January 18, 2007 -- WMR received a number of e-mails as a result of our Jan. 8 piece on methane bubbling up from the ocean floors. The ocean floor methane is turning into gaseous from methane hydrate ice form because the deep ocean is warming as a result of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions. A reader in Minnesota sent us this important amplifying information: "Methane bubbling up from the ocean floor is a clear and present danger to shipping and even aviation. By the way, there is something like 10,000 billion tons of methane under the sea in methane hydrate deposits. Furthermore, a theory called the "Clathrate gun hypothesis" or the "Hydrate hypothesis," posits that melting methane hydrate has cause severe episodes of runaway global warming in the past. We are sitting on a bomb. Mankind's emission are the fuse, melting permafrost is the detonator, and melting oceanic methane hydrate is the bomb. Since mankind's emissions is a much larger trigger than past severe episodes, the current unfolding episode of runaway global warming will occur much more rapidly, and therefore be much, much more severe."