LOST PERMAFROST: Warming ocean water is thawing permafrost, allowing methane trapped underneath to bubble up from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
Image: NATIONAL OCEAN & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION EARTH SYSTEM RESEARCH LABORATORY
A large amount of methane is bubbling up from the ocean floor east of Siberia at a surprising rate and could accelerate climate change, researchers said yesterday.
The gas is bubbling up from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf because warming ocean water is thawing permafrost, allowing methane trapped underneath to escape. The amount of methane emitted by that one patch of seabed roughly equals the amount scientists believed was released by all of the world's oceans.
But just how the discovery will affect projections of future warming is hard to say, according to a team of scientists from the United States, Russia and Sweden who published their findings yesterday in the journal Science.
"Seabed deposits [of methane] were considered until recently to be reliably sealed by subsea permafrost," said the study's lead author, Natalia Shakhova of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But what we are having now is up to 10 million tons annually escaping from this seabed. This means permafrost does not serve as an impermeable cap or seal to prevent this leakage any longer."
Shakhova said there is not enough information now to know whether the methane seeping up from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf -- which covers more than 810,000 square miles -- signals the emergence of a significant new source of the potent greenhouse gas. Methane is regarded as 20 to 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Uncertainty over whether the release will grow
Information she and her colleagues gathered during multiple research expeditions between 2003 and 2008 suggest that the area, home to 100 methane "hot spots," emits 8 million metric tons of the gas into the atmosphere.
That's a relatively small slice of the 440 million metric tons of methane emitted worldwide each year from a combination of human activities and natural sources like rotting plants in wetlands, termites and wildfires.
But Shakhova pointed out that scientists had not thought subsea permafrost would begin to thaw and release the gas. She said more research is needed to figure out whether the methane leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is an ongoing, steady phenomenon, or whether it suggests a new source of the gas is emerging as seafloor permafrost thaws.
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52 Comments
Add CommentThe article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"But just how the discovery will affect projections of future warming is hard to say, according to a team of scientists from the United States, Russia and Sweden who published their findings yesterday in the journal Science."
Apparently it's not so hard to day, since the title of this article says that it's "Speeding Climate Change".
Besides, I'm more interested in understanding how it will affect the future climate than how it affects projections of future warming , if you get my drift.
Pretty scary stuff. Cant help but wonder what Mother Nature is going to throw at us next.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJess
www.fbi-logging.at.tc
Send it to my home. I'll burn it in my gas fireplace and emit CO2 instead, which as the article said, is much less potent when it comes to greenhouse effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I gree that addingthe word "May" would have been approrpaite, I hope you share the same comments with the FoxNews website who adds their own sensationalized headlines to articles written by other news sources.
Last week I did read an article written by Fox regarding the IPCC. They presented quotea from a climatoligst in a way that would imply he had serious doubts about global warming. A simple fact checked indicated his concern have to do with mixing politics with science and that he believes the science is overhwhelming and alarming.
You catch my drift?
Beninmv:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLast week I did read an article written by Fox regarding the IPCC. They presented quotes from a climatologist in a way that would imply he had serious doubts about global warming. A simple fact checked indicated his concern have to do with mixing politics with science and that he believes the science is overhwhelming and alarming.
You catch my drift?
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Simply amazing how fast the kneejerk opinionators jump on every article here at SciAm dealing with global warming -- faster than flies on dung.
It is something to behold to see the spin from FAUX NoNooz since they have a need to push more LIES and DECEPTION on everything about global warming, and they certainly take everything out of context or read between the lines for their inhoffers!
Beninmv - Yeah, I see where you're going. You might notice that I did not dispute global warming, since discussion of it is now dominated by political and economic interests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not visit any news sites because I'm more interested in science than politics. My complaint is that SciAm appears to be attempting to transform itself into 'Scientific Headline News'. I prefer it continue its prior editorial directions and concern itself with important scientific journalism. I realize that there's a great deal of marketing opportunity since the effective demise of "OMNI" magazine, but they did a better job of sensationalizing scientific news reporting than SciAm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is the link to the peer reviewed paper in Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/327/5970/1246
Here is a link to a video of one of the scientist being interviewed:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.uaf.edu/news/news/20100303192545.html
jdwyer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf that is the case, I stand corrected. I am just a little too frustrated with the trolls lakota references who do jum pn these articles. I have finally learned to use my time better than get frustrated by those who post their denialist talking points whenever there is a snow storm or otehr cold weather event.
