The following is reprinted from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: World of Odd. Here’s the story of how scientists unlocked the secrets of the worst natural disaster in the history of the West African nation of Cameroon… and what they’re doing to try and stop it from happening again. THE DISCOVERY
SOMETHING BIG Nyos village, where nearly 2,000 people were killed (Image Credit: Jack Lockwood) By the time the man got back to the village, the first survivors of whatever it was that had struck Nyos and other nearby villages were already stumbling into Wum. Many told tales of hearing an explosion or rumbling noise in the distance, then smelling strange smells and passing out for as long as 36 hours before waking up to discover that everyone around them was dead. Wum is in a remote part of Cameroon, so it took two days for a medical team to arrive in the area after local officials called the governor to report the strange occurrence. The doctors found a catastrophe far greater than they could have imagined: Overnight, something had killed nearly 1,800 people. Plus more than 3,000 cattle and countless wild animals, birds and insects—in short every living creature for miles around. The official death toll was recorded as 1,746 people, but that was only an estimate, because the survivors had already begun to bury victims in mass graves, and many terrified survivors had fled corpse-filled villages and were hiding in the forest. Whatever it was that killed so many people seemed to have disappeared without a trace just as quickly as it had come. LOOKING FOR CLUES What could have caused so many deaths in such a short span of time? When word of the disaster reached the outside world, scientists from France (Cameroon is a former French colony), the United States, and other countries arrived to help the country’s own scientists figure out what had happened. The remains if the victims offered few clues. There was no evidence of bleeding, physical trauma, or disease, and no sign of exposure to radiation, chemical weapons, or poison gas. And there was no evidence of suffering or “death agony”: The victims apparently just blacked out, fell over, and died. One of the first important clues was the distribution of the victims across the landscape: The deaths had all occurred within about 12 miles of Lake Nyos, which some local tribes called the “bad lake.” Legend had that long ago, evil spirits had risen out of the lake and killed all the people living in a village at the water’s edge. Both the number of victims and the presence of fatalities increased as the scientists got closer to the lake: In the outlying villages many people, especially those who had remained inside their homes, had survived, while in Nyos, which is less than two miles away was the closest village to the lake, only 6 of more than 800 villagers were still alive. But it was the lake itself that provided the biggest and strangest clue of all: its normally clear blue waters has turned a deep, murky red. The scientists began to wonder if there was more to the legend of the “bad lake” than anyone had realized. STILL LIFE Lake Nyos is roughly one square mile in surface area and has a maximum depth of 690 feet. It’s what’s known as a “crater lake”—it formed when the crater of a long-extinct volcano filled with water. But was the volcano really extinct? Maybe an eruption was the culprit: Maybe the volcano beneath the lake had come back to life and in the process suddenly released enough poison gas to kill every living creature over a very wide area. The theory was compelling but problematic: An eruption capable of releasing enough poison gas to kill that many people over that wide an area would have been very violent and accompanied by plenty of seismic activity. None of the eyewitnesses had mentioned earthquakes, and when the scientists checked with seismic recording station 140 miles away, it showed no evidence of unusual activity on the evening of August 21. This was backed up by the fact that even in the hardest-hit villages, goods were still piled high on shelves in homes where every member of the house-hold had been killed. And the scientists noticed another mysterious clue: The oil lamps in these homes had all been extinguished even the ones still filled with plenty of oil. TESTING THE WATERS The scientists began to test water samples taken from various depths in the lake. The red on the surface turned out to be dissolved iron—normally found on the bottom of the lake, not the top. Somehow the sediment at the bottom had been stirred up and the iron brought to the surface, where it turned the color of rust after coming into contact with oxygen. CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE As the scientists took samples from deeper and deeper in Lake Nyos, the already high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels climbed steadily higher. At the 600 foot depth, the levels suddenly shot off the charts. Beyond that depth, the CO2 levels were so high that when the scientists tried to pull the samples to the surface, the containers burst from the pressure of all the gas that came out of solution. The scientists had to switch to pressurized containers to collect their samples, and when they did they were stunned to find that the water at the bottom of the lake contained five gallons of dissolved CO2 for every gallon of water. As the scientists pieced together the evidence, they began to form a theory that centered around the large amount of CO2 in the lake. The volcano that formed Lake Nyos may have been long extinct, but the magma chamber that fed it was still active deep below the surface of the