#Tegtmeier
🎶 What you don't know you'll need to explain on your own.
Was man nicht selber weiß, das muss man sich erklären. 🎶

When I was a teenager, Tegtmeier was a German TV figure 1984-85, played by Jürgen von Manger. In the show, he travelled Europe and explained to himself and his audience all kinds of stuff he found curious. His explanations were based on his common sense alone.
And he sang that little tune "Was man nicht selber weiß, das muss man sich erklären." 🎶

Now, since I became #climate aware, my guilty conscience (WHY didn't I get it earlier?!?!?) and natural curiosity has me tegtmeiern a lot. See? I used the name as verb, with the German infinitive "n" at the end ! Cause that's what I'm doing when I go on a quest to figure out how stuff works in the big eco and climate clusterfuck: I tegtmeiere ("e" = suffix for verb in presence, first person singular).

Using my common sense alone isn't enough, of course.
But still, having to catch up in soo many areas unknown to me until 2018, I feel the need to preserve my self-image at least a little bit. Not knowing stuff wasn't a prominent part of my self-image before – unless coupled with successful tegtmeiern. It's a
personally disorienting experience, having ignored for most of my life THE most existential topic of all time, and now, based on that big unknown, having to re-design all of my philosophy and values.

So when I come across something I don't know and find curious enough to explain to myself, I apply my uneducated, unfactual common sense as first pointer to where to search for answers. Humming #Tegtmeier 's silly, little tune to myself: 🎶 What I don't know myself, I'll find an explanation 🎶
And I decided that I'll be using #Tegtmeier as hashtag for my quests here in the Fediverse.

Next two #Tegtmeier topics: #clathrate #ClathrateBomb
and #AMOC slowdown.
I pulled ocean temperature measurements from the World Ocean Database for the topic of the clathrate scare.
And once I had gotten a feel for the data and what I can and can not do with it, I pulled some more data for the wider region around the #ColdBlob

When I get around posting about the two things, watch out for the hashtag #Tegtmeier .

💃 🎶

Read 2 papers about what happens to CH4 in the water column. One from onsite inspection after #DeepWaterHorizon. But that's in 800-1200m. Needless to say, CH4 doesn't make it to the surface. Bacteria eat methane, CH4 is oxidised to CO2 (which acidifies the ocean. Bad!).

The other paper is about CH4 seeps in 240m from thawed (!) #clathrate
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278434313002604
Winter currents may drive some CH4 up to the atmo but summer stratification def-o holds CH4 down.
Take away: don't fret💃🏼 much😁

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1346
Miller et al 2020 charted 65million years of #sealevel with CO2 and temperature. The Pliocene at the very top and the blue curve in the centre chart shows that sea level in the Pliocene undulated between 30m and -40m.

Noteworthy is also that sea level was never lower than in the last #IceAge with -120m. I wonder what that means for #clathrate #hydrate on continental shelves – and for potential fossil CH4 gas pockets beneath them I mentioned elsewhere. Hm. Hm.🤔

@SusanKraemer
It's methane from ~ contemporary microbes digesting what trickles down to the ocean floor as dead sea creatures. Pressure and ºC freezes CH4 + H2O Why those microbes live on relatively shallow continental shelves (and produce methane): only there sea creatures are abundant. In deeper seas, the ocean floor is scarce living for these microbes or otherwise uninhabitable for them.

The potential gas pockets beneath the #clathrate are old fossil gas, tho, like on land in permafrost.

@SusanKraemer
Ja #clathrate or methane #hydrate are CH4 and water frozen ~ solid. And under this solid ice lid, gazeous methane bubbles may exist, as well.
A lot like the round permafrost holes that appear when the lid on the gazeous bubbles thaws and the gas escapes.

In the first 20 years, emitted methane has a warming effect 80x that of CO2.
In the decade 2010-2019 the average concentration of 1830ppb (or 1.8ppm) CH4 caused 0.51ºC warming.
Whereas Ø 400ppm CO2 caused 0.7ºC, see #AR6-WG1

#Clathrate
To stay stable, clathrates require pressure. Ocean depths of >350m provide enough pressure.

The top map shows ocean depths as white which are shallower than 280m.
The bottom map shows known clathrate reservoirs in brown.

Puzzling difference: many ocean regions near costs are white but appear to have clathrate? Eg., north of Siberia and Alaska, South of Indonesia, West of Ireland.

One of my sources must be wrong. Which one?

Anyway. +1ºC in 500m depth breaks the ice cap and WAM.