the asthenosphere also corresponds to the zone between 100 km and 110 km where normal island arc volcanics form vertically rising magmas above a subduction zone from the effect of fluids released into the asthenosphere from dehydration of the subducting slab of oceanic crust (Lecture 5 2014; Columbia, 2014).

The estimated times that the different depths of the Enrico Pv Anomaly will degas methane upwards into the Arctic Ocean and the global atmosphere were calculated from the rate of expansion of the Global Warming Methane Veil (the southern latitudinal front of 1850 ppb global atmospheric methane concentration - Carana 2014) and these times are shown on Figure 15. The Enrico Pv Anomaly will degas down to 300 km by 2053 at which time the the global mean atmospheric temperature anomaly will have reached 8°C and mankind will be facing total deglaciation and extinction (Light 2013, 2014; Carana 2013).


The Plate Tectonic Location of Mantle Carbon Dioxide and Mantle Methane Emission Zones

The the carbon dioxide enriched (14% v/v CO2) mantle magmas at the 85° E subsea slowly opening Gakkel mid-ocean ridge have erupted as pyroclastic volcanoes at a depth of 4 km on the seafloor (Sohn et al. 2007). These extensive pyroclastic volcanoes, on a very slowly spreading mid ocean ridge are evidence that this region probably represents a stable hot spot which underlay the intersection of the Kara mid-oceanic ridge in the Barents Sea and the major deep penetrating transform that later became the Gakkel Ridge spreading centre (Figure 17). This suggests that carbon dioxide is the main remaining volatile in very slowly spreading mid-oceanic ridge pyroclastic systems where the regional mantle has become depleted in water. Elsewhere fast expansion, such as along the Pacific mid-ocean ridge is due to normal eruption of more water-rich magmas as pillow lavas (Windley 1986).

The extensive 85°E pyroclastic volcanics, at the intersection of the Kara mid ocean ridge and the plate boundary forming the axis of the Paleo - Gakkel Ridge are probably located at the apex of a hot-spot mantle plume that has remained relatively stationary (within 5°) from the Late Permian (250 Ma) to the present as did other hotspots in the Atlantic and Pacific from 200 Ma to 20 Ma (Figure 17)(Morgan 1981, Windley, 1986). However a massive series of swarms of diamondiferous kimberlites that have intruded along a major NE trending mantle fracture parallel to the Late Permian Kara suture and get younger to the north from 370 Ma, 245 Ma, 228 Ma to 90 Ma (LIP, 2013) suggest that subduction activity along the regional suture system migrated from west to east over that time period (Middle Devonian - Triassic)(Figures 17 to 19)(LIP 2013). These kimberlites are related to the Late Permian Kara subduction event and formed when the oceanic crust had reached a depth of some 300 km beneath the Siberian Craton (Figures 17 to 19).

The Kara subduction zone was most active in the Late Permian (250 Ma) resulting in massive eruptions of the Siberian Trap, carbon dioxide rich lavas, tuffs and sills (LIP 2013; Wignall 2009)(Figure 17). The release of this vast volume of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere resulted in extreme global warming, destabilization of subsea Paleo - Arctic methane hydrates, the release of vast volumes of methane into the atmosphere which then caused the mean temperature of the atmosphere rise to 26.6o C and precipitated a major extinction event (Figures 17 to 19)(LIP, 2013; Wignall 2009).

The Late Permian subduction along the Kara subduction zone was preceeded to the west by Caledonian subduction along the Scandinavian and N. German Polish suture lines (420 Ma - 370 Ma - 360 Ma) (Cocks and Torsvik 2006 and Zwart and Dornsiepen 1980) and a similar trend of diamondiferous kimberlites in Finland, Kola Peninsula and Arkangelsk dated 380 Ma to 360 Ma in age (Mahotkin et al 1999) are related to this subduction event when the oceanic crust had also reached a depth of some 250 km to 300 km beneath the Finnish and Russian cratons (Figure 17).

From the Late Permian (250 Ma) to the present, the oceanic crust that had been subducted along the Taimyr suture and now lies beneath the Siberian Craton has been heated by the adjacent sub-Siberian mantle wedge (Figure 17 and 13a). Water, oceanic carbonates and iron (II) oxides trapped within the mantle at depths below 100 km to 300 km and temperatures above 1200°C have been converted into vast volumes of mantle methane (Figure 12, 13a and 17; Merali 2004; Goho 2004 and Scott et al. PNAS). This mantle methane now forms a giant geopressured-geothermal reservoir which is using the Enrico Pv Anomaly extreme methane eruption zone as an escape route to the Arctic Ocean and the atmosphere (Figures 4, 6, 13a, 15 and 17). When Arctic ocean temperatures were low, methane hydrate crystallized in the vertical fracture conduit systems because of gas depressurization (adiabatic cooling) and the geothermal geopressured mantle methane was sealed underground in the Enrico Pv Anomaly (Figure 13a, 17, 20a and 20b; Carana 2013; Hovland et al. 2006). When recent extreme fossil fuel burning-carbon-dioxide-induced global warming heated the Gulf Stream and then the Arctic waters, they dissasociated the methane hydrate seals on the vertical fracture conduit systems at the top of the Enrico Pv Anomaly and geopressured methane began to erupt into the ocean and enter the atmosphere as is presently the case at the Extreme Methane Eruption Centre on the Enrico Pv Anomaly (Figures 3, 4, 13a, 15 and 17)( Light, 2012, Pravettoni, 2008. Evidence for a deep mantle source for this methane is the extremely high methane emission rates at the Enrico Pv anomaly compared the the generally lesser amounts of methane released from dissociation of subsea Arctic methane hydrates on the East Arctic Siberian Shelf (Figure 4 - Pravettoni 2008) and the fact that some regional emissions track along deep mantle fault lines related to the northern border of the Greenland plate (Figure 3a Carana 2014).


The Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone - A Deep Penetrating Mantle Safety Valve - Now Open to Vertically Rising Geothermal - Geopressured Mantle Methane formed between 100 km and 300 km in the Asthenosphere.

Hovland et al. (2006) (Figure 20a, 20b; Carana 2011) show that submarine pingoes form seals in vertical methane charged fractures cutting through shallow methane hydrates and trapped free methane in the pock-marked sea floor at Nyegga in the Norwegian Sea. These gas escape conduits are sealed by methane hydrate that formed from depressurization (adiabatic cooling) when methane escaped from the underlying methane hydrates or from deep mantle methane sources in the past and came in contact with the cold Arctic Ocean water (Carana, 2011; Light, this article).

Globally heated seawater, drawn down fractures, cracks and conduits in the sea floor flanking the Gakkel Ridge can destabilize the methane hydrate in the pingoes and in the hydrates resulting in huge abrupt release of methane into the sea and atmosphere (Figure 13b, Wales 2012; Carana, 2013; Light 2013).

During periods when the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was reduced and conditions were mild, methane hydrates formed from the depressurizing (adiabatic cooling) of deeply sourced mantle methane formed very effective seals in the linked verticle fractures at the Enrico Pv Anomaly confining the mantle methane in undersea rock formations (Figures 6, 13a and 15). This mantle methane was therefore not able to enter the sea or the atmosphere and cause extreme global warming. However the major global warming caused by humanities sustained and stupid use of fossil fuels in preference to sustainable energy sources has destabilized the methane hydrate seals (pingoes) above the Enrico Pv Anomaly now giving it free rein to vent more and more geopressured mantle methane directly into the sea and the atmosphere.

The methane partial pressure calculated from the rate of advance of the latitudinal front of the 1850 ppm atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil, that has now passed the Gulf Coast of the United States indicates a depth of origin of the geopressured-geothermal methane of some 112 km in the upper asthenosphere within the mantle methane generation zone (Figures 13a and 15). Calculations show that by the Mid 21st Century, the Enrico Pv Anomaly extreme methane emission zone will be draining methane from as deep as 300 km, the mean temperature of the earth's atmosphere will be 8° C hotter and we will be facing total deglaciation and extinction (Light, 2012; Carana 2012).

What mankind has done in his infinite stupidity with his extreme hydrocarbon addiction and fossil fuel induced global warming has opened a giant, long standing (Permian to Recent) geopressured mantle-methane pressure-release safety valve (Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone) for gases generated between 100 km and 300 km depth and temperatures above 1200°C in the Asthenosphere. There is now no fast way to reseal this system because it will require extremely quick cooling of the Arctic Ocean, which cannot be achieved in the short time frame we have left to complete the job. Our only hope is to destroy the methane in the water before it gets into the atmosphere and simultaneously destroy the existing atmospheric methane using radio-laser systems (Alamo and Lucy Projects, Light and Carana, 2012, 2013).

