This is an excerpt from a posting to the Sierra Club Global Warming Chairs 
listserve, 9-2-05, by Julian Powers.
===========================================
3.  The world's largest frozen peat bog, the size of Germany and  
France combined, is melting.  A Russian botanist and a scientist from  
the University of Oxford have reported a "dramatic transformation" in  
western Siberia as many shallow lakes have formed on previously  
permanently frozen tundra over that million square kilometer area.   
A  University of Arizona, Tucson scientist earlier this summer  
reported the same developments in Alaska.  A scientist from the  
University of Alaska reported that methane was bubbling from thawing  
permafrost, even in the midst of winter!  Very preliminary estimates  
of methane release from thawing tundra range from "billions of tons"  
to "hundreds of billions of tons"!  Molecule to molecule, methane is  
20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The Russian  
botanist described "an ecological landslide that is PROBABLY  
IRREVERSIBLE and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming".  In  
engineering terms, this methane gas release causing more global  
warming which causes more methane gas release, etc. is called  
positive feedback.  Bluntly put, global warming is apparently out of  
control of humans.  Mother Nature may have more surprises as NOBODY  
fully understands the climate.

Sleep well.
Julian


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