Earth. And it was still releasing carbon dioxide gas—not just into Lake Nyos, but into the surrounding environment as well. In fact, it’s not uncommon in Cameroon to find frogs and other small animals suffocated in CO2 “puddles” that have formed in low points along the ground. (CO2 is heavier than air and can pool in low spots until the wind blows it away.) But what was unusual about Lake Nyos wasn't that there was CO2 in the lake; that happens in lakes all over the world. What was unusual was that the CO2 had apparently never left—instead of bubbling to the surface and dissipating into the air, the CO2 was accumulating at the bottom of the lake. UPS AND DOWNS In most lakes CO2 escaped because the water is continually circulating, thanks to a process known as convection: Rain, cold weather or even just wind blowing across the surface of the lake can cause the topmost layer of water to cool, making it denser and therefore heavier than the warmer layer below. The cool water sinks to the bottom of the lake, displacing the warmer, CO2 rich water and pushing it higher enough for the CO2 to come out of the solution, bubble to the surface, and escape into the air. STILL WATERS RUN DEEP That’s what usually happens, but the water at the bottom of Lake Nyos was so saturated with CO2 that it was clear that something was interfering with the convection process. As the scientists soon discovered, the waters of Lake Nyos are among the most still in the world: Tall hills surround the lake, blocking the wind and causing the lake to be unusually consistent in temperature from the surface to the bottom. And because Lake Nyos is in a tropical climate that remains hot all year round, the water temperature doesn't vary much from season to season, either. Lastly, because the lake is so deep, even when the surface is disturbed, very little of the agitation finds its way to the lake floor. The unusual stillness of the lake is what made it so deadly. FULL TO BURSTING There is a physical limit to how much CO2 water can absorb, even under the tremendous pressured that exist at the bottom of a 690 foot deep lake. As the bottom layers become saturated, the CO2 is pushed up to where the pressure is low enough for it to start coming out of solution. At this point any little disturbance—a landslide, stormy weather, or even high winds or just a cold snap—can cause the CO2 to begin bubbling to the surface. And when the bubbles start rising, they can cause a siphoning or “chimney” effect, triggering a chain reaction that in one giant upheaval can cause the lake to disgorge CO2 that has been accumulating in the lake for decades. CO2 is odorless, colorless, and non-toxic; your body produces it and you exhale some every time you breathe. Even the air you inhale consists of about 0.05% CO2. What makes it a killer in certain circumstances is that fact that it’s heavier than air: If enough escapes into the environment at once, it displaces the air on the ground, making breathing impossible. A mixture of as little as 10% CO2 in the air can be fatal: even 5% can smother a flame…which explained why the oil lamps went out. SNUFFED OUT The scientists figured that if their theory was correct, there might be other instances of similar eruptions in the past. It didn't take very long to find one, and they didn't have to look very far, either: Two years earlier, on August 15, 1984, a loud boom was heard coming from Lake Monoun, a crater lake just 59 miles southeast of Lake Nyos. In the hours that followed, 37 people died mysteriously, including a group of 17 people who died while walking to work when the came to a low point in the road—just the place where CO2 would have settled after being released from the lake. The incident was small enough that it hadn't attracted much attention from the outside world…until now. THE BIG BANG In the months following the disaster at Lake Nyos, the scientists continued to monitor the lake’s CO2 levels. When the levels began to increase again, they concluded that their theory was correct. In the meantime, they had also come up with an estimate of just how much CO2 had escaped from the lake on August 22—and were stunned by what they found. Eyewitness accounts from people who were high enough in the hills above the lake to survive the eruption described how the lake began bubbling strangely on August 17, causing a misty cloud to form above the surface of the water. Then without warning, on August 22, the lake suddenly exploded; water and gas shot a couple of hundred feet into the air. The CO2 had taken up so much space in the lake that when it was finally released 1.2 cubic kilometers of CO2—enough to fill 10 football stadiums—in as little as 20 seconds. (Are you old enough to remember the huge volume of ash that Mt. Saint Helens released when it erupted in 1980? That eruption released only 1/3 of one cubic kilometer of ash—a quarter of Lake Nyos’s emission.) CLOUD OF DOOM Cattle herders graze their animals on the hills above Lake Nyos, and after the lake disgorged as much as 80% of its massive store of CO2 in one big burst, dead cattle were found as high as 300 feet above the lake, indicating that the suffocating cloud shot at least that high before settling back onto the surface. Then the gas poured over the crater’s edge into the valley below, traveling at an estimated 45 miles per hour. For people living in the village closest to the lake, death was almost inevitable. A few people on hillsides had the presence of mind to climb to higher ground; one man who saw his neighbors drop like flies jumped on his motorcycle and managed to keep ahead of the gas as he sped to safety. There were the lucky few. Most