re: #937 Pythagoras

Actually, 2006 was higher than 2005 — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The arctic sea ice is steadily trending downward but the big random factor is wind. There is often a big wind from the Bering Strait across towards England. This pushes a lot of ice out into the north Atlantic where it melts. 2007 had huge wind, this year had very little. That’s just random.

It is trending downward and you should hear our Admirals talk about this. There are big security issues related to everyone jumping into the Arctic to tap the resources.

And all that methane is another wild-card. If we can harvest it, then instead of it being a major greenhouse gas, it’s a relatively low carbon energy source. If there’s as much of it as some claim, it’s energy for the whole planet for a long time. Running cars on CH4 beats the pants off using gasoline.

[Link: www.thestar.com…]

Yeah. But how to harvest methane bubbling up from random spots on the ocean floor? Unless it’s not random. ANd just FTR, I was counting 09, 08, and 07 as the “3 most recent” years. 09 is already lower (fractionally) than 06 minimum, it looks like.