``..55 million years ago, a massive blast of gas drove up Earth's temperature 7C. And another explosion is on the cards, say experts...''', by David Keys, 16 June 2001
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Giant fart threatens civilized life as we know it?
Well, at least the explanation of a massive increase in atmospheric methane might help modify the Alvarez hypothesis of a giant meteorite. Such a methane hypothesis or explanation has the virtue of a naturally occurring feedback loop with more warming increasing the effect in a quasi-exponential rate. This sets up a nice system model where something like industrialization, or some other large scale process that produces large increases in CO2, over a short period, can act like a trigger. Once the trigger is pulled it sets off the in tandem production of methane, which then becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that moves climate into irreversible and different conditions until some new equilibrium state is reach.
Chuck Grimes