Scientists at Georgia Tech University have found that at very low temperatures in the ocean, two symbiotic methane eating organisms group together, consume methane and excrete carbon dioxide which then reacts with minerals in the water to form carbonate mounds (Glass et al. 2013). These two symbiotic creatures, the bacteria and anaerobic methanotrophic archaea form bundles and require an enzyme (formyl methofuran dyhydrogenase) in the final methane oxidation reactions to convert methane to carbon dioxide. However these organisms need tungsten for this process to operate (Glass et al. 2013). In the low temperature environments of the methane seeps, tungsten appears easier for the organisms to use than molybdenum (Glass et al. 2013).

A method must be immediately developed for growing these methane consuming organisms in great quantities and delivering them with their vital tungsten operating enzyme to the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean, west of Svalbard in the area south of the ice-front, where the West Spitbergen Current dives beneath the ice should be continuously seeded (possibly by aircraft or boats) with these methane consuming bacteria and tungsten enzymes, as should the Yermack Current in the Barents Sea. The entire length of the Eurasian Basin, The Enrico Pv anomaly extreme emission zone and Laptev Sea should also be seeded during the summer season when the ice cap has receeded from these regions. As the Arctic ice cap shrinks, the size of the area that needs to be seeded will grow requiring greater resources from the worlds nations. This has to be done for our very future existence depends on it. Similar seeding should be done with currents flowing beneath the Antarctic ice cap to prevent the release of large quantities of methane into the atmosphere from the destabilization of methane hydrates there. This means that the United States must fund a major project at Georgia Tech to quickly develop the means to grow these methane consuming bacteria in massive quantities with their tungsten enzyme and find the means to deliver them to the Polar oceans as soon as possible.

Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil

The Arctic Atmospheric 'Methane Global Warming Veil'. Its Origin in the Arctic Subsea and Mantle
 and the Timing of the Global Terminal Extinction Events by 2040 to 2050 - A Review.

By Malcolm P.R. Light, Harold Hensel and Sam Carana
June 8th, 2014


Abstract

Methane formed by organisms in the water becomes trapped in the fabric of water ice crystals when it freezes and is stable below about 300 meters depth in the Arctic Ocean and on the shallow East Arctic Siberian Shelf. There are such massive methane reserves below the Arctic Ocean floor, that they represent around 100 times the amount that is required to cause a Permian style major extinction event, should the subsea Arctic methane be released in a short period of time into the atmosphere (Light and Solana, 2012-2014, Carana 2012 - 2014). There are also giant reservoirs of mantle methane, originally sealed in by shallow methane hydrate plugs in fractures cutting the Arctic seafloor (Light 2014, Carana 2013).

If only a few percent of the subsea methane hydrate reserves in the Arctic Ocean (some 1000 billion tons of Carbon) is dissociated and the methane is released into the atmosphere, it will cause total deglaciation and a major extinction event (Light and Solana 2002). The energy necessary to produce these Arctic methane release rates is relatively small; it requires only about one thousandth of the heat energy input from the Gulf Stream to dissociate the methane hydrates (Figure 30). Furthermore, the energy necessary to produce these Arctic methane release rates represents less than one millionth of the global warming heat energy being added to the oceans, ice, land and atmosphere by human fossil fuel burning (Figure 30). Unfortunately for us, global warming has heated up the oceanic currents fed by the Gulf Stream flowing into the Arctic, causing massive destabilization of the subsea methane hydrates and fault seals and releasing increasing volumes of methane directly into the atmosphere. The total human induced global warming is equivalent to 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating every second (Nuccitelli et al. 2012). Humanity has signed its death warrant and our final extinction will be carried out by Mother Earth within the next 30 to 40 years unless we immediately take extremely drastic action to entirely curb our carbon dioxide pollution, eliminate large quantities of methane from the subsea Arctic Ocean, seawater and atmosphere (down to ca 673 - 700 ppb) and revert completely to renewable energy.



The volume transport of the Gulf Stream has increased by three times since the 1940s due to the rising atmospheric pressure difference set up between the polluted, greenhouse gas rich air above North America and the marine Atlantic air. The increasingly heated Gulf Stream, with its associated high winds and energy-rich weather systems, flows NE to Europe where it recently pummelled Great Britain and Europe with catastrophic storms. Other branches of the Gulf Stream then enter the Arctic and heat up the Arctic methane hydrate seals on subsea and deep high-pressure mantle methane reservoirs below the Eurasian Basin-Laptev Sea transition. This is releasing increasing amounts of methane into the atmosphere producing anomalous temperatures, greater than 20°C above average. Over very short time periods of a few days to a few months the atmospheric methane has a global warming potential from 1000 to 100 times that of carbon dioxide (Light 2012 - 2014; Carana 2012 - 2014).

The whole northern hemisphere is now covered by a thickening atmospheric methane veil that is spreading southwards at about 1 km a day and it already totally envelopes the United States. A giant hole in the equatorial ozone layer has also been discovered in the west Pacific, which acts like an elevator transferring methane from lower altitudes to the stratosphere, where it already forms a dense equatorial global warming stratospheric band that is spreading into the Polar regions. The spreading atmospheric methane global warming veil is raising the temperature of the lower atmosphere many times faster than carbon dioxide does, causing the extreme summer temperatures in Australia and the United States. The front of the expanding 1850 ppb Arctic Atmospheric Mantle Methane Global Warming Veil has passed the northern border of the Gulf Coast and is moving south at about 1 km a day and it should totally envelope the Earth by 2048 (Light 2014). Much of this methane is coming from the subsea extreme methane emission zone (Enrico Anomaly) at the transition from the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea which is sourced at an estimated depth of some 112 km in the upper asthenosphere in the Earths mantle (Light 2014). The Earth's mantle methane is being formed in an Arctic "graveyard of subducted plates" by the reactions between the subducted water, carbonate and iron (2) oxide at depths between 100 and 300 km (Light 2014). The 1850 ppb methane cloud will only arrive at the south pole 8 years before mantle methane derived from about 280 km depth (ca 2050) (Light, 2014). These times are similar to the mantle extinction dates derived in this article and from the 420,000 year old ice core data (2052.7)(Light 2014).

During the last winter, the high Arctic winter temperatures and pressures displaced the normal freezing Arctic air south into Canada and the United States, producing never before seen, freezing winter storms and massive power failures. When the Arctic ice cap finally melts towards the end of next year, the Arctic sea will be aggressively heated by the sun and the Gulf Stream. The cold Arctic air will then be confined to the Greenland Ice cap and the hot Arctic air with its methane will flow south to the United States to further heat up the Gulf Stream, setting up an anticlockwise circulation around Greenland. Under these circumstances Great Britain and Europe must expect even more catastrophic storm systems, hurricane force winds and massive flooding after the end of next year, due to a further acceleration in the energy transport of the Gulf Stream. If this process continues unchecked the mean temperature of the atmosphere will rise a further 8°C and we will be facing global deglaciation, a more than 200 feet rise in sea level and a major terminal extinction event by the 2050s.

The United States and Canada must cut their global emissions of carbon dioxide by 80% to 90% in the next 10 to 15 years, otherwise they will be become an instrument of mass destruction of the Earth and its entire human population. Recovery of the United States economy from the financial crisis has been very stupidly based by the present administration on an extremely hazardous "all-of-the-above" energy policy that has allowed continent-wide gas fracking, coal and oil sand mining and the return of widespread oil drilling to the Gulf Coast. This large amount of fossil fuel has to be transported and sold which has caused extensive spills, explosions and confrontations with United States citizens over fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline. Gas fracking is in the process of destroying the entire aquifer systems of the United States and causing widespread earthquakes. The oil spills are doing the same to the surface river run off. The giant pollution cloud over the United States and Canada has speeded up the Gulf Stream by three times since the 1940s. The Gulf Stream carries huge quantities of heat into the Arctic Ocean where it is destabilizing subsea methane hydrates releasing vast volumes of methane into the Arctic atmosphere.

The United States and Canada must now cease all their fossil fuel extraction and go entirely onto renewable energy in the next 10 to 15 years otherwise they will be guilty of planetary ecocide - genocide by the 2050s. There must also be a world-wide effort to capture methane in the subsea Arctic permafrost, ocean and eradicate the quantities accumulating in the atmosphere.


