Methane fever: an undersea methane explosion may have driven the most rapid warming episode of the past 90 million years

Article Abstract:

The cooperative research efforts of Gerald Dickens and Miriam E. Katz have produced the best evidence for proving that methane gases released from the ocean floor caused extinction-level global climate changes during the Paleocene epoch. Sediment recovered from the ocean floor northeast of Florida reveals a carbon isotope spike in the fossil record of floor-dwelling microscopic creatures known as foraminifera. Dickens argues that the methane hydrate deposits currently in the ocean amount to 15 trillion tons of gas.

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Debit or Credit?

Article Abstract:

Global warming research that has informed environmental legislation such as the Kyoto Protocol has made assumptions regarding the role of forests and oceans as carbon sinks. Scientists are divided, however, on how to quantify offsetting effects of carbon sinks, especially with reference to theory known as carbon dioxide fertilization. According to this supposition, carbon dioxide, which trees consume to produce oxygen, has a beneficial environmental result that offsets its negative effects.

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Survival of the smallest

Article Abstract:

Continuous experiments on captive fish reveal that harvesting only the largest individuals can actually force a species to evolve undesirable characteristics that diminish overfished stock's ability to recover. Results might explain why many of the world's most depleted stocks do not rebound as quickly as expected.

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