Arctic methane hydrates” out of the science corner onto the economic and political agenda
Bubbling methane melted a hole in an otherwise frozen lake in Alaska's Brooks Range. Katey Walter Anthony photo
When the Ice Blog was launched in 2008, one of the first posts from a trip to Alaska entitled Ice-Capades and Alaska baking with methane? included a visit to frozen-over Eight MileLakein Denali National Park, where scientists Katey Walter and Laura Brosius were measuring methane emissions from melting ice and permafrost.
The young "climate ambassadors I was traveling with helped her to set up umbrella traps and capture bubbles of methane coming to the surface. The proof of the puddingwas setting a match to the gas and watching it catch light. An interesting experiment. But the subject has huge wide-ranging implications. Methane is also a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Walter and others have since recorded numerous methane seeps in Alaska and Greenland. As global temperatures increase, the permafrost thaws, potentially releasing the gas stored both in the permafrost on land and in the form of methane hydrates under water.
Since that Alaskan trip, methane has become an increasingly hot topic, with more research being conducted and data collected. The reservoir of methane stored under the Arctic ice and permafrost is huge. And there is increasing scientific evidence that with the world warming, this reservoir is not going to stay there for ever. The concentration of atmospheric methane has increased dramatically in the last 200 years --especially in the Arctic. In 2008, scientists came up with a scenario where up to 50 gigatonnes of methane could be released abruptly from the East Siberia Arctic Shelf because of the melting of permafrost which had hitherto kept it safely sealed in.
In 2013, a paper published in the journal Nature put a price tag on the possibility of the Arctics methane being released. The experts suggest it could trigger costs of $60 trillion. Normally, as soon as money is involved, public interest tends to rise. The report should really have brought the subject of Arctic methane hydrates out of the science corner onto the economic and political agenda. Which is, of course, where it has to be, if there is any chance of limiting the Arctic thaw by halting global warming.
There are scientists who insist that such a scenario is not likely. Let me refer you here to adetailed analysis of the scientific literature on the subjectpublished in 2013 by Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research andDevelopment, in Earth Insight hosted by the Guardian. He points out that none of the scientists who reject the plausibility of the scenario are experts in the Arctic, and specifically the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf.On the other hand, there is an emerging consensus among Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelfspecialists based on continuing fieldwork, he writes, highlighting a real danger of unprecedented quantities of methane venting due to thawing permafrost."
Ref Articles:
Arctic methane: Time bomb or 'boogeyman'?
Researchers say Arctic Ocean leaking methane at an alarming rate
Study doubles estimate for methane venting from shallow Siberian Arctic waters
Study: Methane from melting Arctic could add $60 trillion to climate change bill
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Sooner or later the reality of all this will hit home and all the deniers will claim it didn't happen.
Yup, that is exactly what will happen Larry.
(A message in the public interest, brought to you by the Heritage Foundation & the Cato Institute)
There, don't you feel better now, LC-- after all, it's all in how you look at it, right? Those methane thingies are just another in the ongoing series of 'isolated incidents' that give some people the delusion that there just might be a problem with shitting where we eat...
Try not to think about it-- it gets easier the more you practice.
You can bury your head in the sand, I think I'd rather stay informed and aware.
If you want to feel guilty for what is happening with CH4 emissions knock urslf out . I prefer to wait for real evidence that human activity is behind it ? CO2 emissions ? Unlikely to be a cause .
I've often wondered why people use the /sarc tag... now I'm beginning to see why it's necessary.
Storms cannot be attributed to human activity and are thus irrelevant to the topic ...