By Thomas Neuburger
It’s difficult for most people in the climate world to talk about methane and climate change. Methane certainly has an effect on the climate. Methane is a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas that's encased in and produced by thawing permafrost. Thawing permafrost releases carbon, and it also “wakes up” dormant bacteria that feed on the organic matter, producing methane. Permafrost like a frozen compost heap, only massively larger. The above video, from PBS, is good on this subject.
The problem with the methane discussion comes when we try to evaluate the seriousness of the threat. Note, for example, the video concludes that a methane catastrophe produced by melting permafrost is “likely a long way into the future.”
But note also that the video discusses only land-based permafrost thawing. The same Arctic regions contain sea-based methane as well, in the form of “methane calthrates,” methane trapped in very cold water. When the water warms, the methane is release, producing rising underwater plumes.
The whole subject is fraught with controversy, not as to the science, but as to the rate at which it will become a problem. For now thought I want to introduce the subject: land-based permafrost melt and the threat it presents. I’ll return to the methane discussion from time to time, later perhaps producing a short series on the threat in general. For that, stay tuned.
Thanks Thomas. I've seen that PBS program but it can't be shown enough! Same with similar programs on other channels such as NATGEO, The Weather Channel, articles from the Science Museum Group, endless scientific journals and magazines, major newspapers like The New York Times and others, even MSNBC. I'm old enough to remember the warnings about this on the first Earth Day 50 years or so ago but the message doesn't get through to enough people. Never underestimate the power of the oil companies and the blindness of humans.
A topic that media has avoided like the plague (of which several may or may not emerge from ice dozens of millenia old). Once again, Thomas is the only one who even bothers to address it at all.
One thing: Seas need not be frozen for clathrates to form and be sequestered. In fact, almost all are NOT in frozen water. Almost all are sequestered in ocean sediments. With only a couple of degrees warming of those oceans, the structure of those sequestered clathrates is disturbed which releases the methane gas to rise to the surface and into the atmosphere.
I don't know if anyone has bothered to calculate whether permafrost or clathrates hold the greater potential load of CH4...…