Introduction

Methane formed by organisms in the water becomes trapped in the fabric of water ice crystals when it freezes and is stable below about 300 meters depth in the Arctic Ocean (Light and Solana, 2012). There are such massive methane reserves below the Arctic Ocean floor that they represent around 100 times the amount that is required to cause a Permian style major extinction event, should the subsea Arctic methane be released into the atmosphere (Light and Solana, 2012). There are also giant reservoirs of mantle methane, originally sealed in by shallow methane hydrate plugs in fractures cutting the Arctic seafloor (Light 2014). Unfortunately for us, global warming has heated up the oceanic currents fed by the Gulf Stream flowing into the Arctic, causing massive destabilization of the subsea methane hydrates and fault seals and releasing increasing volumes of methane directly into the atmosphere (Light 2014).

The methane concentration - temperature correlation from Polar ice core data is graphically illustrated in Figures 1 and 2a from Morrison (2012).

This correlation which goes back to 420,000 years ago shows that when the mean methane content of the atmosphere hit 1.79 ppm/v (1790 ppb) it produced a (delayed) methane eruption induced atmospheric temperature of some 20°C.

This is precisely the temperature of the giant methane-rich clouds that are now circulating the Arctic in 2012 - 2013 (Yurganov, 2013; Carana 2012, 2013) indicating that here, the delayed methane temperature anomaly has already caught up with the Arctic mean atmospheric concentrations (Figure 2b and 2c).

Such a huge Arctic temperature anomaly can only be produced by methane with an apparent Methane Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 1850 times that of carbon dioxide. This is a combined GWP that takes account of a large number of feedbacks caused by other additional methane heating. Recent work by Nuccitelli et al. 2012, in which oceanic global warming was incorporated into the global warming equation, suggests that the 420,000 year old (1850ppb) Methane Global Warming trend, largely represents the effects of oceanic global warming which forms 93.5% of the additional incoming heat.

To achieve an 8°C temperature increase in the global atmosphere it takes only a rise in atmospheric temperature by 7.2°C, as the present atmosphere has already been heated 0.8°C by global warming (Wales, 2012).

Assuming a linear rate of temperature increase, a warmer 7.2°C will be achieved by 2052.7, at which time total deglaciation and widespread extinction will occur.

On Figure 2a the upper line represents the 420,000 year old delayed atmospheric temperature versus atmospheric methane concentration profile while the lower line is the projected existing mean atmospheric temperature versus atmospheric methane concentration profile from 1971.3.
The lower line projected from 1971.3 intersects the 8°C, global deglaciation and extinction line at an atmospheric methane concentration of 2230 ppb and the Permian Major Extinction line at an atmospheric methane concentration of 2500 ppb. These two mean atmospheric methane concentrations will be used later in this paper to define the 8°C and Permian extinction events using atmospheric methane concentration data.

Carana (2013) has used mean temperature anomaly/time data to predict the likely trends of accelerated Arctic warming and runaway global warming from which the likely extinction times of the 8°C and 10°C atmospheric temperature anomalies can be determined (Figure 3).

Total deglaciation and major extinction will occur after the mean atmospheric anomaly exceeds 8°C (IPCC, 2007) between 2034.5 and 2037.6 while a 10°C anomaly will be achieved between 2039.1 and 2040.1 (Figure 3, Table 3; Carana 2013).

Carana (2014) has generated two histograms for April 2013 and 2014 using IASI MetOp methane data of the mean atmospheric methane content for 9 selected pressures which have been converted to altitude using the US standard atmosphere from Lide and Frederickse, 1995 (Figure 4). These 9 selected points extend up to 18.4 km height in the base of the stratosphere. The predicted linear growth in methane concentration has been determined for each pressure/height level of the expanding Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil to 2100 (Figure 5 and 6). The Methane Global Warimng Veil lies between 7.7 and 18.4 km height with its fastest growing leading edge at an altitude of 9.16 km, which is very close to the mean methane concentration at 9.21 km height (Figures 5 and 6). The date when the 2230 ppb mean atmospheric methane concentration, 8°C temperature anomaly period of major deglaciation and extinction is reached is 2028 (Figure 2a and 5). The date when the 2500 ppb mean atmospheric methane concentration is reached by the Permian Major Extinction event temperature anomaly is 2038 (Figure 2a and 5). Figure 6 shows the very fast expansion of the Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil leading edge at 9 and 11 km altitude between 2013 and 2050, which then penetrates far into Permian Extinction Event, anomalous temperature range, between 2038 and 2050. At the same time there is a predicted slight decrease in the atmospheric methane content below 3.5 km height which may result from the low level methane increasing in buoyancy and rising faster because of the increased heating by the fast growing overlying Methane Global Warming Veil.


Northern Extensions of the Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream (West Spitzbergen Current) follows the southern shelf edge of the Arctic Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea, its central hot (+2°C) core zone at 300 meters depth destabilizing the subsea Arctic methane hydrates en route and releasing ever increasing amounts of methane into the Arctic atmosphere (Figures 7 and 8). The extreme and high priority atmospheric emission zones in the Arctic for immediate subsea methane extraction are shown on Figure 7 (Light 2013, 2014).

Linear zones of extreme methane emissions on Figure 7 that occur at right angles to the trend of the Gakkel Mid-Ocean Ridge in the Eurasian Basin are probably methane that is deeply sourced and has entered shear fault systems, some of which represent plate boundary zones (Carana 2014, Light 2014).

The Enrico, vertically fractured, mantle methane charged seismic anomaly is situated at the Extreme Methane Emission Zone in the Arctic Ocean at the end of the Eurasian Basin where it meets the Laptev Sea (Figure 8). Here the surface of the Gakkel Ridge is covered by hydrothermal methane hydrates (Light 2012). The Enrico Anomaly and Extreme Methane Emission Zone is clearly outlined in the USGS methane emission map forming a methane cloud 2.5 km to 3 km in height on October 31, 2013 (Figure 8; Carana, 2013; 2014).


Arctic Atmospheric Global Warming Veil

The regional extent of the southward spreading Arctic Atmospheric Global Warming Veil from October 1, 2013 to January 19, 2014 with its leading edge at 9 km to 11 km height is shown on Figure 9 (Carana, 2014). The front of the 1850 ppb Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil has now crossed the Gulf Coast and is moving south at 1 km a day (Light 2014). In the Arctic Ocean the atmospheric methane ranges from 1950 ppb to as high as 2362 ppb (January 19, 2014; Carana, 2014).

NASA data shows the global methane concentration in the stratosphere, which is the highest at the equator exceeding 1800 ppb (1.8 ppm) and falls of toward the poles (Figure 10).

A giant hole has formed in the hydroxlyl-ozone layer in equatorial S.E. Asia and the west Pacific and allows methane sourced from the 9 - 11 km high leading edge of the southward migrating Arctic Atmospheric Global Warming Veil to rise unimpeded into the stratosphere where it is increasing in concentration (Figure 11a, 10 from Harold Hensel, personal communication, 2014). The high equatorial concentration of methane will be the reason for the extreme "El Nino" this year and the heating extends eastwards to the Gulf Stream enhancing its energy in a giant feedback loop (Figure 11a from Harold Hensel, personal communication, 2014).

The mean speed of horizontal displacement of the stratosphere around the Earth is known to be about 120 km per hour from the 1883 Krakatoa eruption (Heicklen, 1976). Water vapor clouds in the exhaust of the Space Shuttle solid booster were released between an altitude of 46 km and 114 km and were then transferred to the Arctic region in little over a day, although the mechanism of this lateral motion is unknown (Figure 11b and 11c). This water vapor fell from the thermosphere into the colder mesosphere during its northward migration to crystallize as noctilucent clouds (Figure 11d). Mean wind velocities within the global stratospheric methane global warming veil and above it (36 km to 91 km) are some 48 meters per second during the day and 56 meters per second at night (Olivier 1942, 1948).

Harold Hensel (personal communication, 2014) has identified four major methane feedback mechanisms that are accelerating human pollution induced global warming of the atmosphere and these are summarized below.

