Survival male god

Chapter 240 Gao Lei’s discovery

"Great, you're still alive..."

In the ice cave, when everyone met, the three scientific expedition team members who had worked together for a long time were all excited.

Chen Jing's eyes fell on the seal carcass on the ground.

The putrid smell emanates from its body, and its slightly dark red flesh and blood tissue has traces of being cut.

As the core figure in the team, his every move will inevitably be noticed by everyone.

"what happened?"

Zhou Hui cast his gaze over, and Lin Jiaying said:

"Gao Lei, let me introduce you. His name is Chen Jing, he is an adventurer, and he is also the rescuer who was specially entrusted by the headquarters to search and rescue. He is very powerful. Both Zhou Hui and I were rescued by him."

"If he hadn't said you were still alive just now, we probably wouldn't have been able to find you."

"He built a raft and was able to get us out of danger."

Gao Lei showed surprise on his face, looking at Chen Jing, who was tall and half wrapped in a bear's skin, he stretched out his hand a little cautiously.

"Hello, my name is Gao Lei. I'm an engineer at the Polar Research Center. You built a ship yourself?"

Chen Jing also stretched out his palm and shook hands with the other party.

"Hello, my name is Chen Jing."

"It's actually not as powerful as they say, it's just a raft."

"Your condition is much better than when I found them. Can you tell me how you have spent these days?"

Hearing this question, Gao Lei fell into silence.

After a while, he just sighed,

"A few words, some of which are not clear."

"In fact, I still can't believe that I can persist until today."

"It's really great to see you again..."

Zhou Hui and Lin Jiaying also nodded. Everyone's experiences were almost the same. They all escaped from death. After being found after despair, they can empathize with each other.

"In this case, let's leave here first, and talk slowly later..."

Chen Jing greeted everyone to leave, and he walked out at the lead.

There is always a stench of rotting flesh in the ice cave, which is not unbearable. Who doesn't like a more comfortable environment when there is a choice?

"Let's go!"

The others followed immediately.

After a while, they came to the place where the animal carcasses had been disposed of.

"these are?"

Gao Lei looked at the bones and fur suspiciously.

Zhou Hui explained: "We have just skinned these and obtained them from dead seals and polar bears. Brother Chen said they can be used to make tents and other tools later."

"Let it dry here for now. Let's go back to the tent to talk and boil some water. We also need to take a good wash..."

Everyone has a foul smell on their bodies, and it is impossible to live without washing.

The group of people used the tent and after taking turns cleaning it, they finally felt much more comfortable. They all sat in the tent and began to listen to Gao Lei's experiences in the past few days.

This is already the eighth day since the three of them went out on a mission and were in danger.

As early as the beginning, Gao Lei was almost the same as the other two, barely surviving with the only supplies he had.

But after eating the food, they fell into endless despair. There was no fire, no warmth, and no communication.

When he was hungry, he would endure hardships. When he was thirsty, he would find some clean snow and swallow it in his belly. Day after day, he waited for death to come.

Gao Lei uses diary writing to record everything he does every day, including his mental journey.

"On the fifth day, I completely gave up waiting for rescue. There was nothing on the island. The most important thing was that I found that it was melting much faster than I thought."

"Do you know how big it was originally? The area of ​​this Iceland was at least ten times its current size a week ago."

"Driven by loneliness and despair, I even thought about committing suicide..."

Having said this, a look of pain appeared on Gao Lei's face.

"Every day I see a large number of seal carcasses washed up on the island shore by the waves. Even if they die, not even the scavenging seabirds will visit here."

"This is the depths of the Arctic Ocean. Although I still have a little extravagant hope in my heart, my reason tells me that no one will come. Even if a rescue team rushes to the North Pole, it will be too late in time."

"I have been here for two or three years, and I never thought that the ice caps here would suddenly melt. We were almost unprepared, and we couldn't figure out the reason."

"But when I was sitting on the beach, looking at that scene, it was like a hellish drawing."

"I have a new discovery..."

"A discovery that keeps me alive."

"I was on the surface and saw some unusual ice floes."

"The speed at which they melt is several times that of ordinary ice cubes, and they are constantly rotating in the water, producing tiny bubbles."

"I jumped into the sea and tried to get some, and then I lit it with a windproof match, which confirmed my suspicion."