There is a very concerted and orchestrated effort to spread doubt and misinformation.
Again, my apologies.
I believe the headline is rather misleading. The article never says anything definitive about the stability of the underwater permafrost. In fact, it says that "the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible," The only explanation it gives is that it "appears that river runoff flowing into the area she studied is getting warmer and raising the temperature of water near the ocean floor, where the permafrost lies." Given the loose nature of this statement, I assume she does not have years worth of river flow and temperature data to back up the claim.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis fits into the mold of the vast majority of global warming articles which go something like: if the earth warms, then this bad thing will happen.
Beninmv - I certainly understand and accept your gracious apology. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShorter Soccer Dad: Nothing to see here folks move along. Have you seen my latest manufactured scandal?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile here in the real anybody can just mosey on over to Science and see the abstract:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/327/5970/1246
FTA:
"Here, we show that more than 5000 at-sea observations of dissolved methane demonstrates that greater than 80% of ESAS bottom waters and greater than 50% of surface waters are supersaturated with methane regarding to the atmosphere. The current atmospheric venting flux, which is composed of a diffusive component and a gradual ebullition component, is on par with previous estimates of methane venting from the entire World Ocean. Leakage of methane through shallow ESAS waters needs to be considered in interactions between the biogeosphere and a warming Arctic climate."
Let us all remember that Soccer Dad thinks that the Eastern Arctic releasing as much methane as the rest of the world's ocean combined is "negligible".
Trent1492 - Very good point, but strictly speaking your quote stated that the reported leakage is comparable to previous *estimates* of methane venting from the entire world ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis certainly indicates a very significant venting, especially if, as it can be presumed, this venting has recently increased and continues to do so.
However it could also indicate that the world ocean venting has been vastly underestimated, and it may or may not be increasing.
This is certainly alarming - both the extent of this venting and the lack of actual world ocean data. There are far too many unanswered questions.
@Jtdwyer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"However it could also indicate that the world ocean venting has been vastly underestimated, and it may or may not be increasing"
Why pretend that we can not monitor and have not been monitoring atmospheric methane levels?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2009.fig2.png
"There are far too many unanswered questions."
Your ignorance on a matter does not translate into a ignorance for the whole world. In the Age of the Internet why not bother?
Do you have anything more powerful than arguing with a fallacious Argument from Ignorance?
If this methane were harvestable, could it be used commercially? Well with that out of the way... the real concern is how much faster will the North Pole melt?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the North Pole acts as the counter balance to the slower melting South Pole in the 365+ day wobble... how much more wobble will happen if the North Pole looses 25% of its mass or 50%? Nothing maybe... but these are huge forces from the centre of rotation. This is all sitting on tectonic plates over a molten lubricant that can be played apon by various factors siting the time shift of 1.33 millionths of a second as a direct result of the Chillian quake.
Doomsayer I am not... I only propose to learn more.
"Water over the Siberian site averages minus 1.8 to 1 degree Celsius, 12 to 17 degrees warmer than the air that helps permafrost on land stay frozen."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-----------------------
Soccerdad:
"In fact, it says that "the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible,"
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Sure......then please explain exactly why we have the highest CH4 levels in 400,000 years:
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.
"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 Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author.
Historically, methane concentrations in the world's atmosphere have ranged between 0.3 and 0.4 parts per million in cool periods to 0.6 to 0.7 in warm periods. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the scientists said, the highest in 400,000 years. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher.
http://www.uaf.edu/news/news/20100303192545.html
Climate change human link evidence 'stronger'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA review from the UK Met Office says it is becoming clearer that human activities are causing climate change.
It says the evidence is stronger now than when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried out its last assessment in 2007.
The analysis, published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, has assessed 110 research papers on the subject.
It says the Earth is changing rapidly, probably because of greenhouse gases.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8550090.stm
Mr. Trent (not Dilfer is it?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used the word negligible purposefully, directly quoting it from the 2nd page of the article:
"Martin Heimann, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible," though that could change."
I saw no evidence from the article that the amount of methane release was increasing.