• A major feedback mechanism is the heat trapping Methane Global Warming Veil sourced from the subsea Arctic methane hydrates which has blanketed the whole of the United States as far south as the Gulf Coast (Figure 9)(from July 2013 - Methanetracker.org). This atmospheric methane veil will further overheat the Gulf Stream thus returning even hotter water back to the Arctic subsea methane hydrate destabilization grounds generating more extensive methane eruption zones (Figures 12a and 12b).
• A second feedback mechanism is caused by the Arctic Ocean ice and Arctic region permafrost which is being degraded severely by atmospheric temperatures around 20°C above normal, especially in Siberia and Alaska. About 90% of the Arctic frozen methane lies in the top 3 meters which is thawing and the temperatures of the river water is rising assisted by high atmospheric temperatures caused by widespread Spring fires. This hot river water flows north into the Arctic ocean where it spills onto the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS; Shakova et al. 2010, 2013) and into the Beaufort Sea, where it is destabilizing shallow methane hydrates releasing increasing quantities of methane directly into the atmosphere and increasing the concentration of the expanding Arctic Methane Global Warming Veil (Figure 12a, 7, 8). Cenozoic pyroclastic volcanoes also occur on the west end of the ESAS, so destabilization of shallow methane hydrates is probably also opening deep seated, verticle fractures which will allow mantle methane to rise up into the atmosphere (Figures 7 and 8).
• A third major feedback mechanism is formed by a massive hydroxyl (and ozone) hole that has developed in the atmosphere above the western Pacific and Indonesia (Figure 11a)(robertscribbler, 2014). Hydroxyls are nature's air cleaners and they remove air pollution and methane from the atmosphere (Heicklen, 1976). The massive hydroxyl hole in Indonesia allows the southward spreading, 9 km to 11 km high, Methane Global Warming Veil to rise up into the stratosphere where it then returns back at high altitudes to the northern Polar regions to further thicken and increase the warming of the globally spreading methane cloud (Figures 11a, 10, 11b - 11d).
• The massive hydroxyl hole in the atmosphere over Indonesia and the west Pacific also allows the shallow Methane Global Warming Veil to rise vertically into the dense equatorial stratospheric methane belt increasing its concentration (Figure 10). This is probably the source of the El Nino heat build up in the Pacific which is likely to occur in the Summer and Fall where the winds over the warmer ocean have shifted to the east (Figures 12a and 12b).

The surface temperature off the Coast of the United States in the western North Atlantic shows the flow lines of the warm Gulf Stream (in red on Figure 13c) while colder oceanic zones are in dark blue (Harold Hensel, pers.comm, 2014).

Figure 13b from Csanady (2001) shows the heat gain and loss for the Atlantic Ocean which was posthumously published from Bunker in (1988).

When humans get too hot, their bodies perspire (sweat) water and this water evaporates at a high rate in windy conditions giving them "wind chill".

The excessive heating off the Gulf Stream by pollution clouds pouring off the coast of North America is directly related to excessive heat loss in the same region (Figure 14) because the heat-induced extreme atmospheric pressure change, between the North American polluted air and the Atlantic air, generates very strong winds which "wind chill" the overheated ocean there.

Gulf Stream water temperatures range up to 13°C to 26.5°C (Hurricanes) and water in this temperature range requires about 2440 to 2470 thousand Joules of energy per kilogram for it to change from a liquid into a gaseous state (Latent heat of evaporation; Hyperphysics, 2013; Lide and Fredrickse, 1995). The loss of this latent heat of evaporation is the main reason for the extreme heat loss shown by the hot Gulf Stream waters offshore North America (Figure 14; Ametsoc, 2001).

The North Atlantic has the largest zone of high salinity on Earth due to extreme evaporation caused by pollution clouds pouring off North America (Figure 14)(Ametsoc, 2001).

The spectacular rates of heat loss from the Gulf Stream waters off the coast of the United States can be clearly followed north east to Norway, where they split into the eastern Yermack branch entering the Barents Sea and the West Spitzbergen (Svalbard) Current which dives beneath the floating Arctic Ice Cap (Figure 14 to 17).

This northward pointing tongue of hot and saline Gulf Stream water is clearly visible on the salinity map (Figure 14) as strong inflexions in the contours first west of Ireland and then south of Svalbard just before the Gulf Stream dives beneath the floating Arctic Ice cap as the West Spitzbergen Current (Figure 14 to 17). The ENE trend of the storm bearing winds in the Atlantic sourced from the Gulf Stream offshore North America is mirrored by the ENE trend of extreme climatic rainfall patterns in Europe (Figure 13e).

The giant influx of Gulf Stream - Atlantic waters into the Arctic west of Svalbard is shown by the high salinity (red-orange-yellow colors) in Figure 15, while the fresher water in the Canada Basin by the blues (University of Washington, redorbit.com).

Extremely high salinity is found in the region of the Enrico Anomaly extreme methane emission zone caused by the larger quantities of atmospheric methane there and its higher heating (global warming) capacity (Figure 15).

The Arctic Ocean slope and deep water methane hydrate regions are shown in Figure 16 (Max and Lowrie, 1993). The subsea slope and abyssal plane methane hydrates are extremely extensive in the Beaufort Sea and along the southern shelf edge of the Eurasian Basin from Svalbard to the Laptev Sea following the trend of the mid-ocean Gakkel Ridge (Figure 16). In the area of the Enrico Anomaly extreme methane emission zone (Area III), the subsea methane hydrates are associated with hydrothermal activity related to the spreading ridge and some of the the methane is more deeply sourced (Figures 16 and 17). High fault concentrations occur at the zones of maximum methane subsea eruptions which coincide with the covergence of the northern extensions of the Gulf Stream (the West Spitzbergen Current and Eastern Yermack branch). These currents intersect at the end of the Eurasian basin, where the Enrico Anomaly extreme methane emission zone occurs at the transition into the Laptev Sea (Figure 17). Gulf Stream waters heated in the Spring and Summer off the coast of the United States, only reach the Arctic Enrico Anomaly maximum emission zone in the Autumn (Fall) and the increase in Arctic methane emissions into the atmosphere generates a False Indian Summer then (Light 2013, 2014).


Vertical Profiles of the Fast Developing Arctic Methane Global Warming Veil

Rising arctic methane emissions are spread by vortices to form an anomalously dense build up of methane in the atmosphere generating a continuously thickening Methane Global Warming Veil now almost enveloping the entire Earth (Figures 18 to 23).

The progressive rate of growth of the tropospheric Methane Global Warming Veil between 2013 and 2050 (from Carana, 2014) has been combined with the stratospheric methane data trend from Nassar et al. 2005, to show how the data compare (Figures 22 and 23).

The stratospheric methane trend and its variability from Nassar et al. 2005 has then been moved laterally until it forms an extension of the predicted 2050 tropospheric methane trend that has been derived from a histogram created by Sam Carana from IASI MetOp methane data (Arctic-news.blogspot.com) (Figures 22 and 23).

The curves appear to match one another perfectly suggesting that indeed the stratospheric methane concentration between 30 km to 46 km will have surpassed 2000 ppb (2 ppm), which the present Arctic has shown results in temperature anomalies greater than 20°C.

Consequently, by 2050 total extinction and deglaciation will have occured at temperatures far in excess of those that caused the Permian Major Extinction Event (Wignall, 2009).

Evidence from Lake Chad and the Great Lakes indicates they will all be retreating by 2040. Half of the Qori Kalis Glacier in Peru melted away between 1978 and 2011 and will be entirely gone by the mid 2040s some 5 to 7 years before total deglaciation is expected around 2052.

The meltback is due to a 0.7°C mean temperature increase in the last 70 years - (www.debatepolitics.com). A sharp decline in the ice surface area of glaciers in the Andes became evident in the 1970's and complete deglaciation is expected in the early 2050's (thinkprogress.org)

Estimates of Extinction Times caused by the Growth of the Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil

Three diagrams (Figures 24 to 26) show previously estimated extinction times. Figure 24 defines the zone of methane atmospheric stability versus time for methane released in fountains or torches from destabilized shelf and slope methane hydrates (the Purple, yellow and brown zones). A number of mathematically determined extinction times from various heating curves (now exceeding 40) were made with this and more recent data (see Tables 1 to 5 ; Light 2012, 2013; Carana 2013, 2014). Other possible extinction fields were derived on Figures 25 and 26.

The most recent estimate of the extinction fields is shown on Figure 27 which represents the heating effect of the growing atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil with its leading edge at an altitude of 9 km to 11 km. The data is derived from the April mean methane readings for selected altitudes (IASI MetOp methane data, Carana, 2014) combined with cut off methane concentrations found on Figure 2a for the 8°C atmospheric temperature anomaly deglaciation and extinction event (2230 ppb) and the Permian Major Extinction event (2500 ppb)(Light, 2014).

