The typical predictions of irreversible environmental catastrophe around every corner naively dismiss the power of nature. The forces of nature regularly demonstrate astonishing resilience and restorative power. A timely case in point: In July 2010, after three months of continuous oil flow from BP’s ruptured deepwater well, the levels of methane gas in the Gulf of Mexico were tens of thousands of times higher than normal. An estimated 200,000 tons of methane accompanied the approximately 4.4 million barrels of oil released during the 87 day spill. Such elevated levels of methane, considered highly destructive to marine ecosystems, have now disappeared. Many scientists predicted the persistence of high methane levels for years. By October 2010, methane levels had returned to normal.
The microbial bacteria in the Gulf waters apparently consumed this gargantuan volume of excess methane gas. Such is the peer-reviewed conclusion of a federally-sponsored research study published in the journal Science. Researchers from several universities conducted a field study based on samples taken between August and October 2010 at 207 monitoring stations across 38,000 square miles in the Gulf. The study concludes that naturally occurring bacteria (or microbes) simply “ate-up” the extra methane. In so doing, the microbes decreased the oxygen content of the waters but not to levels threatening marine life. According to the study, the drop in oxygen was precisely equivalent to the amount of oxygen that the microbes would need to metabolize the methane.
Last summer, headlines predicted protracted or permanent ecological devastation of the coastal resources and offshore waters of the Gulf. A recently released report from the damage assessment team of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) tells a decidedly different story. NOAA now finds that very little oil from the spill remains offshore and any detected remnants of the chemical dispersants are below federal safety standards. Most federal and state fisheries are again open. Damage to the coastal areas may well persist in certain areas and it will take more time to confirm initial assessments of recovery. The depth and vast 38,000 square mile breadth of the Gulf of Mexico, however, unquestionably facilitated the naturally assimilative capacity of the offshore marine system. This stands in contrast to other oil spills, such as the Exxon Valdez, where proximity to shore and confining straits prevented rapid assimilation of the oil.
Mainstream environmental policy, embedded in U.S. law and agency rule, assumes natural systems, such as gulf waters or forests, are fragile and subject to inexorable decline as a result of human action. Many case studies, however, demonstrate that natural systems are powerfully restorative. Although the hand of man can destructively impact natural ecology, man’s impact often pales in comparison to nature’s dynamic power to adapt and restore.
The science undergirding global warming alarmism assumes that the atmospheric determinants of climate – water vapor, aerosols, clouds, and that not-so-minor factor of solar activity – are hypersensitive to the comparatively minute increase of carbon dioxide added by man’s combustion of fossil fuels over the last century. Could the Earth’s climate system be so fragile?
Emerging observational measurement of how climate variables interact does not confirm the “official” scientific models of anthropogenic CO2’s heat-trapping effects. Indeed, the observational evidence from satellites suggests that natural determinants of climate change largely cancel out those effects.
This recent study on methane and microbes in the Gulf throws some light on global warming science. Methane is a greenhouse gas with far more heat-trapping potential than CO2. Some climate scientists have worried that releases of methane gas from large reservoirs beneath the seafloor might exacerbate global warming. If bacterial microbes can rapidly and efficiently compensate for an additional 200,000 tons of methane gas, as has evidently occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps the natural dynamics of the ocean may – as may the atmospheric dynamics of climate – deftly trump the tiny hand of man.
-Kathleen Hartnett White