Arctic Methane Escaping

[Michael]

Study: Arctic seabed methane stores destabilizing, venting

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans,” said Shakhova, a researcher at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center. “Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”
Source (http://www.physorg.com/news186920485.html)

Yikes... this looks nasty! If this problem is as serious as it appears, this looks like an 'accelerator' for global warming.

[andrewl]

Source (http://www.physorg.com/news186920485.html)

Yikes... this looks nasty! If this problem is as serious as it appears, this looks like an 'accelerator' for global warming.

Unfortunately it will take some time to confirm whether or not this methane release is indeed increasing over time or if this is just the background release that has always been there (since the deglaciation ~10K years ago) - just never been looked at in detail.

But i would agree that this is scary news. This has long been the great fear of climate scientists. There is reason to believe that it was this sort of feedback that was ultimately responsible for the permian-triassic extinction event 250 million years ago. 96% of all marine species and 70% of all land species were wiped out by it.

Andrew

[Americano]

While I support environmental scientific research, for my purposes it's beyond concern. I have politicians to track for survival purposes who do more immediate damage in ten minutes than a major earthquake.