We have just got over 14 years of progressively worsening weather with extreme storms before we face the possibility of an Arctic methane induced 8°C atmospheric temperature rise with associated global deglaciation and extinction (Figure 27). An extinction event equivalent to the Permian Extinction is expected to begin by 2038 to 2040 and last through to 2065 (Figure 27).

Moving average graphs of 40 extinction time estimates on Figure 28a show a very close correlation with 8 and 10 degree extinction times estimated from Sam Carana's Accelerated Arctic Warming and Runaway Global Warming trends (2034 - 2040 from Carana, 2013). This early extinction event is largely a result of the destabilization of subsea Arctic methane hydrates from globally heated Gulf Stream waters and increasing seismic activity (Light, 2013, 2014; Carana, 2013, 2014). A later peak at 2047 to 2053 correlates exactly with the extinction time estimates for extreme mantle emission rates from the Enrico Anomaly located at the transition of the Eurasian Basin to the Laptev Sea (Figure 28a, Light, 2014). This methane is sourced from the Earth's mantle at depths of 100 km to 300 km (Light, 2014). In addition the 420,000 year ice core (Morrison, 2013) delayed methane atmospheric 8°C temperature anomaly extinction event lies at the high end of this range (Figure 28a).

The smoothed extinction curve climbs shallowly from 2011 which corresponds to the start of major Arctic emissions (e.g. Svalbard) and then rises steeply from 2015 which represents the time of the start of the melt back of the Arctic sea - ice, extreme weather events and sea level rise (Figure 28a). On the 16th November, 2010 (2.04 ppm) a huge sudden atmospheric spike like increase in the concentration of atmospheric methane occured at Svalbard north of Norway in the Arctic reaching 2040 ppb ESRL/GMO, 2010 - Arctic - Methane - Emergency - Group.org). The cause of this sudden anomalous increase in the concentration of atmospheric methane at Svalbard has been seen on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf where a recent Russian - U.S. expedition has found widespread, continuous powerful methane seepages from the subsea methane hydrates into the atmosphere with the methane plumes (fountains or torches) up to 1 km across producing an atmospheric methane concentration 100 times higher than normal (Connor, 2011). The two reversals after 2026 and 2036 may be due to global energy loss caused by the latent heat of melting of the thawing ice (Figure 28a). Extinction estimates from Accelerated and Runaway Global Warming are shown on Tables 3, 4 and 5.

GISS Maximum Monthly Global Temperature Anomalies

Figure 28b shows the NASA GISS maximum monthly global temperature anomalies derived from GISS data maps (NASA 2012). The total number of monthly GISS means of the anomaly maxima plotted on Figure 28b is 743. The extremely high maximum temperature anomalies of 13 to 16 between 1957 and 1981 are from the Antarctic region and probably represent atmospheric methane concentration peaks caused from the destabilization of methane hydrates by early warming of the submarine slope regions.

The intersection point of the converging envelope of the varying amplitude of the monthly 11 year moving average of the Giss maximum surface temperature anomaly represents a time after which the variable effect caused by the latent heat of melting and freezing of the worlds Polar sea ice caps will be eliminated, i.e. the time when the Arctic floating sea ice cap will be completely melted away (Figure 28b, Table 6; NASA, 2012).

It is evident from Figures 28b that the long periods of freezing followed by shorter thaw periods have been getting progressively shorter and occur at higher maximum temperature anomalies in each of the succesive cycles. The length of each of the freezing cycles has shrunk from 20 years (1960 - 1980) to about 2 years (2004 - 2006) while the mean value of the 11 year moving average temperature anomaly has climbed from 5.5°C to ca 6.75°C.

The range of the intersection points of the converging data set runs from 2011.363 (July anomaly temperature 6.7079°C) to 2022.989; June anomaly temperature 7.1414°C (Table 6). The mean intersection point from the 12 convergent data sets, which represents the best estimate of the time when the Arctic floating sea ice cap will be completely melted away is 2015.757 (Figure 10. October 2 anomaly temperature 6.8762°C). The 2015.757 best estimate for when the Arctic floating sea ice will be completely melted away is almost identical to the 2015 -2017 date suggested by PIOMAS ice volume reduction data (Wipneus 2012) and is within its 90% confidence interval error limit. The calculated time of the GISS convergent field 8°C atmospheric temperature anomaly causing global deglaciation and extinction is fixed at 2041.2473 (Table 6). This is almost identical to the time when the linear extrapolation of the Arctic sea ice mean thickness reaches zero at 2040.31 (after Kwok and Rothrock, 2009).


The World's Oceans Absorb 93.5 Percent of the Human Induced Global Warming Energy

Human induced global warming, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is found to be continuous when the ice, land and atmosphere heating data (Church et al. 2011) are combined with the 5 - year average ocean heat content, to a depth of 2000 meters (Levitus et al. 2012)(Figure 29a. Nuccitelli et al. 2012).

The lack of incorporation of this data in the global warming equation by the IPCC, is the reason for the extreme 50 year error found in estimating the floating Arctic ice cap melt time using global atmospheric models as discussed in previous papers (Figures 29a and 29b; Light 2012, Light 2013).

This is because the floating Arctic ice cap is mostly being melted from underneath by globally heated ocean waters, as are the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers (Trenberth, 2014).

As a result the rate of melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has doubled to 159*10 power 9 tonnes per year since Cryosat started first measuring it in 2010 (CPOM, 2014). The rate of increase of global warming heat is equivalent to 8 x ten to the power of 21 joules per year (Nuccitelli et al. 2012).

This amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human fossil fuel burning is equivalent to about 700 Pinatubo - size eruptions per year and the rate of heat input is equal to four Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations every second (Nuccitelli et al. 2012; SkepticalSceince, 2012; USGS 2014).

Human pollution and what it triggers has completely over-run nature's natural cycle and balance (Harold Hensel, personal communication, 2014).

The ocean has absorbed 93.4 percent of the heat from global warming, while the atmosphere only 2.3 percent and the surface of the floating Arctic ice cap 0.8 percent (Figure 29b, ACS 2013). The total amount of heat generated by human induced global warming between 1990 and 2010 is some 14 x ten power 22 joules which is equivalent to an absorbed energy flux of 2.2 x ten power 14 watts, i.e about 0.5 watts per square meter of the earth's surface (ACS 2013).

It is now clearly evident that the floating Arctic sea ice cap and the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers are almost entirely being melted from below by the globally warmed ocean waters because 93.4 percent of the global warming heat energy is going into the oceans (Figure 29b).

The atmosphere and Arctic sea ice together only absorb 3.1 percent of the global warming heat (Figure 29b). Consequently the rate of floating Arctic ice cap melting will be increased by a amount approximately equivalent to the ratio of the oceanic heat intake (93.5%) to that of the atmosphere and Arctic sea ice heat intake combined (3.1%), ie by 30.129.

Consequently the meltback will occur in 1/30th of the time than was originally predicted by the IPCC modelling studies (Figure 29c). The IPCC models predicted that the floating Arctic ice cap would first begin to melt around 2100, 86 years after 2014 (Figure 29c). The time of the first Arctic sea ice melt back must now be shortened to 86/30.129 = 2.85 years, i.e. by 2016.85 consistant with the PIOMAS exponential ice melt back time estimates (Light 2013, 2104).

Figure 29d. Arctic sea surface temperature anomaly, June 8, 2014. From: Arctic Sea Ice Steep Decline Continues

The Giant Unsustainable Carbon Footprint per Unit Population of the United States and Canada and its Catastrophic Environmental Effects

Figure 30 show the yearly north - eastward Gulf Stream transport of the energy (watts) from the North Atlantic Sub - Tropical Gyre to the Arctic Ocean. The map uses Gulf Stream flow volumes in Sverdrups (= one million cubic meters/second) calibrated to the heat flow trend from eight measured heat flow values along the Gulf Stream (Csanady, 2001). The calibration constant is 3.85 x ten to the power of 7. The heat flow data comes from Csanady, 2001; Gulf Stream flow volumes from Sverdrup, Johnson and Fleming, 1942, Wales J., 2013 and the University of California, (CDL, 2013).

