Summertime observations of dissolved CH4 in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) (21). … (D) Fluxes of CH4 venting to the atmosphere over the ESAS. Remobilization to the atmosphere of only a small fraction of the methane held in East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) sediments could trigger abrupt climate warming, yet it is believed that […]
By David A. FahrentholdWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, March 1, 2010 Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States has reduced the manmade pollutants that left its waterways dead, discolored and occasionally flammable. But now, it has managed to smother the same waters with the most natural stuff in the […]
By Michael FitzpatrickScience reporter, BBC News Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed. Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat. The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of […]
Arctic permafrost is already thawing, creating lakes that emit methane. The heat-trapping gas could dramatically accelerate global warming. How big is the threat? What can be done? Methane bubbling up into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost that underlies numerous Arctic lakes appears to be hastening global warming. New estimates indicate that by 2100 thawing permafrost […]
By Staff WritersGeneva (AFP) Nov 23, 2009 Greenhouse gas emissions have kept increasing, reaching a record level since the pre-industrial era, the UN climate agency warned Monday, just weeks before a crucial climate change summit. “Levels of most greenhouse gases continue to increase,” said the World Meteorological Organisation in a statement. “In 2008, global concentrations […]
MOSCOW (AFP) — Thawing permafrost caused by global warming is costing Russian energy firms billions of dollars annually in damage control and shrinking Russia’s territory, Greenpeace warned in a new study Friday. According to the report by the environmental watchdog, up to 55 billion roubles (1.9 billion dollars) a year is spent on repairs to […]
This figure shows the mean extent of permafrost in the Arctic, estimated for (a) the years 1990-2000 and (b) the years 2090-2100. In (c), the estimation of loss of permafrost by 2100 is overlaid on estimates for the year 2000. The Arctic could potentially alter the Earth’s climate by becoming a possible source of global […]
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropics likely drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth, according to a new study. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, albeit a distant second. […]
A rush to extract methane from the depths of Africa’s Lake Kivu could trigger a huge upwelling of suffocating gas, potentially affecting over 2 million people By Shanta Barley BENEATH the shimmering surface of Africa’s Lake Kivu, a deadly time bomb awaits. A “gold rush” to extract valuable methane from the lake’s depths might trigger […]
Unimaginable quantities of methane — a greenhouse gas 20 to 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide — are stored underground in the Arctic. Some of it is leaking out By Bob Weber, The Canadian Press You can see them from shore along the Arctic coast or even in some northern lakes — seething domes […]