Gee I don't know why methane levels are higher than ever, lakota. Maybe it's because humans have been extracting methane from the earth and using it for the last hundred years or so. Some of that methane is bound to escape.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI saw nothing in the article that demonstrates that more is leaking from the undersea area now vs. in the past. Just because more is leaking than we thought doesn't mean anything. This is also a very common theme for the articles dealing with global warming: "We've just discovered that something is worse than we thought, even though we never measured it before!"
I can't wait until the day when everyone settles down and we get back to science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll this bickering back and forth by the "warmies" and the "deniers" is getting old.
Very old.....
But how will this methane be mediated in the environment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI get so sick of the GW fanatics constantly assuming that any increase in X (greenhouse gase) will automatically result in a linear Y (atmospheric temp).
Our climate is a SYSTEM, with multiple feedback loops that mediate gases and temperatures within a certain equilibrium.
Gases like this have been released many many many times in the past, often in greater volume, and guess what? The Earth is still here, still green and blue.
Ken
http://www.kenStech.com
Trent - I freely admit my ignorance, but don't let it bother you - it doesn't bother me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am confused by this article. It states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“The amount of methane emitted by that one patch of seabed roughly equals the amount scientists believed was released by all of the world's oceans.”
“Information she and her colleagues gathered during multiple research expeditions between 2003 and 2008 suggest that the area, home to 100 methane "hot spots," emits 8 million metric tons of the gas into the atmosphere.”
“That's a relatively small slice of the 440 million metric tons of methane emitted worldwide each year from a combination of human activities and natural sources like rotting plants in wetlands, termites and wildfires.”
“Martin Heimann, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible," though that could change.”
The article seems to contradict itself, unless I’ve misunderstood something. I don't think I've misrepresented these quotations.
@jtdwyer: It seems to me that they are saying most methane emissions come from the land, but that one patch of ocean is emitting as much as the total of the rest of the ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@kenstech: The Earth's climate is a system, and that's the problem. Most of the known feedback loops that rising temperatures incur are positive, so raising the temperature by more than a little has a greater than linear effect on the climate. And while you are correct that the Earth has gone through upheavals and is still here and currently life-friendly, look up the Great Permian Extinction, and pay attention to the part about the role of methane in that.
@Soccerdad: These emissions may be a recent development, or you may be right in that we just didn't know about them before, the article wasn't too clear on that matter. However, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and regardless of how long these particular vents have existed, the fact that they exists shows that the methane hydrates under that part of the ocean are close to being released, and the release of some may raise the temperature enough to loose the rest of it. This leads into a positive feedback that may release the methane in other deposits around the world.
I think it would be a good idea to look into how accessible this methane is, since if we burn it then at least we reduce the greenhouse potency by at least a factor of 20. And it has been pointed out that the energy content of the methane deposits is far greater than all other hydrocarbon sources on Earth combined.
"Trent - I freely admit my ignorance, but don't let it bother you - it doesn't bother me."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdmissions of ignorance are not a problem. The problem arises when you make conclusions based on your rather limited knowledge base.
Trent - Your problem is not your corrections, it's your unnecessary insults. You'd be happier without them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfisixisfun - Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the methane release being reported is larger than the estimated total oceanic release, but still a small percentage of the total methane released.
If this is correct, this leak has been significantly over dramatized in this report.
fisixisfun - Also your suggestion to burn this release is a good one, but it seems unlikely recovery of the methane being released along a shoreline, if I understand correctly, is readily accessible. However, some technological solution involving cooling might be used to collect it from the water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisplease explain how you know what the ch4 level was 400,000 years ago? do you have records from the time we don't know about? you have theories...not facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate changes people, it always has, it always will.
The Methane Hydrates are a vast and globally scattered resource. They have been doing research in the Canadian Arctic for several years, Japan, US, Germany, and Canada I believe. If the technology can be developed to safely and responsibly develop these resources as a fuel source, Japan would no longer need to import fuel - they're surrounded with it. http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/FutureSupply/MethaneHydrates/images/sub-nav/occurencs.jpg
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts strange isn't it the bible tells of all these things but most of us wait for science to conferm the existance of God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI deney the existance of Scientists.
