• zd9@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I work in the computational climate space, and what we’ve all been screaming for decades has fallen on deaf ears, clogged by dollar bills from billionaires and fossil capital.

    • Jimbabwe@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      This comment inspired me to read about clathrates, which I did. But somehow, despite all my newfound clathrate expertise, I am still clueless about what a clathrate gun is…

      • zd9@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Just looked it up. It’s yet another climate tipping point. The idea is that warming ocean waters will cause deep frozen sheets on the ocean floor to crack and release tons of methane from the crust, which is a huge irreversible negative feedback loop.

        It’s similar to arctic permafrost melting which causes the methane stored in the frozen bogs in Russia to escape. Methane is more than 80x worse than CO2 for climate heating.

        edit: funnily enough I was just looking at the novel The Deluge by Markley that covers a similar event.