Dams Can Increase Global Warming?

[ritu 1]

It has always been thought that the construction of dams and reservoirs would help in the conservation of one of the most essential resources of life on the Earth, water. But a recent study has found out that the same dams and reservoirs are responsible for bringing in an increase in the level of global warming or even being one of the primary causes of global warming.They have been found to emit greenhouse gases like methane which is supposedly 25 times more capable of gulping in heat than carbon dioxide.

The activity of water being drawn up and down becomes the main reason of being responsible of emitting greenhouse gases, The study was conducted by the researchers in the Washington State University Vancouver studied thoroughly the Lacamas lake in Clark County, and after observing the water columns there, found that the dissolved gases would be released and the amount of methane 20 times when the water would be drawn down.The lake mud had some bubbles rising and they found that when the mud would face a drawing down the release of methane would be increasing by 36 times!

This would certainly arouse the concern of the people associated with the cause of conserving the nature and control the emission of green house gases.

Source

[sheepdog 10]

I'm not a scientist by any means, but this doesn't make much sense to me. First, I don't see gasses being released from free flowing water. But even if it did have gasses escaping from it would it not do so also if it was not dammed up and was free flowing as a river? And second, yes, methane is released from bubbles in the ooze and slim in the bottom of the lake from decompsing matter, fish poo, bugs, trees, anything that falls into the water and eventually sinks to the bottom, etc. But methane will also be released from dry matter decomposing on top on dry ground too. Why would more methane be made just because it's underwater to start with?

[ritu 1]

Actually the point is that to tackle the issue of global warming, all the causes need to be detected and measures to ,prevent such causes should follow. It is not that only dams are responsible to increase the supply of methane in the air, but even if they do so for a minor amount, it should be taken care of.I am not a scientist either, but since now the scientists have found out this fact about dams, they will certainly devise a way which does not the service of the dams and controls the amount of methane as well.

[fermin25 3]

I must say, this does not make sense to me as it will generate more methane under water in dams than in the water surface or on dry land? But I see in the source that is true but my point of view this finding should not be generalized only because the dam at Lake Lacamas was found this. The most logical question after reading this article is How will the water be accumulated in the future?Surprise beyond normal this discovery. For example in my town the water dam is in the beginning of the river in the mountains to get the effects of gravity to lower the water to the village houses. I know that many people we have running water in their homes have begun to suffer from certain skin conditions such as allergies and atopic dermatitis. Methane will be related to this? Maybe not. But I think that at least in poor countries like mine will be very difficult to get rid of the dam as it is the cheapest way to collect and distribute water.So in my opinion the scientists must do a thorough research to test whether the methane produced in the bottom of the water dams is significant in the emission of greenhouse gases because if it is not I think it should keep the as water dams are more economically viable because it would at least for poor countries that change your entire infrastructure of aqueducts and dams to prevent global warming.It is the problem of global warming is leaving large wounds on Mother Earth not heal easily. But there are also poor people who unfortunately do not have anything more to use the little infrastructure that a small country can offer. So in this case people should prioritize global climate. That is my opinion.

[sheepdog 10]

Yes, but is this really science, or is it junk science? You realize that there are a lot of government grants out there that scientist strive to gain, and some studies are bogus, or have no real value in the grand scheme of things to start with. The whole global warming thing is suspect to start with. Have you noticed that studies often reach opposite conclusions when 2 different groups study the same thing?

[k_nitin_r 8]

I'm not a scientist by any means, but this doesn't make much sense to me.

sheepdog,

Biological ecosystems are complex such that the implications of any change made does not immediately seem apparently till the effects are felt. Researchers can easily provide or disprove a point by the manner in which they perform their research therefore there is a peer-review process and the requirement of having to disclose details of the organizations providing funding for the research to help in reducing bias (not that bias still does not creep into research in some form, but it does help mitigate the problem by a bit).

When we talk about dams, we need to consider that they create some stagnation of water and an accumulation of matter that would normally just flow downstream or get washed ashore. This accumulation causes a greater opportunity for micro-organisms to work at decomposition of whatever matter they can find and the anaerobic conditions tend to accelerate their growth. Remember the oxygenation process that some water processing plants use for the treatment of water?

When a dam is constructed, it creates a greater depth of water. Think of the forlorn fish that could just swim down a few feet to get a bite of the sea weed (I don't really know, do fish even eat sea weed?). It now has to travel farther to get to the sea weed, assuming that the sea weed can still grow at those depths. Then, there is the issue of decaying sea weed because the fish decides to migrate to shallower waters so when the sea weed does die out, the necrosis-ridden leaves are left at the bottom of the river bed and the anaerobic bacteria can party all day with the reduced oxygen at lower levels of the river bed because of the increased water depth.

Scientists seem to go into the intricate details to determine the effects of a phenomenon and therefore can catch the little details that seem to escape us. They draw upon previous research by performing a literature review prior to even getting funding for their research and they do encounter cases when half the research points one way and the other half of the research points the other way. They do eventually decide to go ahead with the research anyway and their own research can seem to point one way with the results but then after a statistical analysis, it points the other way. Using quantitative measures in a research study at least seem logical and scientific. You ought to look at the qualitative research studies that seem to focus on the thoughts and feelings to draw themes or patterns from the thought processes of the research subjects. While trying to get a grasp of the research process myself, I have read about different kinds of studies and have seen research papers based on surveys - when you go about surveying a group of people, what is the likelihood that he or she is telling the truth, even if you do claim that all of the data that you collect is going to be kept private and confidential? And even with the promise of keeping the data confidential, the person administering the survey could take a quick peek at the options marked in the survey response for all we know as respondents so there's again another incentive to lie on a survey response. Oh, and remember how employers decide to terminate their employees based on their FaceBook postings? What assurance do individuals have that their employers will not have them terminated over information provided in an interview or a survey response? With the supply and demand tipping in the favor of organizations that are recruiting, they can easily hand someone a pink slip and decide to hire somebody else to replace him or her quicker than you can say abracadabra.

There are a whole lot of variables that go into a research study and it is not possible for the researcher to control them all, so we just assume that the effect of the factors that are beyond the control of the researcher are negligible in nature and so we take for granted that the research study supports a particular view (though we never really say that the research study proves or disproves anything because there is almost always a margin or error or an anomaly, and there's the fact that the study is performed on a sample of the population so the research study attempts to generalize the findings from the study to the population. There are studies performed on whole populations as well, but those are few and far).