Intro: "Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere."
'Methane that has been stored in Arctic ice for many millennia is now bubbling into the atmosphere.'
Arctic Melt Releasing Ancient Methane
22 May 12
�
cientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere.
The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change.
Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability.
There are many sources of the gas around the world, some natural and some man-made, such as landfill waste disposal sites and farm animals.
Tracking methane to these various sources is not easy.
But the researchers on the new Arctic project, led by Katey Walter Anthony from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF), were able to identify long-stored gas by the ratio of different isotopes of carbon in the methane molecules.
Using aerial and ground-based surveys, the team identified about 150,000 methane seeps in Alaska and Greenland in lakes along the margins of ice cover.
Local sampling showed that some of these are releasing the ancient methane, perhaps from natural gas or coal deposits underneath the lakes, whereas others are emitting much younger gas, presumably formed through decay of plant material in the lakes.
"We observed most of these cryosphere-cap seeps in lakes along the boundaries of permafrost thaw and in moraines and fjords of retreating glaciers," they write, emphasising the point that warming in the Arctic is releasing this long-stored carbon.
"If this relationship holds true for other regions where sedimentary basins are at present capped by permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets, such as northern West Siberia, rich in natural gas and partially underlain by thin permafrost predicted to degrade substantially by 2100, a very strong increase in methane carbon cycling will result, with potential implications for climate warming feedbacks."
Quantifying methane release across the Arctic is an active area of research, with several countries dispatching missions to monitor sites on land and sea.
The region stores vast quantities of the gas in different places - in and under permafrost on land, on and under the sea bed, and - as evidenced by the latest research - in geological reservoirs.
"The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, and has many methane sources that will increase as the temperature rises," commented Prof Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway, University of London, who is also involved in Arctic methane research.
"This is yet another serious concern: the warming will feed the warming."
How serious and how immediate a threat this feedback mechanism presents is a controversial area, with some scientists believing that the impacts will not be seen for many decades, and others pointing out the possibility of a rapid release that could swiftly accelerate global warming.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
The more things change...
While President Obama has a Budget framework; it is time he gets behind a real budget with real fact based solutions to our economic issues. Solutions for both long term problems as well as our current morass. That Budget proposal of course is the "Budget for All" proposed by the Progressive Caucus.
Their real credo, ritaague, is "Every Child's Behind Left". These are disparate forces who have come together to impose their will on America, and in the process destroy Barack Obama. They hide behind the Religious Right while ridiculing them behind closed doors. We need to look behind the curtain to find out who these people really are.
Paul Ryan. Just who is this guy who now controls the multi-trillion dollar U.S. budget that right-wingers are slobbering over? He's a devotee of a psychopath, Ayn Rand, and demands that his staff read her works. This vile woman was an atheist who railed against government programs while living a life of depravity. But, in the end, she found it necessary to take advantage of Medicare and Social Security.
And these guys - from Ronald Reagan to Alan Greenspan, Ron and Rand Paul, and now Ryan - have absorbed and spread this evil philosophy. In addition to the federal level, just look at what's happening in the GOP-controlled states. Wisconsin stays in the news, but the most insidious legislation is happening in Michigan, where the governor is taking control of selected cities, and the local elected officials HAVE NO SAY!
Look at where we were and where we are now. Evil is winning folks. Cheney gets a new heart. Need I say more?
I agree that a crueler irony there could hardly be! All I see is an intolerant, hateful, uncompromising party that certainly does not have anything close to what most of us would consider "christian values." or even just good human values. They are corrupt and could care less about the average American and even less than that for the poor or education or social services or, or, or......
These corporatists are in line with Giovanni Gentile, Mussolini's mouthpiece, who said that government working with big business was the heart of fascism. Yes, fascism, of the sort that our SCOTUS is now set on supprting.
Nothing has any meaning to them with the exception of the almighty dollar.
A "decent society" is not part of their vocabulary unless it excludes everyone but the top dogs. It is a sad state of affairs and difficult for me to comprehend. This barbaric element of "social Darwinists" care about no one but themselves and the upper 1%.
Their philosophy is all about "winning."
Unfortunately the competition they allege we are all in is rigged in their favor. The system is rigged and shall remain as such for the foreseeable future.
Money does NOT equal smarts--- just craftiness.
Humans are social beings and reciprocal relations are written in our genes.
90% of human existence was spent in small hunter-gatherer groups in which the survival of the whole group was essential and equality was the norm.
Not until agriculture and pastoralism developed and with them the accumulation of food (the first wealth) and then the rise of civilizations did serious inequalities develop.