Tahoe58 - That's correct. The key challenge will be finding a safe method of extraction. Unlike contained subterranean methane gas deposits, methane hydrates are, as I understand, dense semisolids floating at the bottom of the sea. Extraction would likely require either somehow pumping dense 'slush' up from the seafloor, which would heat it, causing it to gasify, or somehow containing and gasifying it at the seafloor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn any case, extraction will be very technically challenging, involving high risk of releasing vast quantities into the atmosphere.
Methane hydrates consist of methane gas bound to hydrogen, which is stable only at low temperatures and/or high pressure. Its unlikely that conditions ever existed that could have bound atmospheric methane to water.
While I know of no evidence supporting this, it seems reasonable that undersea methane hydrates may be the product of leakage from even larger subterranean methane gas deposits. If those deposits (which may not be colocated with the methane hydrates) can be located, it may be safer and more practical to drill the contained deposits of gas.
injest:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"please explain how you know what the ch4 level was 400,000 years ago? do you have records from the time we don't know about? you have theories...not facts."
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From the research at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, International Arctic Research Center, which gets their information from Earth's geological record. Do you have something to add to their research that disputes their geologic record, or are you just trying to be an ad hominem attacker without any facts of your own?
You can always write a paper for peer review in the journal "Science" like scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov did, but I imagine you have other motives attacking my post. Maybe you can post some political rhetoric from the usual BLOGS for your dispute with what these scientists have to offer.
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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.
"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 Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author.
Historically, methane concentrations in the world's atmosphere have ranged between 0.3 and 0.4 parts per million in cool periods to 0.6 to 0.7 in warm periods. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the scientists said, the highest in 400,000 years. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher.
http://www.uaf.edu/news/news/20100303192545.html
jtdwyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"So the methane release being reported is larger than the estimated total oceanic release, but still a small percentage of the total methane released."
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"But what we are having now is up to 10 million tons annually escaping from this seabed," said the study's lead author, Natalia Shakhova of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Seems like you want to talk semantics by demeaning a 10 million ton annual natural emission, when total worldwide emissions are 440 million tons -- a full 60% by mankind and 40% or 176 million tons from natural emissions -- making this one seabed 5.7% of all natural CH4 emissions.
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"But Shakhova pointed out that scientists had not thought subsea permafrost would begin to thaw and release the gas. She said more research is needed to figure out whether the methane leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is an ongoing, steady phenomenon, or whether it suggests a new source of the gas is emerging as seafloor permafrost thaws."
Seems like CH4 emissions could be a much larger problem than first thought, if scientists had not thought subsea permafrost would begin to thaw and release the gas, maybe as soon as it has.
Soccerdad:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, it says that "the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible,"
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Actually, from the above article, it says:
Martin Heimann, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said the amount of methane now escaping there is "negligible," though that could change.
"Will this persist into the future under sustained warming trends?"
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From Martin Heimann's article in "Science:"
How Stable Is the Methane Cycle?
Martin Heimann
Methane is, after water vapor and carbon dioxide, the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Its concentration in the atmosphere has more than doubled since preindustrial times. Human energy production and use, landfills and waste, cattle raising, rice agriculture, and biomass burning are considered responsible for this increase (1). However, 40% of current global methane sources are natural........Two observational studies now shed light on how these natural sources are changing in today's changing climate (2, 3).
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First, it appears that Heimann is just commenting on others' research, and he certainly appears concerned about how natural seabed CH4 emissions will persist into the future under sustained warming trends.
He's apparently one of the experts at the Max Planck Institute, but to call 10 million tons or 5.7% of all the natural CH4 emissions "negligible," seems to be an understatement.
Trent1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet us all remember that Soccer Dad thinks that the Eastern Arctic releasing as much methane as the rest of the world's ocean combined is "negligible".
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Yep, it certainly appears that 10 million tons or 5.7% of the entire worldwide natural CH4 emissions is coming from this one seabed, which is hardly "negligible."
Soccerdad:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Gee I don't know why methane levels are higher than ever, lakota. Maybe it's because humans have been extracting methane from the earth and using it for the last hundred years or so. Some of that methane is bound to escape.
I saw nothing in the article that demonstrates that more is leaking from the undersea area now vs. in the past."
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Apparently you missed this by the lead researcher: "But Shakhova pointed out that scientists had not thought subsea permafrost would begin to thaw and release the gas."