people didn't realize the danger until they were being overcome by the gas. Even if they had, it would have been impossible to outrun such a fast-moving cloud. CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT In villages father away from the lake, people had a better chance of survival, especially if they ignored the noise the lake made as it disgorged its CO2. Some survivors said it sounded like a gunshot or an explosion; others described it as a rumble. But people who stepped outside their homes to see where the noise had come from, or to see what had caused the rotten egg smell (a common smell “hallucination” associated with CO2 poisoning) quickly collapsed and died right on their own doorsteps. The sight of these first victims passing out often brought other members of the household to the door, where they, too, were overcome…and killed. People who were inside with their windows and doors shut had a better chance of surviving. There were even cases where enough CO2 seeped into homes to smother people who were lying down asleep, but not enough to kill the people who were standing up and had their heads above the gas. Some of these survivors did not even realize anything unusual had happened until they checked on their sleeping loved ones and discovered they were already dead. AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION The disaster at Lake Nyos was only the second such incident in the recorded history—the 1984 incident at Lake Monoun was the first. To date, scientists believe that only three lakes in the entire world, Nyos, Monoun, and a third lake called Lake Kivu on the border of Congo and Rwanda, accumulate deadly amounts of dissolved CO2 at great depths. It had taken about a year to figure out what had happened at Nyos. Then, when it became clear that the lake was filling with CO2 again, the government of Cameroon evacuated all the villages within 18 miles of the lake and razed them to prevent their inhabitants from coming back until the lake could be made safe. Scientists spent the next decade trying to figure out a way to safely release the gas before disaster struck again. They eventually settled on a plan to sink a 51/2-inch diameter tube down more than 600 feet, to just above the floor of the lake. Then when some of the water from the bottom was up to the top of the tube, it would rise high enough in the tube for the CO2 to come out of solution and form bubbles, which would cause it to shoot out the top of the tube, blasting water and gas more than 150 feet into the sky. Once it got started, the siphon effect would cause the reaction to continue indefinitely, or at least until the CO2 ran out. A prototype was installed and tested in 1995, and after it proved to be safe, a permanent tube was installed in 2001. RACE AGAINST TIME As of the fall of 2006 the tube was still in place releasing more than 700 million cubic feet of CO2 into the air each year. That’s a little bit more than enters the lake in the same amount of time. Between 2001 and 2006, the CO2 levels in Lake Nyos dropped 13%. But the scientists who study the lake are concerned that 13% is still too small an amount. The lake still contains more CO2 than was released in the 1986 disaster, and as if that’s not bad enough, a natural dam on the north side of the lake is eroding and could fail in as little as five years. If the dam collapses, the disaster of 1986 may prove to be just a small taste of things to come: In the event of a dam failure, 50 million cubic meters of water could pour out of the lake, drowning as many as 10,000 as it washed through the valleys below. That’s only the beginning—releasing that much water from the lake would cause the level of the lake to drop as much as 130 feet, removing the water pressure that keeps the CO2 at the bottom of the lake and causing a release of gas even more catastrophic than the devastation of 1986. SOLUTION Scientists and engineers have devised a plan for shoring up the natural dam with concrete, and it’s believed that the installation of as few as for more siphon tubes could reduce the CO2 in the lake to safe levels in as little as four years. The scientists are hard at work trying to find the funding to do it, and there’s no time to waste: “We could have a gas burst tomorrow that is bigger than either (the Lake Monoun or Lake Nyos) disaster,“ says Dr. George Kling, a University of Michigan ecologist who has been studying the lake for 20 years. “Every day we wait is just an accumulation of the probability that something bad is going to happen. |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd. This book focuses on the odd-side of life and features articles like the strangest TV shows never made, the creepiest insect on Earth, odd medical conditions, and many, many more. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute  |
On the morning of August 22, 1986, a man hopped onto his bicycle and began riding from Wum, a village in Cameroon, towards the village of Nyos. On the way he noticed an antelope lying dead next to the road. Why let it go to waste? The man tied the antelope onto his bicycle and continued on. A short distance later he noticed two dead rats, and further on, a dead dog and other dead animals. He wondered if they’d all been killed by a 
The scientists also discovered unusually high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved or “in solution” in the water. Samples from a as shallow as 50 feet deep contained so much CO2 that when they were pulled to the surface, where the water pressure was lower, the dissolved CO2 came bubbling out of solution—just as if someone had unscrewed the cap on a bottle of soda. 