"These things emerge from the depths of the sea..."

"Combustible ice! (Combustible ice?)"

Zhou Hui on the side also blurted out a question.

Chen Jing faced the camera and gave the audience popular science.

"Combustible ice is an efficient and clean energy source stored deep in the sea. In a low-temperature and high-pressure environment, it is an ice-like crystalline substance composed of methane gas and water molecules that ignites when exposed to fire."

"The combustion efficiency of the same volume is 1.43 times that of conventional natural gas and much higher than other types of fuels. The key is that flammable ice is a clean energy source."

"Through human geological exploration, it has been discovered that there are large amounts of flammable ice stored in sea areas around the world, especially around the Arctic Ocean."

"However, it is very difficult to mine combustible ice, and it is easy to cause damage to the sea environment during the mining process. Human beings have not yet thought of a more reasonable mining method, so many early development work have been stopped by the International Organizing Committee. .”

After explaining, Chen Jing turned around and asked Gao Lei:

"You said this flammable ice is floating on the sea? Is it a large amount?"

Gao Lei nodded: "It's definitely not a small number. If you look carefully, you will find them everywhere."

"Those ice cubes that are like fragments of cotton wool, transparent around and whitish in the middle, are combustible ice."

"Due to the increase in temperature and the greatly reduced pressure at the sea surface, they decompose very quickly. I guess a large amount of methane gas has escaped to the North Pole."

"This……"

The remaining three people looked at each other, and Zhou Hui frowned, looking a little ugly.

"what happened?"

Lin Jiaying studies biology and doesn't know much about this kind of knowledge, while Gao Lei, as a technical engineer, only knows that combustible ice can be burned and then used to process raw meat.Roasting the stinky seal meat that has just gone bad and hasn't really rotted can barely keep him alive.

Obviously, neither of them realized the seriousness of the matter.

Only Chen Jing seemed to have thought of something.

"You speak first……"

He raised his chin at Zhou Hui.

The latter explained: "Methane is the main component of natural gas and is also a more terrifying and efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide."

"When this substance escapes into the air, it will be like carbon dioxide, causing more atmospheric impurities and stronger light transmittance and heat absorption."

“Research has shown that excessive methane emissions will increase the temperature of wetlands and continue to release more methane. Since the introduction of the new regulations, the methane released due to natural gas extraction is no longer the highest proportion of methane releases in the world. , they are more derived from microbial decomposition.”

"But in the Arctic, excessive methane release will be more harmful to the environment!"

Hearing this, Lin Jiaying couldn't help but ask:
"why?"

Chen Jing took the conversation and stretched out his hand to draw a circle in mid-air.

"It's very simple, because if there is a large amount of methane gas escaping, it will form a dead cycle in the Arctic."

"The original Arctic has extremely low temperatures. After the water vapor evaporates, it will form low-temperature, moist, saturated airflow at high altitudes. The cold, high-pressure airflow will flow toward the surrounding low-pressure areas in the south, thus forming a circulation."

"Once a large amount of methane gas accumulates, the region will warm as a whole, and the original high-pressure cold air flow will no longer exist."

"This will cause the cold air flow in the surrounding areas, such as North America, Northern Europe, and the Siberian Highlands, to accumulate in reverse, blocking these warm air currents in the Arctic Circle."

"The result is that a large amount of methane gas causes a more terrifying greenhouse effect. If carbon dioxide is an oven that continuously bakes the planet, then methane is like a thermal shock wave, causing the temperature in saturated areas to rise sharply in a short period of time. .”

"And we all know that there are a lot of methane gas and bacteria under the Arctic frozen soil. Once the glaciers melt in large areas, this cycle will never stop."

"Now the outer ice cap has begun to disintegrate. If it continues to develop, all life on the planet will be annihilated. Sea levels will rise collectively, releasing more methane, carbon dioxide, and ancient bacteria that have been frozen for thousands of years. Kinds, terrible tsunamis, droughts, hurricanes, floods…”

The disaster terms that came out of Chen Jing's mouth were like heavy hammers, hitting everyone's chests, making people breathless.

After a long time, everyone came to their senses.

"No wonder the temperatures have been getting higher and higher recently. This is the Arctic Circle in winter. I even feel that the body temperature is close to zero."

