"Robert Grumbine" wrote in message
...

Or glaciologists (et al.). I was peripherally involved in a paper
on the release of methane clathrates due to the depressurization
caused by the removal of the Laurentide ice sheet -- in 1987.
Methane clathrates were known to the climate community well before 2000.

I first learnt about them in casual conversation with a geologist after he had
given a talk on British oil prospecting. He told me that the Bermuda Triangle
disasters may have been caused by methane escaping from clathrates. I told
him that I thought the Bermuda Triangle was a myth like the Loch Ness monster.
Just one more of the many scientists I seem to have offended :-(

Soon after that I read about the 'Methane Burp" in Science. That was six
years ago nearly to the day;
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../286/5444/1465

Cheers, Alastair.