re: #103 LudwigVanQuixote

Getting back to a science-friendly discussion of the topic at hand, have you seen this before?

Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point

Here’s one piece of mitigating information: it’s unclear how long this methane leak has been happening, or the degree to which the measured methane levels exceeds previous amounts. If we’re lucky, this is actually a status quo situation, and we still have time before we reach a tipping point. But basing our strategy on “if we’re lucky” is not very wise.

They go on to say:

So what about methanotrophic bacteria? Such bacteria have long been recognized in freshwater areas and soil, and have had limited use in bioremediation efforts…research suggests that methanotrophic Archaea may be responsible for the oxidation of up to 80% of the methane in the oceans…So here’s the proposal: we need to deploy methanotrophic microbes at the East Siberian Ice Shelf.

It does sound like a bit of a “Hail Mary” pass, but given recent advances in bioengineering, it might be possible…