[gooby]

I asked this over at the Chemistry StackExchange, which, though in its beta stage, seems to be pretty good overall, just FYI. I'm coming over here with it because, this time, people decided to be unhelpful.

http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/1114/methane-seems-to-dissolve-more-readily-in-cold-water-why

The essential question of why a process that would seem to be endothermic (i.e. forcing polar and non-polar together) occurs more readily at lower temperatures of the solvent (water) remains unanswered. Extensive Googling—and I am a very effective Googler—has turned up little. Please help me.

[Arkcon]

Have you ever noticed that warms soda loses it's fizz more than cold soda?  This is a fundamental physical property of gas solution into liquids. 

[gooby]

Have you ever noticed that warms soda loses it's fizz more than cold soda?  This is a fundamental physical property of gas solution into liquids.

OK. Asking around a bit more, I was advised to remember Henry's law and after looking up some Henry's law constants for dissolution into water at various temperatures, I see this is generally the case.

But what's still not clear is how / why it happens, at the molecular level.

At first blush, dissolving non-polar substances in water seems like it would require an input of energy and thus take place more readily at higher temperatures, yes?

I am looking for a fairly deep answer here.

[gooby]

Forget it, I answered my own question. From the StackExchange post above:

Never mind, I think I found the answer.

In the gas phase, attractions between solute particles are negligible, while solvent-solute attractions may reduce the energy of solute particles, resulting in an exothermic process that favors lower solvent temperatures.

For the record.

I'll just leave this here for other people and in case anyone has something to add.