Diffiiculties in the anthropogenic concept of global warming and the seismogenic trigger mechanism of climate change

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Abstract

Diffiiculties in the anthropogenic concept of global warming are discussed and a seismogenic trigger mechanism for climate change is proposed.The essence of this mechanism is that methane contained in the micropores of frozen rocks in a locked state can be released as a result of the destruction of the microstructure of the environment due to additional stresses caused by the trigger effect of deformation waves passing through gas-saturated areas of sedimentary strata. The waves themselves are generated by the strongest earthquakes that occur in subduction zones. With a characteristic speed of deformation waves of the order of 100 km/year, they travel a distance of about 2000–2500 km from the Aleutian and Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zones to the Arctic zone in approximately 20–25 years. This corresponds to the time difference between a series of the most powerful earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 8.5, which occurred in these zones in the interval 1952–1965, and the beginning of a sharp climate warming in 1980. After the start of the gas filtration process as a result of the destruction of the pore microstructure and a sharp increasing the permeability of the geomedium due to the impact of a deformation wave, the process of methane emission can continue autonomously for tens and even hundreds of years, depending on the thickness of the disturbed gas-saturated layer. This explains the ongoing emission of methane on the Arctic shelf for the last forty-odd years after the strongest earthquakes of the middle of the last century that initiated it.

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Leopold I. Lobkovsky

Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Scieces; Sakhalin State University/SakhTECH

Email: llobkovsky@ocean.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8033-8452

Academician of RAS, Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics, Professor, International Center of the Far-Eastern and Arctic Seas (named by admiral S.O. Makarov)

Russian Federation, Moscow; Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

Igor P. Semiletov

V. I. Il’yichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, FEB RAS; Sakhalin State University/SakhTECH

Email: ipsemiletov@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1741-6734

Corresponding Member of RAS, Doctor of Sciences in Geology and Mineralogy, Professor, International Center of the Far-Eastern and Arctic Seas (named by admiral S.O. Makarov)

Russian Federation, Vladivostok; Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

Alexey A. Baranov

Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, RAS

Author for correspondence.
Email: aabaranov@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7793-5555

Candidate of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics

Russian Federation, Moscow

Irina S. Vladimirova

Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Scieces

Email: vladis@gsras.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7301-7183

Candidate of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics

Russian Federation, Moscow

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. The picture of the change in the average temperature of the Earth over the last two thousand years. The blue curve is a temperature graph reconstructed from various data, the blue area is the confidence interval, the black shows the temperature in the instrumental period [2], modified.

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3. Fig. 2. Change in the average temperature of the Earth over the last thousand years. Red graph – global temperature from the 1990 IPCC report [5], modified; blue graph – global temperature from the 2001 report [6], modified; black graph – global temperature from [7], modified.

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4. Fig. 3. Comparison of the graph of CO2 emissions [11] and the graph of average temperature changes in the Arctic during the 20th and early 21st centuries (studies by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute), modified. The red bold lines show the phases of rapid warming.

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5. Fig. 4. Comparison of graphs: a – changes in average temperature in the Arctic during the 20th and early 21st centuries [15], modified; b – time sequence of the strongest earthquakes according to [16], modified.

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6. Fig. 5. Propagation of deformation waves in the Arctic region caused by the strongest earthquakes in the Aleutian and Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zones.

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7. Fig. 6. The impact of sea level change on the stability of Arctic gas hydrates: a – cold period, sea level is lowered, the bottom of the shallow Arctic shelf comes to the surface, average annual temperature is –17 °C; b – warm period, sea level is higher, the shelf is flooded, average annual water temperature is –1 °C [17].

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8. Fig. 7. Average concentration of methane in the atmosphere: a – graphs showing the globally averaged monthly average value of methane in the atmosphere [30]; b – graph of annual increments of atmospheric CH4 based on globally averaged data on the sea surface [31].

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9. Fig. 8. Comparison of changes in the Earth's seismic activity and variations in the concentration of methane in the atmosphere. The solid line shows the envelope curve reflecting the change in the average annual increments of methane concentration in the atmosphere in the period 1984–2022. The dotted line shows the curve of variations in the level of seismic activity of the Earth, determined by large earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 8 for the period 1964–2002 [32].

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10. Fig. 9. Vertical filtration of methane caused by the trigger effect of deformation waves (thick solid arrows), the rise of methane bubbles in water – seeps (dashed arrows).

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