[Titanscape (OP)]

As I understand from documentaries, CO2 is a greenhouse gas trapping heat from the sun. The more the hotter.

Methane is even more of a potent greenhouse gas.

Methane is trapped under the sea in the form of ice, below the bottom, in the clay. Because of C02 from cars, and power plants, and animals breath, and from animals methane from them, the atmosphere is heating up, and thus the sea is too.

The danger is, huge amounts of methane could be released, and so much in fact, that the planet could heat up by 17 degrees centigrade. Places like San Francisco would get unbearably hot summers, killing people, billions of people would have to go and live in Canada and Greenland.

The sea would stink and possibly suffocate people.

I have a possible solution, OMIGs. Oceanic Methane Igniting Buoys. Made cheaply in China, they could bet set one per each 500M squared, run off batteries and charged by solar power, they could spark up once every 15 minutes in order to ignite the methane, so it burns in air into CO2 and H2O. Not as bad as methane.

Not a perfect solution but an aid. What do you think?

[Chemistry4me]

How cheap are these OMIGs? What are their dimensions?

[Titanscape (OP)]

I am thinking a composition of solar cells in the middle of a circular buoy with rechargeable batteries for night time, about 30 CM diameter. About 45 CM height. And electric sparkers at five points around the surface above the water line. Also Japanese technology comes to mind, in the motion charger, that uses kinetic energy.

Plastic, weighted bottom heavy by components. Conical to a narrowed point under the water.

Sparking every fifteen minutes.

I am thinking about a pound each, design work costing more and bulk manufacture the mains. Enduring plastic or cheap metal, tin, copper aluminium or fibre glass.

Was I right about the 17 degrees, maybe it was Fahrenheit?

[Titanscape (OP)]

Bubbling gases would mean it would sink, at least for a moment, on resurface, a sparking would make the objective of combustion start.

Should be OMIBs I suppose Ignite got me to write OMIG.

[lyner]

I could do with and OMIB in my bath, sometimes.

[dentstudent]

Has-beans?

[Madidus_Scientia]

Is the methane really going to be so concentrated you can light the ocean up like a shot of spirits?

[Titanscape (OP)]

I expect discharges.

[Madidus_Scientia]

So one of these devices will spark and then what? the surface of the ocean explodes?

[lyner]

These buoys would have to be inhibited if there are ships about.

I think it would be better to use wave energy to charge the system than solar - there would always be some in deep ocean and it wouldn't matter if it got covered in marine growth or bird poo.
When ignited, it would be less of an explosion - more of a big flame - because the gas is not mixed with air, only on the outside surface. Pretty impressive, though.

[Titanscape (OP)]

I also consider that bubbling methane, would cause buoyancy loss, the buoy might have to have a little motor in it and wings, to beat itself out of the silt. And spark on refloatation. Diligently.

[Phil1907]

The model your projecting is sheer speculation.  Even in true - methane is unlikely to come out in a combustible comcentration.  Remember - combustion of methane results in carbon dioxide and water.

[JimBob]

This would be an unacceptable solution. One of the main by-products of burning methane is water. Water is a better insulator for heat in the atmosphere than methane. By putting more water in the atmosphere you are doing more damage.

[Titanscape (OP)]

It gives water and carbon dioxide, smoke, it would clear away, steam comes off the sea anyway, thus we have clouds. It will rain, and the CO2 be consumed by land plants and sea surface plants. But tell me what would happen to the methane coming from the two thirds of the of the Earth, which is the sea bed?

What happens to methane, how long does it last in the sun?

And how come the earth quake, which caused the Asian Tsunami, didn't spew up large amounts of methane?

[Bored chemist]

This would be an unacceptable solution. One of the main by-products of burning methane is water. Water is a better insulator for heat in the atmosphere than methane. By putting more water in the atmosphere you are doing more damage.

The amount of water you would add is tiny compared to the amount that is already there. Also there is so much water vapour that practically all the IR that is at the right wavelengths to be absorbed by water already is absorbed. Adding more water wouldn't make much difference to the net absorbtion of IR.
On the other hand, there's not a lot of methane so even a small increase makes a difference.

BTW, methane flames don't generally smoke much.

[yor_on]

Titanscape?
Where did you get the numbers from?

If the Methane under the oceans would be released there would be no breathable atmosphere left as I understands it. And your buoys will only work when its already getting released.

I've seen Discovery Chanel doing a lot of 'lone ranger saves out Earth' solutions/program's.
Although I can understand the attraction of that kind of thinking I'm pretty sure that there are no single solution to this problem.
And nobody want to stop using their car(s) right:)

At the middle of this post I address the problems we will have with methane.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=19600.msg219459#msg219459

Please read it through.
Then feel free to give me your sources of information.
As they definitively differ from mine:)

[Mazurka]

Not sure where the idea of smelly seas due to methane comes from either.  Methane is colourless and odourless.  Sulphide from anaerobic microbes stinks of rotten eggs which you can get if you disturb black mud in the bottom of unhealthy ponds. 

Are you taking about the release of methane from clathrates?  Methane (probably from microbes breaking down organic matter that has sunk to the bottom) can be trapped in a kind of water ice (2C and greater than 300m depth).  Whilst these substances would become unstable at higher temperatures it will take quite some time for warmed surface layers to mix to that depth.  I don't know what the phase drg looks like (ask a chemist!) but possibly an increased oceanic depth due to sea level rise could countact the warming effect?

[Chemistry4me]

I don't know what the phase drg looks like (ask a chemist!) but possibly an increased oceanic depth due to sea level rise could countact the warming effect?

[][]

[Mazurka]

I don't know what the phase drg looks like (ask a chemist!) but possibly an increased oceanic depth due to sea level rise could countact the warming effect?

[][]

Sorry,phase diagram i.e graph with temperature and pressure as the axes showing what conditions a substance is stable in its different phases (solid/ liquid/ gas) 
I googled it for methane clathrate this morning but don't have access to the academic papers that show it[]

[Titanscape (OP)]

If the Antarctic melts completely, which would take hundreds of years, the sea levels would rise at least 80 metres. Methane could speed that up.