Grazing cattle killed in the 1986 Lake Nyos disaster (Image Credit: 
Degassing Lake Nyos (Image Credit: 
I can understand that it is dangerous for the surrounding people. But, releasing yet more CO2 into the environment doesn't sound like a great idea.
The Earth can take care of itself. Just another example of humans interacting unnecessarily.
Very interesting read though. Thanks for publishing it.
That makes WAY too much sense.
They aren't actually putting any extra CO2 into the environment... it would make it out eventually. All they are really doing is getting rid of it at a regular rate rather than having it come out in giant chunks.
Lightening? That means to "make lighter"; try lightning.
Cameroon also has another active volcano; Mount Cameroon. That one erupted with a large lava flow in 2001, and when I was there we saw the tail end of the flow; it was a gigantic mound of black boulders that crossed a main highway and stopped about 20 yards past the road. In 2003, we stopped to take a look (in the dark!) and the rocks were still warm to the touch. Because of the heat and the sheer bulk of it, they haven't been able to remove it from the road, but there's now a dirt detour through the jungle to take you around it.
The satellite image available on Google Maps even shows the flow crossing the road (but unfortunately no high-res image for that area.) If you click that link, you can pan to the north-east & follow the flow to its source on the side of Mt. Cameroon. Go to the peak and you can see other recent lava flows. And the sand on the beaches near there is pitch black, most likely from all of the lava flows in the past.
And if you zoom out in the Google Earth satellite image, turn on the Map or Hybrid feature and scroll further north-east, you can pick out Wum; Lake Nyos is a fairly small lake a little further north-east of there. If you do a Google Maps search for Lake Nyos, Cameroon, it'll pinpoint it for you. The amazing/cool thing is that if you zoom out on the satellite image, it looks like the very roots of the earth are exposed in that area. Very, very, very remote, and very, very mountainous. The elevation of Lake Nyos is just under 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). The "highway" that you can see if you turn on the Map or Hybrid feature in Google Maps is little more than a dirt road. Getting the venting mechanism into Lake Nyos was a major undertaking; anything more than that, like your turbine generator, would take huge amounts of outside help; the locals don't have the money nor the need for electricity, although if it were available, they'd make use of it. But as remote a place like that is, it's amazing how many people carry cell phones!
Lots more info on the ongoing de-gassing here (also linked above.)
Why does it creep you out? The loss of life is a tragedy. But to me it is yet another wondrous natural phenomenon. I wonder how many similar strange events happen on Earth we don't know about. And sad about the day when we know so much about the Earth that finding a new event is a once in a lifetime occurrence.
Source: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=39105401687
Along with what Anthony pointed out, the villagers already had legends about the lake, about the evil spirits in them that would come out and kill people.
From this I can't help but think if the Red Sea is the Earth's ass crack. Or maybe some other canal.
Global Warming...HA! read State of Fear by Micheal Crichton, especially the part on the Americans messing around with Yellow Stone National park and mayby even the part on scientists being bought out for the last 30+ years by the Government, Industry and Environmentalists (they're just as bad)
Jimmy
If one dispel so many gas, two or three more will do the more job sufficiently?