And also from your "negligible" guy, Martin Heimann, it appears that mankind is the culprit behind a full 60% of the CH4 emissions -- much more than "some of that methane is bound to escape, because humans have been extracting methane from the earth."
Heimann: "Methane is, after water vapor and carbon dioxide, the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Its concentration in the atmosphere has more than doubled since preindustrial times. Human energy production and use, landfills and waste, cattle raising, rice agriculture, and biomass burning are considered responsible for this increase."
Gas hydrates are inherently unstable. They form, then dissipate quickly. Take a look at a hydrate chart and see under what conditions they form and are released. The next question that logically falls from this article, is "Will we all freeze to death when the hydrates suddenly start forming again?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, not so much.
lakota2012 – I hate to be argumentative over trivial details, but I have to disagree with your remarks concerning my comment. The article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“Information she and her colleagues gathered during multiple research expeditions between 2003 and 2008 suggest that the area, home to 100 methane "hot spots," emits 8 million metric tons of the gas into the atmosphere.”
“That's a relatively small slice of the 440 million metric tons of methane emitted worldwide each year from a combination of human activities and natural sources like rotting plants in wetlands, termites and wildfires.”
In assessing the impact of this specific grouping of methane emissions, their contribution to total atmospheric methane is the issue that should be considered. I hate doing math, but my calculator says that 8 / (440+8) = 0.017857 or less than 2%. Please don’t make me do any more research or calculating to more meaningfully represent the data your portrayed as representing 5.7% of natural methane emissions, a seemingly more impressive figure.
Your characterization of my comment was incorrect. I did not make any statement demeaning the less than 2% of total world methane emissions emitted by the reported 100 ‘spots’. I was referring to the presentation of this article, which opened by characterizing its subject report stating that:
“The amount of methane emitted by that one patch of seabed roughly equals the amount scientists believed was released by all of the world's oceans.”
I do think that this statement over dramatized the reporting of these 100 ‘spots’ emitting methane into the atmosphere, as I indicated in my prior comment. This discussion is exceedingly boring. You are the smartest person in the room.
Shoshin - Thanks. That makes the extraction of methane hydrates even more difficult than I'd imagined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere has been a lot of research done on recovering gas hydrates, but they are very difficult to capture. Fundamentally, they are biogenic in nature, so really, when they form, all that they are doing is temporarily sequestering the methane in a particular Pressure-Temperature regime that is subject to constant change. The methane would have naturally escaped anyway.
Characterizing hydrates as the next great threat in the AGW wars is silly.
Methane is not 25 times more potent because it is not polar and its dielectric constant is very low. Water vapor is very potent because it is polar and has a very hight dielectric constant. CO2 already is as potent as is possible since it absorbs all 15 micron infrared already. Goggle the report "The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide-the Innocent Source of Life", written by Dr. Hertzberg. Perhaps, methane already absorbs as much infrared as it can, like CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoshin - Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOut of curiosity, as I understand one hypothesis for the causes of the Permian extinction lists gasification of oceanic methane hydrates due to increased oceanic temperature as a 'final' contributor to increased global temperature.
If the oceanic methane hydrates are transitory, are you aware of any evidence indicating whether or not they are now eventually gasified and released into the atmosphere, replenished from some undersea source? If so, oceanic
warming would not likely increase atmospheric methane.
Thanks
R.Blakely - Thanks - that's an interesting perspective, skimming through Dr. Hertzberg's apparently unpublished paper, but I really can't assess its veracity. It seems plausible to me, but I don't know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne contra-indicator to that assertion might be the apparently much higher temperature of Venus generally attributed to additional greenhouse gases, although I'd guess that the orbital position of Venus nearer the Sun would also be a significant contributor to its temperature.
Its unfortunate that there are no fully trustworthy sources of information available for the casual observer - one is almost forced to dismiss all information relating to this highly charged issue. I'm always skeptical of all information, anyway, but so many people are spending so much energy diluting climate information that I don't have enough energy to reasonably assess it much. I try to limit my consideration to specific cases.
jtdwyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Please don’t make me do any more research or calculating to more meaningfully represent the data your portrayed as representing 5.7% of natural methane emissions, a seemingly more impressive figure."
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While I incorrectly used 10 million tons of seabed emissions instead of the correct 8 million tons, it is either 4.5% of the total natural emissions or 1.8% of the total CH4 emissions -- still a number higher than "negligible" according to Heimann.
