----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Grimes" <cgrimes at tsoft.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2001 5:51 PM Subject: Re: The Independent:Methane threatens to repeat Ice Age meltdown
>
> ``..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
>
> ---------
>
> 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
=========
Am I amiss in guessing that Lorenz showed that climate dynamics are non-equilibrium processes?
Ian