Thanks for putting up a great article.
The final plague, the deaths of the first-born, has always been tricky to explain via natural methods, but the suggestion here was that it was CO2 poisoning. The first-borns, as heads of the house, tended to sleep downstairs whilst the rest of the family slept higher up.
Evidence, comparing with Lake Nyos: the Nile turns red (Exodus 7:14ff); livestock dies (Exodus 9:1ff) - although only Egyptian livestock, perhaps they grazed lower down closer to the river?; and the Hebrews stayed awake on the fateful night (Exodus 12).
Couldn't scientists just put LOADS of trees around the lake to soak up the CO2?
And it's not "extra" CO2, it's merely being released across an even time period, rather than all at once and killing everybody.
That article on how the South Ocean is doing the same thing is pretty frightening though.
The release system is a natural mechism of the area, and while the solution isn't creating more CO2, it is likely that it is speeding up the release from the underlying chamber. The pressure of the water and gradual buildup of CO2 above would have slowed down the release of the CO2 from the chamber into the water. In theory, now that the pressure has been lowered, the CO2 will be released from the magma chamber at a much higher release rate, lowering the pressure in the chamber and allowing the creation rate of the gas to increase to its highest potential.
http://www.icbe.com/carbondatabase/CO2volumecalculation.asp
The US emits about 3 trillion m3 of CO2 per year.
The total amount of co2 in the lake is quite large, but the release of this CO2 is fairly small in the grand scheme of things. And not all of it needs to be released, just enough so that a similar release won't happen in the future.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
It's just a great way for industrialists, activists, PACs, and politicians to usurp freedom and spread fear to maintain or increase their power. I'm more than happy to fight against sending toxins into the air and our seas, but global warming is a myth. It still doesn't stop me from wanting to curb energy consumption or plant trees. But I'm not beholden to Al Gore or anyone else's interpretation of "facts". Sure they are facts, but they conveniently exclude the most obvious cause... our sun is releasing more energy lately, likely on a cyclical basis.
Besides, you wouldn't generate enough electricity to power a fountain that shoots water 100 feet into the air.
Come to terms with the fact that our CO2 (as well as loads of other global warming gasses) output is excessive. Just because its "less than our planet" produces doesn't mean we're not grossly accelerating the rate. Take those blinders off...there is no need to "usurp freedom;" we can still live as "free" as we do with our eyes open to the environment and our world.
Why can't anyone read an interesting article with some amazing natural phenomena without attempting to make a cheap political point in the meantime?
I am headed out to purchase it right now. It could possibly be the most interesting book I will ever read....I hope so anyway!
We may be accelerating by a couple of years something that nature already had going, but just as our output is tiny compared to the overall picture, reducing it, even to zero, won't stop it of affect the process much, especially if you are talking on the grand scale of time.
What I find to be more concerning is the amount of non-biodegradeable toxins we release, often with that same CO2 production, as well as our energy policy in general.
I like how you dismiss my argument with your comment about reading an interesting article without making a political point, not to mention that it's a cheap point. Lovely. As if that's not thinly veiled. So, instead you do exactly what you accuse me of doing - you made your point, not about the very interesting CO2 sink, but about the climate, same as me. And I was simply continuing a conversation started here. Oh, and you politicized it by implying that I have some political agenda. Other than accusing OTHERS of having an agenda, politicians included, in reducing our choice, freedom, and increasing FUD to gain power, I couldn't care less where you stand in the political spectrum. I'm also more than willing to concede that we may have helped things along, but this is nothing new and almost certainly nothing we can stop.
If you reduced our net out put of carbon to effectively zero, then, 99.9%+ of the current greenhouse gases are still there. And I've taken several courses dealing with this, thanks. Maybe you should take one. It would help you understand that there's hard evidence that the sun is in a current increase activity cycle and that our sun is having a FAR greater effect on Global Warming than we are - and not just on Earth.
Where's your facts stating that our output is "excessive"? Based on what? Compared to? Could we reduce it, yes. Would it matter? Show me the math that says it would and on what timescale.