The following is the million dollar question, since even though CH4 doesn't last more than about 8 years in our atmosphere, it has a large effect for a brief period of time. CH4 still accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all the long-lived and globally-mixed greenhouse gases.
"Will this persist into the future under sustained warming trends?" Heimann said in a commentary published in Science. "We do not know."
@Soccerdad, I think the intent of the article was to indicate that an issue which had been previously thought of as something we didn’t have to worry about may add a new variable to the equation. There was no attempt to make any definitive claims. I don’t know if you are aware of the scientific process but it generally starts with a hypothesis. It is therefore interesting to know when things do not match our expectations so that a new round of scientific inquiry can begin. In regards to the headline being misleading; are you really serious that you expect the headline to be a factual summary of the article? It is a teaser. Sorry, if you were deceived into reading something against your will! Then again, I’ve read many of your comments here and despite the fact that you seem to distrust science and take a contrary stand to anything written here I can’t understand why you read anything here at all. Certainly not to be informed as you seem to believe you know all the answers already.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis first got reported in Science Vol. 312, pgs 1612-3(2006), and I sent numerous groups such as EDF, NRDC, UCS warnings about it and also to the several scientists winning Nobels for their ozone depletion studies. They and others keep throwing out the need to control vehicle and power plant emissions. Dr. Rowland's group at UCIrvine keeps measuring away on CO2 and methane levels increasing in the biosphere, but does not seem concerned with how high the levels of those gases may get. And no concern has been expressed for getting some direct action to stall the microbes in some way to slow emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main problem as described in Science article is in Siberia and not in the Arctic ocean where the exposing of massive amounts of detritus gets left exposed to air allowing the rapid conversion of biocarbon to CO2. Detritus in water will be much slower in getting biodegraded to CO2 due to lack of oxygen.
With the detritus being exposed in Siberia we may have to get a spraying of a microbicide to slow considerably the natural biodecomposing and we may need to take such action soon.
Dr. J. Singmaster
I got my sentence a little backward concerning the exposing of detritus as I position it to sound like the detritus was getting exposed in the Arctic ocean. It is getting exposed in Siberia as permafrost melts away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@R.Blakely at 02:43 AM on 03/07/10
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe model that shows that increasing CO2 can have no effect because it is already saturated would be somewhat valid if the atmosphere were of uniform density and consistency. It is not. First, density drops off rapidly with altitude. Very simply, when you increase the density of CO2 (or any greenhouse gas), you raise the altitude of the imaginary boundary that exists somewhere between too-thin-to-matter at the upper levels, and already-saturated at the lower levels. That, effectively, increases the thickness of the insulation that the atmosphere provides.
Methane, H2O, and CO2 are all greenhouse gases. H2O precipitates out of the atmosphere on a different pressure-temperature curve than CO2; as a result H2O is much less uniformly distributed, partial pressure wise, than CO2. Air at higher altitudes is much dryer than air at lower altitudes, as a general rule. Methane breaks down into H2O and CO2.
Methane and methane hydrates are stable below a certain pressure and temperature, and unstable above it. It only makes sense that as the ocean rises in temperature, the deposits on the periphery of the stability zones will become unstable.
Because of the interrelationships between these gasses, there is no simple formula or model which can predict with precision what the effect of a (probably increasing) methane release will be, but since they are all GHGs, it is a pretty safe bet that the push will be toward higher temperatures.
Chris G – Thanks for your very enlightening explanation. You didn’t mention it, but I’d guess that processes exchanging gasses between the ocean and atmosphere are also significant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the general public assumes that computer models are nearly infallible, my experience modeling unrelated systems corresponds to your assessment: most models are far too simplistic to adequately represent complex dynamic systems.
Although general conclusions can be made from global monitoring of critical environmental, such as increasing atmospheric CO2 increases temperature, I doubt that reasonably predicting actual affects is feasible.
with technology available why not tap the arctic methane and use it as clean energy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone know what fraction of CH4 gas released by rotting vegistation at the arctic will be relative to the amount of greenhouse gasses from volcanic, hot springs, or other sources might normally be released each year by the earth? I would expect the Arctic fraction to be rather small by comparison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps I will be able to use less charcoal in my barbeque. <tsk tsk>