The Gulf Stream shows a zone of anomalously large global warming heating, extremely high rates of South Westerly wind induced ocean current flow, extreme wind chill (caused by evaporation of the sea surface) and elevation of the surface of the Gulf Stream along the coast of the industrialized United States and Canada (Figure 30). Quite clearly the global warming caused by pollution clouds pouring off the coast of the industrialized United States is generating a large air pressure differential, accelerating and heating the prevailing South Westerly Wind flow with its consequent wide ranging effects on the Gulf Stream seen as far north as the Central Arctic (Figure 30). As mentioned previously this global warming has increased the rate of water transport from 55 Sverdrups in 1942 to up to 150 Sverdrups at the present (Sverdrup et al. 1942, Wales, 2013).

The heat necessary to liberate methane from the methane hydrates in the Arctic Ocean and cause runaway global warming, total deglaciation and extinction in 2052 represents only one thousandth of the total amount of heat being added to the Arctic ocean by the Gulf Stream (Thick black line at right bottom of Figure 30). The Yermack Current (E. extension of the Gulf Stream) in the Barents Sea intersects the West Spitzbergen Current (W. extension of the Gulf Stream) at the junction of the Eurasian Basin/Laptev Sea (Figure 30). This represents a region of extreme subsea - atmospheric methane emissions (The Enrico Anomaly) in a zone of hydrothermal methane hydrates formed above the spreading Gakkel oceanic ridge where it enters the Laptev Sea - shelf region (Light 2013).

Figure 31 shows the yearly human carbon dioxide emissions in tons per person versus inflation adjusted income (Image from gapminder.org, 2013).

The total carbon dioxide emitted by each country is proportional to the size of the circles (Figure 31).

The United Kingdom emitted the most carbon dioxide per person at the start of the industrial revolution, but the United States caught up with the U.K. at the start of the 20th century (Figure 31).

From then on the U.S.A. grew to be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide (Figure 31). An average U.S. citizen causes 3 times as much carbon dioxide to be emitted (19 tons of carbon dioxide/person) than a person in China (4.7 tons of carbon dioxide/person)(Figure 31).

China however due to its large population emits a lot of carbon dioxide in total, but so does Europe as a whole (Figure 31). 5 states, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Australia, U.S.A. and Canada have the most extreme human carbon footprints on Earth (Figure 31)(Light, 2013).


Our Only Hope for Survival

The power, prestige and massive economy of the United States has been built on cheap and abundant fossil fuels and Canada is now trying to do the same. The present end of the financial crisis and recovery of the U.S. economy will take us down the same fossil fuel driven road to catastrophe that the U.S. has followed before. Unless the United States and Canada reduce their extreme carbon footprints (per unit population)(Figure 31), they will end up being found guilty of ecocide and genocide as the number of countries destroyed by the catastrophic weather systems continues to increase.

The United States and Canada with their expanding economies and their growing frenetic extraction of fossil fuels, using the most environmentally destructive methods possible (fracking and shale oil) as well as the population's total addiction to inefficient gas transport is leading our planet into suicide. We are like maniacal lemmings leaping to their deaths over a global warming cliff. The U.S. Government and Canada must ban all environmentally destructive methods of fossil fuel extraction such as fracking, extracting tar sands and coal and widespread construction of the now found to be faulty hydrocarbon pipeline systems. All Federal Government subsidies to fossil fuel corporations, for fossil fuel discovery and extraction must be immediately eliminated and the money spent solely on renewable energy development, i.e converting all the US coal power stations to solar energy which will then provide many jobs to the unemployed coal miners once they have been trained. This will allow the US and Canada to cut their global emissions of carbon dioxide by 80% to 90% in the next 10 to 15 years, otherwise they will be become an instrument of mass destruction of the Earth and its entire human population. All long and short range (high consumption) fossil fuel transport must be electrified and where the range is too large, electrical trains must be used instead of trucks for transport. All the major work for this conversion and railway construction can provide a new and growing set of jobs for the unemployed. Nuclear power stations must continue to be used and should be converted to the safe thorium energy system until the renewable energy transition is complete.

The U.S. has to put itself on a war footing, recall its entire military forces and set them to work on the massive change over to renewable energy that the country needs to undertake, if it wishes to survive the fast approaching catastrophe. The enemy now is Mother Nature, who has infinite power at her disposal and intends to take no prisoners in this very short, absolutely brutal, 30 to 40 year war she has begun. I cannot emphasize more, how serious humanity’s predicament is and what we should try to do to prevent our certain final destruction and extinction in the next 30 to 40 years if we continue down the present path we are following .

The volume transport of the Gulf Stream has increased by three times since the 1940s due to the rising atmospheric pressure difference set up between the polluted, greenhouse gas rich air above North America and the marine Atlantic air. The increasingly heated Gulf Stream, with its associated high winds and energy rich weather systems, flows NE to Europe where it recently pummelled Great Britain and Europe with catastrophic storms. Other branches of the Gulf Stream then enter the Arctic and heat up the Arctic methane hydrate seals on subsea and deep high - pressure mantle methane reservoirs below the Eurasian Basin- Laptev Sea transition (Figure 17). This is releasing increasing amounts of methane into the atmosphere and producing anomalous (global warming) temperatures, greater than 20 degree C above average (Figures 2a and 2b). Over very short time periods of a few days to a few months the atmospheric methane has a global warming potential from 1000 to 100 times that of carbon dioxide (Figure 2a. and 24)

There are such massive reserves of methane in the subsea Arctic methane hydrates, that if only a few percent of them are released, they will lead to a jump in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere by 10°C and produce a "Permian" style major extinction event which will kill us all (Light 2012, 2103; Wignall, 2009). The whole northern hemisphere is now covered by a thickening atmospheric methane veil that is spreading southwards at about 1 km a day and it already totally envelopes the United States. A giant hole in the equatorial ozone layer has also been discovered in the west Pacific, which acts like an elevator transferring methane from lower altitudes to the stratosphere, where it already forms a dense equatorial global warming stratospheric band that is spreading into the Polar regions (Data from Harold Hensel, pers. comm. 2014). The spreading atmospheric methane global warming veil is raising the temperature of the lower atmosphere many times faster than carbon dioxide does, causing the extreme summer temperatures in Australia and the United States.

During the last winter, the high Arctic winter temperatures and pressures displaced the normal freezing Arctic air south into Canada and the United States, producing never before seen, freezing winter storms and massive power failures. When the Arctic ice cap finally melts towards the end of next year or the beginning of the next, the Arctic sea will be aggressively heated by the sun and the Gulf Stream. The cold Arctic air will then be confined to the Greenland Ice cap and the hot Arctic air with its high methane content will flow south to the United States to further heat up the Gulf Stream, setting up an anticlockwise circulation around Greenland. Under these circumstances Great Britain and Europe must expect even more catastrophic storm systems, hurricane force winds and massive flooding after the end of next year, due to a further acceleration in the energy transport of the Gulf Stream. If this process continues unchecked the mean temperature of the atmosphere will rise a further 8 degrees centigrade and we will be facing global deglaciation, a more than 200 feet rise in sea level rise and a major terminal extinction event by the 2050s.


Conclusions

The excessive summer global warming of the Gulf Stream off the east coast of North America, is a direct result of the effects of eastward migrating pollution clouds pouring off the coast of the United States and Canada. This heat is transferred by the Gulf Stream directly to the most extreme methane eruption center (The Enrico Anomaly) in the Arctic at the methane hydrate rich, subsea end of the Eurasian Basin/Laptev Sea in October - November during a "False Indian Summer". Here the exponetially increasing rate of methane release into the atmosphere and stratosphere, generates a sequence of events that returns more heat back via the Methane Global Warming Veil to the source zone on the North American Continent. The arrival of the stratospheric Methane Global Warming Veil over North America has caused massive heating and drying, mammoth dust storms, extensive droughts, uncontrollable wild fires and extreme hurricane and tornado events and further global warming of the Gulf Stream in the following summer to fall.

We can look upon the globally heated Gulf Stream, as the North American greenhouse gas pollution hot line to climatic hell. The US and Canada must cut their global emissions of carbon dioxide by 80% to 90% in the next 10 to 15 years, otherwise they will be become an instrument of mass destruction of the Earth and its entire human population. To avoid this terminal calamity, all continent-wide gas fracking, coal and tar sand mining and oil drilling in North America must be immediately stopped.