I have no blinders. I'm open to all information and I can clearly think it through and I wait for data from both sides to make decisions. Group think isn't my thing, thanks. And if you think the "Greens" don't have an agenda, you are wrong. I agree that being good stewards of our environment, eliminating toxic output, and striving to leave nature as untouched as possible are all excellent goals. And laws can be enacted to accomplish them. So, I clearly am "pro-environment" and not of the belief that humans cause global warming. My eyes are open, I hope you can open yours as well. There's no need to just "believe" what you are told without considering WHY you are being told. Someone somewhere wants you to identify with their "cause" and do what's "right". You should watch Penn and Teller's video on recycling, but I fear you might cry a little at the truthiness.
Don't you know that when you're being shouted down that you're supposed to give up and agree with the "consensus"?
And if there are dead bodies everywhere, don't throw down the bike and run.. It's a long way back to town! Bikes are FASTER dude!
No one has eluded to the fact to just "let it be" and avoid adding to the overpopulation of the earth. This is another callous opinion that totally ignores mans ability to seek out and provide a workable solution to life's problems within our grasp.
I applaud the efforts of all parties to turn it into another global warming debate.
the more you mess with it, the more messed up you will be....
Dinos ruled the earth, not very long back.
It took just a stone big enough to wipe them out of the face of the earth.
Humans, we assume that every thing that is there is there for ever. Nature will find a 'stone' big enough to show us our place...
By all our activities, we can either postpone the eventuality, or prepone and perish....
its very interesting and very bad to world
That's real smart... Something real bad happened. Must flee. Hmmm, discard means of fast transportation and run away on foot. Sounds like a plan!
My thanks to massacre for some truth about the global warming hoax. The freedom destroying "cures" will hurt the people in the third world countries like Cameroon.
However, there is quite a bit of confusion in one paragraph that I would like to untangle.
The paragraph begins, “CO2 is odorless, colorless, and non-toxic; your body produces it and you exhale some every time you breathe. Even the air you inhale consists of about 0.05% CO2.†Well, regarding the latter, yes; but that doesn’t mean that that CO2 isn’t toxic. For example, the NASA Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentration (SMAC) for CO2 is 10.0 mm Hg (1.3% at sea level pressure) for a one-hour period. The NASA Bioastronautics Data Book indicates that after only 80 minutes, at a ppCO2 level of ~18 mm Hg (2.4%), the subject can experience “mental depression, headache, dizziness, nausea.†At ~45 mm Hg (5.9%), the subject experiences “marked deterioration leading to dizziness and stupor, with inability to take steps for self preservation. The final state is unconsciousness.†Not exactly “non-toxic.â€
This toxicity has nothing to do with oxygen displacement (starvation) by an “inert†gas, e.g., nitrogen and argon, which typically comprise 78% and 1% of the atmosphere, respectively.
The paragraph continues, “What makes it a killer in certain circumstances is the fact that it’s heavier than air: If enough escapes into the environment at once, it displaces the air on the ground, making breathing impossible. A mixture of as little as 10% CO2 in the air can be fatal …†Again, at this concentration, the danger of CO2 is due to its toxicity, not the oxygen it displaces. As aforementioned, ~6% is enough to cause death by toxicity. By contrast, merely adding 10% CO2 to the existing environment will only have the effect of diminishing oxygen concentration by 9%, which is the equivalent of traveling from sea level to 2500 feet (770 m) elevation – hardly lethal.
The accounts of the witnesses also attest to these phenomena. Victims are said to have “quickly collapsed and died right on their own doorsteps,†which is altogether inconsistent with oxygen deprivation. Hypoxia symptoms, even in the presence of no oxygen, occur slowly (a few minutes), beginning with various subtle symptoms, then blackout, then unconsciousness. The description of the victims’ sudden unconsciousness would have to be due to very high levels of CO2.
Having said all of that, from the description of the event offered, it seems very likely that the balance of victims were exposed to near-100% concentrations of CO2, causing their instant unconsciousness, with death resulting from some combination of severe CO2 poisoning and oxygen starvation.
Brian Dunaway
The Boeing Company
Space Exploration
Environmental Control and Life Support
Houston, Texas
I admit I have not taken any courses on these subjects and I was wondering if you had anything to say about this?
