James Stewart
speaker
4,486 appearances
22 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 6d ago
James Stewart’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 17 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.
Appearances
In fact, let's just call them bubbles.
In 2016, researchers at the Arctic University of Norway discovered huge underwater craters off the coast that were probably, they said, caused by an enormous blowout of gas.
Methane hydrates are almost ice-like solid substances found in deep sea sediments and permafrost, where water molecules form a sort of cage around methane molecules.
Changes in pressure or temperature can cause seeps or even massive explosive blowouts, like the giant craters in Norway.
Now here's where it gets interesting, because it's estimated that two-thirds of marine gas hydrates are located in convergent margins.
Which, yeah, you guessed it, convergent margins like the subduction zones of the Ring of Fire, where ocean tectonic plates subduct or sink beneath the lighter continental crust.
But could a bubble really sink a ship?
study published by a team of researchers at Harbin Engineering University in China suggests so.
To quote their paper, when the size of the bubble is close to the characteristic length of the ship, one single bubble could sink a ship.
This includes gas bubbles from volcanoes as well as methane hydrates.
Other studies have similar findings, all in labs might I add, all with a lot of physics and a lot of maths, but who knows how this plays out on an actual ocean.
And all that stuff we've just talked about is just what's happening inside our oceans.
Actually, the most dangerous aspect of the Dragon's Triangle is yet to come.
Because perhaps the biggest suspect of them all is hiding in plain sight.
Tropical cyclones.
These are rapidly rotating storm systems, characterized by low pressure, strong winds, heavy rains, and what's known as organized convection, which is basically where thunderstorms all gang up and multiply.
Tropical cyclones are one of the most powerful and destructive forces on Earth.
They're also an essential feature of the Earth's atmosphere, transferring heat and energy between the equator and the poles.
Think of a tropical cyclone as a giant engine that needs warm, moist air as fuel, and there's plenty of that in the tropics.
As the sun heats the ocean to around 27 degrees Celsius, invisible water vapor starts to rise and cool, condensing into clouds and then into rain.
Showing 3461–3480 of 4,486 · page 174 of 225
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