Recovery of the United States economy from the financial crisis has been very unsoundly based by the present administration on an extremely hazardous "all-of-the-above" energy policy that has allowed continent-wide gas fracking, coal and oil sand mining and the return of widespread drilling to the Gulf Coast. This large amount of fossil fuel has to be transported and sold which has caused extensive spills, explosions and confrontations with US citizens over fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline. Gas fracking is in the process of destroying the entire aquifer systems of the United States and causing widespread earthquakes and sinkholes. The oil spills are doing the same to the surface river run off.

North America must undertake an immediate extreme reduction in carbon dioxide output by 80% to 90% by converting all their gas, oil and coal based electrical power stations to wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources in 10 to 15 years. All ground transport systems must be converted to electrical power energy sources and air and rocket transport to run on Arctic methane. If no action is taken within the next two to three years, the climatic pain will continue to get more and more severe and the recovery cost become astronomical. Russia already has onshore methane hydrate gas fields and developed natural or hydrogen gas powered Tupolev aircraft (Tupolev.ru, 2013) ) while NASA has developed methane rocket engines (NASA, 2007). The potential emission of toxic agents when using liquid natural gas are reduced in the following way. Carbon monoxide 1-10 times, Hydrocarbons 2.5-3 times, Nitrogen oxides 1.5-2 times, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons including benzapyrene 10 times (Tupolev, 2013).

The United States must immediately declare an international emergency of the most extreme kind and call for a UN conference of world governments, gas and oil companies, banks, engineers and scientists to select the fastest and most efficient way to deal with the escalating Arctic methane eruption threat. We are already 3 and a half years passed August 2010 when massive subsea atmospheric emissions started in earnest in the Arctic. The next two and a half years are all we have left to try to put a break on the Arctic methane emissions before the heating effects and sea level rise caused by the loss of floating Arctic and global deglaciation and Arctic methane induced global warming will be completely unstoppable and humanity will be facing total extinction before the middle of this Century (2040-2050).

Although the US Republican party is totally dominated by fossil fuel extraction corporations, it was the failure of previous and existing Democratic party Presidents to make the vital landmark decisions necessary to lead the world's society into a sustainable energy future. President Clinton refused to sign the original Kyoto Protocols, preferring short-term US economic recovery via the dirty fossil fuel route which has led us up to the present extreme climatic crisis tipping point. President Obama with his "all-of-the-above" energy policy is again out to achieve a short-term US economic recovery from the recent Wall Street crisis using dirty fossil fuels. The President has allowed continent-wide gas fracking, coal and tar sand mining and the return of drilling to the Gulf Coast. This has been further exacerbated by major transport of Canadian tar sand oil across the US and an inept foreign policy, where the US and Canada are attempting to take over the European market for their filthy fracked gas and tar sand oil by destroying Russia's credibility as an energy supplier.

A recent EPA initiative by the President to reduce US coal power station pollution by 30% by 2030 is totally insufficient and will not reduce the liability of the President as the greatest promoter of the absolute destruction of the United States environment and aquifer systems by continent wide filthy gas fracking, oil drilling and tar sand mining and the transport of Canadian bitumens by pipeline, road and rail. The Presidents EPA decision was clearly politically motivated as a whitewash for the coming elections. A great leader would have stopped all Federal tax subsidies and incentives paid to oil and gas companies and used this money to assist every one of the 600 U.S. coal power stations to gradually change to solar power including training for the staff and coal miners, so they can work effectively with the new renewable energy.

The Obama Administration and the Harper Government continue with “Business as Usual” while catastrophic global warming is being caused by unabated US and Canadian greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions have speeded up the Gulf Stream three times since the 1940's, transferred increasing volumes of heat to the subsea Arctic, which is now boiling off exponentially increasing amounts of methane from massive subsea methane hydrate reserves. This will cause an Arctic methane firestorm by 2040 to 2050, with total deglaciation and extinction of all life on Earth (Light 2012, 2013, 2014; Carana 2013, 2014). The President has in effect signed humanity's death warrant for a meeting with a fast approaching Arctic methane firestorm in 2040-2050. The only way out of this is for the US electorate to replace the entire US Congress, Senate and President with environmentally friendly and active groups who will react with the extreme speed that is necessary, to prevent our collision with eternity in 2040 - 2050. If either of the major parties remains in power in the US after the following elections, our fate is sealed.

We are now facing a devastating final show down with Mother Nature, which is being massively accelerated by the filthy extraction of fossil fuels by US and Canada by gas fracking, coal and tar sand mining and continent wide bitumen transport. The United States and other developed nations made a fatal mistake by refusing to sign the original Kyoto protocols. The United States and Canada must now cease all their fossil fuel extraction and go entirely onto renewable energy in the next 10 to 15 years, reducing their carbon dioxide emissions by 80% to 90% otherwise they will be guilty of planetary ecocide - genocide by the 2040 - 2050's. There must also be a world-wide effort to capture methane in the Arctic seabed and oceans and eradicate the quantities accumulating in the atmosphere.

What mankind has also done in his infinite stupidity with his extreme hydrocarbon addiction and fossil fuel induced global warming, has opened a giant, long standing (Permian to Recent) geopressured mantle - methane pressure - release safety valve (Enrico Pv Anomaly Extreme Methane Emission Zone) for gases generated in the asthenosphere (Earth's mantle) between 100 km and 300 km depth and temperatures above 1200°C (Light, 2014). There is now no fast way to reseal this system, because it will require extremely quick cooling of the Arctic Ocean, which cannot be achieved in the short time frame we have left to complete the job. Our only hope is to extract methane directly from reservoirs in the subsea Arctic methane hydrates (both methane hydrate and mantle methane), destroy the methane in the water before it gets into the atmosphere and simultaneously destroy the existing atmospheric methane using radio - laser systems (Alamo and Lucy Projects, Light and Carana, 2012, 2013).


Methane-Eating Symbiotic Bacteria which need a Tungsten Catalyst

Scientists at Georgia Tech University have found that at very low temperatures in the ocean, two symbiotic methane eating organisms group together, consume methane and excrete carbon dioxide which then reacts with minerals in the water to form carbonate mounds (Glass et al. 2013). These two symbiotic creatures, the bacteria and anaerobic methanotrophic archaea form bundles and require an enzyme (formyl methofuran dyhydrogenase) in the final methane oxidation reactions to convert methane to carbon dioxide. These organisms also need tungsten for this process to operate (Glass et al. 2013). In the low temperature environments of the methane seeps, tungsten appears easier for the organisms to use than molybdenum (Glass et al. 2013).

A method must be immediately developed for growing these methane consuming organisms in great quantities and delivering them with their vital tungsten operating enzyme to the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean, west of Svalbard in the area south of the ice-front, where the West Spitbergen Current dives beneath the ice should be continuously seeded with these methane consuming bacteria and tungsten enzymes (possibly by aircraft or boats), as should the Yermack Current in the Barents Sea. The entire length of the Eurasian Basin, The Enrico Pv anomaly extreme emission zone and Laptev Sea should also be seeded during the summer season when the ice cap has receeded from these regions.

As the Arctic ice cap shrinks, the size of the area that needs to be seeded will grow requiring greater resources from the worlds nations. This has to be done, for our very future existence depends on it. Similar seeding should be carried out over currents flowing beneath the Antarctic ice cap to prevent the release of large quantities of methane into the atmosphere from the destabilization of methane hydrates there. This means that the United States must fund a major project at Georgia Tech to quickly develop the means to grow these methane consuming bacteria in massive quantities with their tungsten enzyme and find the means to deliver them to the Polar oceans as soon as possible.


Lucy/Alamo Projects - Hydroxyl Generation and Atmospheric Methane Destruction

The Lucy Project is a radio beat-frequency/laser system for destroying the first hydrogen bond in atmospheric methane when it forms dangerously thick global warming clouds over the Arctic (Figure 32, Light and Carana, 2012). It generates similar gas products to those normally produced by the natural destruction of methane in the atmosphere over some 15 to 20 years (Figure 32). This system will use similar frequencies to those used in generating nano-diamonds from methane gas in commercial applications over the entire pressure range of the atmosphere from the surface to 50 km altitude (Figure 32, Light and Carana, 2012).

Methane produced at the surface diffuses upward and is broken down by photo dissociation (sunlight) and chemical attack by nascent oxygen and hydroxyl as below (Heicklen, 1967).