"At this time last year, the temperature was definitely around minus 30 degrees. Do you remember? All we could do at that time was stay at the workstation and eat self-heating hot pot."

Lin Jiaying recalled.

Zhou Hui and Gao Lei nodded at the same time. The latter looked at Chen Jing and sighed:
"I won't mention Zhou Hui. He studies environmental studies. I didn't expect you to know so much about the climate characteristics of the Arctic Circle."

"It's complicated but not refined. I learned a lot, but it's not in-depth. I can't compare with top talents in the industry like you."

Chen Jing shook his head and said, he is not being modest, that is the fact.

Zhou Hui on the side disagreed somewhat.

"Wrong. Brother Chen is an all-rounder. His knowledge reserve is really terrifying."

After a few days of contact, Zhou Hui was convinced of Chen Jing.

"Okay, let's not put our hats on each other. Time is limited. Act quickly. It's best to find a workstation and find out the real reason why flammable ice has surfaced in large quantities."

"If it really continues to develop, the situation may get out of control by then."

"In addition, since there is combustible ice that can be used, I think we should collect some, and the remaining solid alcohol can be stored first for emergencies."

"Lin Jiaying, you and Zhou Hui are going to skin the animals and carry all the bones to the raft. Gao Lei, we are going to collect flammable ice."

"it is good!"

If resources are utilized, they cannot be wasted.

What's more, in a sense, burning it is better than combustible ice decomposing itself into the air.

After the explanation was completed, everyone split up and took action.

Chen Jing and Gao Lei left the tent and walked towards the edge of Iceland.

The two of them observed the sea surface carefully, and after a while, they discovered some unusual ice floes.

"Look, that's combustible ice. It's round and full of air bubbles. Because it decomposes quickly in the water, the ice at the edge merges with the sea water and becomes transparent."

Chen Jingding nodded. Without careful observation, it would be difficult to detect abnormalities.

Especially when one’s attention is on other things.

All he has to think about every day is food and saving people, and he has no intention of observing the situation on the sea.

Lin Jiaying and Zhou Hui have been trapped somewhere, and only Gao Lei, who initially had more resources, discovered these details hidden in the ice floes in a lot of boring time.

"Well, in fact, we don't need to go into the water to fish it. We can go back to the boat and use seal skin and bone sticks to make a net bag."

"As long as we can collect this flammable ice in large quantities, we can keep the tent warm all the time."

"Ok!"

Gao Lei nodded, immediately thought of something, and asked:
"If we say that the reason for the abnormal rise in temperatures in the Arctic region is due to the accumulation of methane, combined with sunlight, it produces a terrible greenhouse effect."

"So what is the reason for this flammable ice to surface?"

"As far as I know, combustible ice will continue to condense under high pressure and low temperature, forming a large area of ​​ice with a quality even higher than that of seawater."

"They don't surface unless..."

Chen Jing's eyes were staring at the sea from a distance.

"Unless its structure is damaged, or seafloor temperatures rise."

"The creation of both of these prerequisites requires a lot of water activity."

"Is there any secret mining project for flammable ice near the Arctic Ocean?"

Chen Jing's words made Gao Lei's pupils shrink suddenly. After thinking for a long time, he shook his head.

"This kind of thing is not something that a small scientific expedition team member like me can come into contact with. Of course, this possibility is not ruled out. Those crazy countries or transnational capital consortiums dare to do anything for their own interests, even if they risk the world No way!"

"If I can find a workstation and use the equipment there, I can conduct a large-scale survey of the nearby sea area."

Chen Jingding nodded, turned around and walked towards the raft.

"Let's go back and make net bags first. We have to survive now. There are some things that are not within the scope of current considerations."

"What's more, it's not necessarily caused by human factors..."

The confusion on Gao Lei's face disappeared in an instant, and he followed suit without thinking too much.

The other party is right, no matter what the truth is, no matter how the world will be affected, personally, they just want to survive.

A journey of survival for four people has officially begun.

The miraculous phenomenon of combustible ice floating out of the sea has also attracted widespread attention and discussion on the Internet.

On November 11, after drifting in the southwestern Arctic Ocean for nearly three days.

Chen Jing led the three of them to the center of the pole, where everything was covered by ice caps and glaciers.

(End of this chapter)