Methane

Millions of tons of methane stored beneath the Arctic seabed is bubbling up to the surface and being released into the atmosphere as the region warms up and the ice retreats, scientists have said.

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The gas is said to be 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and scientists have warned that it could accelerate global warming.

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It is usually locked in a deep freeze below the sea, but as the ice melts on the surface, small holes, or “chimneys”, appear and the gas escapes.
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Orjan Gustafsson, of Stockholm University in Sweden, who is onboard the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi, said: “Yesterday for the first time we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface.”

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He told The Independent that the team were documenting the “methane chimneys” using an echo sounder and seismic instruments.

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Scientists believe that underground stores of methane have in the past been responsible for rapid rises in global temperatures, changes in the climate and even extinction of species.

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They think that the amount of methane being released from the area of the Arctic along the Siberian continental shelf could equal the emissions from the rest of the world’s oceans put together.

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The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008 are being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union.

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The Arctic region has risen in temperature by 39.2F (4C) over recent decades according to scientists.

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Telegraph - Independent

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Oh dear