Photo Dissociation

CH4 + Sun’s Radiation = CH3 + H

Chemical Attack

O + CH4 = HO + CH3

          O + HO + CH3 = CH2O + H2O

                 HO + CH4 = CH3 + H2O

A modified version of the Lucy Project to generate hydroxyls at the sea surface using beams of polarized 13.56 MHZ radio beams is illustrated in Figure 32. In this system three additional transmitters on three separate ships will have their antenna placed slightly lower than the main 13.56 MHZ methane destruction antennae. Recent experiments have shown that when a test tube of seawater was illuminated by a polarized 13.56 MHZ radio beam, that flammable gases (nascent hydrogen and hydroxyls) were released at the top of the tube (iopscience.iop.org, 2013).

In the modified version of the Lucy Project, hydroxyls will be generated by a polarized 13.56 MHZ beam intersecting the sea surface over the region where a massive methane torch (plume) is entering the atmosphere so that the additional hydroxyl produced will react with the rising methane, breaking a large part of it down. In the Arctic Ocean, the polarized 13.56 MHZ radio waves will decompose atmospheric humidity, mist, fog, ocean spray and the surface of the waves themselves into nascent hydrogen and hydroxyl (iopscience.iop.org, 2013).

A better system could use Nd:glass heating lasers containing hexagonal neodymium which is stable below 863°C (Krupke 1986 in Lide and Frederickse, 1995). Neodymium glass lasers have extreme output parameters with peak powers near 10 to the power 14 watts when collimated and peak power densities of 10 to the power 18 watts per square cm if focused (Krupke 1986 in Lide and Frederickse, 1995). Velard (2006) states that at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, for inertial confinement nuclear fusion, "192 beams of Nd:glass-plate amplifier chains are being used in parallel clusters to generate very high energy (10 kilojoules) at a very high power here (>10 power 12 watts) and at the second and third harmonics of the fundamental, with flexible pulse shapes and with sophisticated spectral and spacial on-target laser light qualities". The Nd:glass laser system is more stable and efficient than the longer wavelength CO2 lasers and shorter wavelength KrF lasers (Velard, 2006).

The three 13.56 MHz radio transmitters in the Lucy Project could be replaced by 3 groups of parallel lasers each forming a giant circular flash lamp. Each Nd:glass laser in the flash lamp could be tuned to one frequency (M = 2.8476*10 power 8 MHz = 1052.78992 nm) which is exactly 21 million times the 13.56 MHZ methane destruction/nano - diamond formation frequency (Table 7)(Mitura, 1976). The adjacent alternate laser of to a slightly different fequency (N = 2.8475998644*10 power 8 MHz = 1052.78997 nm) will then be exactly out of phase with the primary frequency of (M =2.8476*10 power 8 MHz = 1052.78992 nm) by 13.56 MHz (Table 7). The Nd:glass lasers have a wavlength of 1052 nm equivalent to a frequency of 2.85*10 power 8 MHz. When two frequences M and N are almost the same, they will generate a beat frequency equal to (M - N) which in this case is equal to 13.56 MHz (Table 7)(Illingworth and Cullerne, 2000). This 13.56 MHz beat in the Nd:glass laser heating light beams will occur in the region where they beams overlap with one another in the methane cloud, and will produce an additional force tending to break down the methane molecules, because the 13.56 beat amplitude varies between twice that of the fundamental frequency (M) to zero (Illingworth and Cullerne, 2000).

The methane molecule requires 435 kilo-Joules per mole to dislodge the first hydrogen proton according to the reaction below and an average of 409.3 kJ per mole for the other three protons (Hutchinson, 2014).

CH4 = CH3 + H

Hydroxyl requires 493 kilo-Joules per mole for it to be generated from water as indicated below (Hutchinson, 2014)

H20 = H + OH

Other methane is then broken down by the chemical attack of the hydroxyl (Heicklen, 1967).

Nascent oxygen requires 498.3 kilo-Joules per mole for it to be generated from the stable O2 molecule as shown below (Hutchinson, 2014).

O2 = O + O

Other methane is then broken down by the chemical attack of the nascent oxygen which produces further active hydroxyl that destroys even more methane (Heicklen, 1967).

Because the energy of one of the Nd:glass laser beams is around 1.177 ev, when two alternate Nd:glass lasers are focused in the same region they will have an energy of 2.3553 electron volts (around 227.2563 kilo-Joules per mole). A set of four focused Nd: glass lasers will have an energy of about 454.5 kilo-Joules per mole, and will be strong enough to dislodge the first hydrogen proton from a methane molecule (Table 7). There will also be the additional energy effect caused by the 13.56 MHz beat, the amplitude of which varies from twice the amplitude of the fundamental (M) to zero. The mean energy (for a sign wave) at the beat amplitude peak is 1.414 times higher than the fundamental, ie close to 642.6 kilo-Joules per mole. The 13.56 MHz beat frequency on four focused Nd glass lasers should therefore produce more than enough energy to destroy methane and also generate hydroxyl and nascent oxygen. Of course this can also be achieved by increasing the number of focused lasers to six or eight. Exactly the same neodymium laser system could be shone on the sea surface, at the base of the rising methane cloud, generating hydroxyls and nascent oxygen and thus breaking down the methane.

The French/German Lidar atmospheric methane detecting satellite will give early warning of the build - up of methane in the stratospheric and tropospheric global warming veil. A methane detecting Lidar system should also be immediately installed on the International Space Station to detect methane in the atmosphere and act as a back up and additional calibration for the Merlin satellite.

We have only 10 to 15 years to get an efficient methane destruction radio - laser system designed, tested and installed (Lucy and Alamo (HAARP) Projects) before the accelerating methane eruptions take us into uncontrollable runaway global warming. This will give a leeway of 5 years before the critical 2°C temperature anomaly will have been exceeded and we will be looking at catastrophic storm systems, a fast rate of sea level rise and coastal zone flooding with its disastrous effects on world populations and global stability.


Angels Project

The Angels (Arctic Natural Gas Extraction, Liquefaction, Sale/Storage) project (Light, 2012; Light and Carana, 2012) are solutions to the extreme Arctic methane build-up that must be done in conjuction with a complete cut-back in carbon dioxide emissions from North America, if we have any hope of stopping this now, almost out of control, exponentially escalating build-up of methane in the atmosphere and its extreme enhancement of global warming.

The Angels project will require the drilling of inclined boreholes into the subsea Arctic permafrost/methane hydrates to drain the overpressured methane from beneath them and thus depressurize the reservoirs (Figure 33) (Light, 2012). This will stop many of the Arctic sea surface methane eruptions by drawing ocean water down the eruption zones and will allow a controlled destabilization of the undersea methane hydrates producing a natural gas source for many hundreds of years (Figure 33) (Light 2012). This gas can be liquified in surface plants, put into lNG tankers and sold as a feedstock for hydrogen plants or permanently stored in propane-ethane hydrates with carbon dioxide at ambient temperatures in deep ocean basins (Figure 33) (Carana, 2013).


Epilogue

My greatest admiration is for Mother Earth who has carefully held the atmospheric temperature within the stable range necessary for oceans to exist for at least 4 billion years and nurtured the earliest bacteria to evolve into today's space faring humans. To do this Mother Earth has many fail - safe mechanisms and correction factors that are activated if one of the systems goes off line. Such is the ocean/atmosphere cooling system for the giant plate magma-convection-turnover in the Earth's mantle. Mankind's greed and excessive consumption of the earth's natural resources has destroyed this stable state and the Earth will correct by eliminating humanity from the global warming equation, unless we change our ways by going immediately to renewable energy and clear the carbon dioxide and methane from the catastrophically warming atmosphere.

The driving force for the Earth's magma convection system is deep seated radioactivity within the Earth. From Mother Earth's point of view, all surface organic matter would be much more effectively placed in the world, at depths below 150 km in the globe encircling subduction zones. Here in the form of diamonds, the organic carbon would sharpen and speed up the rate of descent of the heavy subducting plates to counteract the failure of the ability of the atmosphere and oceans (caused by global warming) to conduct and convect the surface magmatic heat fast enough away into outer space, from the hot erupting magmatic ridges, volcanic arcs and cooling and sinking oceanic plates. Humanity's absolute incompetence and stupidity caused by our fatal addiction to fossil fuels in assessing and dealing with the impact of global warming and climate change can only lead to our total extinction in the near future. When it is all over by 2050, Aliens are sure to arrive and pick their way through the debris of our flooded cities when they come to terraform the Earth to their own liking.