And I'm finding it pretty hard to believe the guy "threw down his bicycle" and ran all the way back to his home village. What sources are they quoting here?
This reeks. Of something. Not worth my time, that's for sure.
The picture of the CO2 escaping reminded me of something. Could this be a similar installation in Geneve?
http://www.geneve-tourisme.ch/?rubrique=0000000172&lang=_eng
You say that we are going to derail scientific discovery as to the cause of greenhouse gasses on our planet. The difference between the earth "releasing" gasses and us, as humans "releasing" gasses is that the gasses of which are released due to the use of gasoline and such are technically synthesized. The carbon and oxygen may be a part of the petroleum, but they are not CO2 until the petroleum is burned, therefore creating more carbon dioxide and creating a higher percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere than what would be there naturally.
Think thoughts through before posting such a wild idea of which has no scientific base :)
-Matt
Firstly, I wonder why the gas escaped through the pipe, and not through the rest of the water. Maybe I just didn't understand the idea of that pipe, but can someone explain, why the CO2 goes through the pipe and not the water (there's water in the pipe, too, isn't there)?
Secondly, why didn't the wind mix the CO2 into the air in the surroundings of the lake? Was that just because there were mountains there, too?
to comment 13 (dave): If the locals don't have the need, nor the money for electricity, how do they buy and charge their cell-phones? i know a lot of Africans try to get one, but I was surprised to hear that about a little village.
In the depths of the lake, the water is under great pressure and the CO2 is dissolved and in solution with the water. This CO2 is coming up slowly enough to not disturb the lake very much. The Lake is surrounded by high hills, which keeps the wind from disturbing the surface and apparently it does not experience much temperature change as well. This makes for a very quiet body of water, which allows super saturation to occur. A super saturated liquid, in this case water with CO2, can explosively release the gas at the slightest disturbance. To prevent that, the scientists are trying to release the gas in a controlled manner, so they came up with this tube.
The tube siphons water off the bottom of the lake. As the water rises the pressure reduces and when the pressure gets low enough, at some elevation in the tube, the CO2 comes out of solution (bubbles out of the water/CO2 solution). The flow continues up and the water and CO2, now a liquid/gas mixture and not a solution, blasts out of the pipe.
It seems kind of counter intuitive, but it works. You would think that the pressure spraying the water out of the pipe would stop the flow, but apparently not. That has something to do with hydrodynamics which involves scarier math than I want to do right now.
The CO2 that blasts out is coming out at a low enough rate that it is not a great hazard to the surrounding environment and the wind just carries it away.
As for what adding tons and tons of CO2 to the atmosphere will do for global warming, it is not known, regardless of what the GW scaremongers say. Global climatology is a science in its infancy right now. We don't know enough about it yet to reliably theorize, let alone reach a conclusion.
Besides.. Colorado as a whole isn't such a bad place...
You dickhead.
The disaster occured on 21st August. On Thursday Night, 9pm a powerful explosion occured in the Lake Nyos. About 3 minutes later, a violent wind started blowing towards the Villages of Fang, Chai, Lower Nyos and Subum.
The gas was hot and suffocated all the living things . All those affected had burns on their bodies.
On Saturday, at 6pm, a medical team arrived in a military plane headed by the director of health Professor Kaptue. Others were doctor Simo Moyo and Dr Muna.
Sunday August 24 1986, President Paul Biya arrived unannounced at the nearby village of Bamenda to personally appraise the situation and pay condolences.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Perez also arrived on the same Sunday 24th of August 1986 to also appraise the situation and offer his assistance during a state visit. Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrives with 17 scientists fully equipped with full body protective gear, gas masks and observation equipment when in fact, by this time, the news hadn't been broken to the international community. It was officially broken in Cameroon on Saturday 23rd and to the rest of the world on Sunday 24th (Remember, this was not the time of internet, gprs, email, video calls and i-reports).
So what really happened?
A dutch Reverend, Father Tenhorn said it was a neutron bomb. He was the first to have an aerial view of the incident from a helicopter
The Congolese President at the time, Dennis Sassou Nguesso said it was a thermonuclear device which had earlier been advertised to him for testing in his country by the Israelis.
Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS)
Symptoms:
Nervousness, confusion, severe nausea, vomiting, watery diarrhea, burning sensation of the skin causing scratching, loss of consciousness, convulsion, coma and death.
The symptoms are quite similar to CO2 poisoning, but victims of CO2 poisoning do not have skin burns and scratch their skin wildly. CO2 in fact, would have even cooled their skins. That's why it is concentrated commercially as dry ice and it is also used in fire extinguishing. The lamps that were off was due to the windspeed of the violent fallout.
Vast amounts of CO2 suddenly escaping rapidly into the atmosphere would not cause a astoundingly loud explosion that would be heard over miles.
CO2 escaping rapidly into the atmosphere will not cause a fallout or violent rush of wind after the explosion.
The fallout which descended on the habitations around Nyos had a strange pungent smell. CO2 is actually odourless.
South Africa had nuclear weapons and Israel still has nuclear weapons. Has anybody ever wondered where they tested these weapons? Lest I forget, besides this Lake Nyos explosion, there was also the Lake Monoun explosion that yielded about the same result.
I'm a Nigerian living in Nigeria which is just west of Cameroon. I was about 17 when I was first taught about the Lake Nyos phenomenon. I'd always been top in my chemistry classes throughout high school but the theories being touted about the Lake Nyos incidence made me abandon chemistry for a career in Agriculture because the science of CO2 in Lake Nyos didn't add up.
I hope they're planting some vegetation along the water's edge.
1. Releasing this CO2 is no worse for the environment than leaving it there. All of the gas which gets added beyond the saturation point of the water will eventually come out. The two options are to "Let the world take care of itself" and kill a few thousand people every now and then, or to drain the gas at the same rate which it is naturally added.
Either way, the same amount of gas will enter the atmosphere at the same average rate (long-term). On one hand you kill a couple thousand people and release a couple million cubic meters of CO2, on the other hand nobody dies and you release a couple million cubic meters of CO2.
2. There isn't that much energy being wasted. It is true that a turbine could be used to harness some energy, but at the expense of the pressure difference of the syphon. As Jeff already suggested, at 100% efficiency such a turbine could power a fountain the same size as the one naturally occurring from the syphon. In reality, you would be lucky to reach half that efficiency, and you would be reducing the speed of the syphon, necessitating many more pipes.
3. Plants do use CO2 and light via photosynthesis, but there's a maximum rate at which they'll use it, and even if there weren't, they'll be limited by the amount of available light. I'm not saying the co2 couldn't be used this way, but planting more trees nearby would be just as effective. Seeing as that area is already pretty much jungle, it's probably already doing a pretty good job with this task.
As far as the other major discussion points go:
Neutron bombs? The only response that I'll give to that, is that I don't see any scientific fault with the CO2 explanation, and I guarantee you that a violent release of that much dissolved gas is entirely capable of making a very loud noise.
Global Warming: I believe that humans are a major contributing factor. Burning fossil fuels is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that wouldn't otherwise end up there. A lot of money is being put towards non-scientific research to make it look like global warming is not a problem, and we're not responsible. A lot of money is also spent (and made) on non-scientific research demonstrating that it is a problem.
People need to start looking at this scientifically. Just because some "environmentalists" make things up because they think it will support their cause, doesn't mean that their cause doesn't warrant support.
I'm not excusing bad science. I'm not saying we should listen to the nonsense, but if someone says the right thing for the wrong reason, you can ignore them and still listen to a proper scientist who came to the same conclusion scientifically.
If I tell you that you shouldn't drink gasoline because it contains over 20% potassium cyanide I would be guilty of making stuff up.
If the pro-gasoline drinking lobby proves that gasoline doesn't contain potassium cyanide, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe to drink. There's probably plenty of other people saying not to drink your auto fuel without using these same scare-mongering tactics that are used by "environmental" organizations so frequently.
I know this analogy may seem ridiculous, but this same logic is being used for global warming all the time.
I haven't seen absolute proof of either viewpoint, but the evidence does seem to support the theory for the most part. If someone proves otherwise, that's great. Pointing out a single flaw in the evidence doesn't automatically invalidate the whole theory, just that piece of evidence.
-Nick
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