Subsea methane release documented

[andygates]

You know that theory about how methane's trapped under permafrost and it could be a Bad Thing if it was to be released?  Well, it looks like it's happening.

Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University, in an Independent article:  "An extensive area of intense methane release was found [in the Laptev Sea, North of Siberia]. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."

"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."

Oh, crap.

Comments

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

If "eventually" is what's concerning you, then the 9-15 years timescale is of no use because there are many intermediate steps with many various processes and many sinks and many timescales, so there's no point limiting yourself to methane. It's a natural closed system.

I don't have the entirety of the various steps and loops in the carbon cycle in my head, I'm afraid, but I'd be very relucant to come to any conclusions based on an atmospheric methane timescale of 9-15 years and "eventually it turns into carbon dioxide".