Inconvenient study: Methane seepage from the Arctic seabed has been occurring for millions of years

Watts Up With That?

Despite the ever present wailing from green activists that we are sitting on a “methane catastrophe”, it’s simply business as usual for Earth in the Arctic. Even Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS thinks the issue is “implausible”. This study further confirms that the issue is just another emotional overblown green issue of no merit.

Methane seepage from the Arctic seabed occurring for millions of years

From the Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment

Methane gas flares, up to 800 meters high, rise from the Arctic Ocean floor. That is the size of the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Golden Gate Bridge becomes a miniature, in this visual comparison. Video illustration: Aleksei Portnov, phd.

We worry about greenhouse gas methane. Its lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than CO2´s, but the impact of methane on climate change is over 20 times greater…

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Abiotic methane discovered under the Arctic Ocean

Watts Up With That?

Ultra-slow spreading ocean ridges were discovered in the Arctic in 2003 by scientists at Woods Hole Ocenographic Institution. They found that for large regions the sea floor splits apart by pulling up solid rock from deep within the earth. These rocks, known as peridotites (after the gemstone peridot) come from the deep layer of the earth known as the mantle. Credit Dr. Henry J.B. Dick, WHOI / nsf.gov

From CAGE – Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment

New source of methane discovered in the Arctic Ocean

Methane, a highly effective greenhouse gas, is usually produced by decomposition of organic material, a complex process involving bacteria and microbes.

But there is another type of methane that can appear under specific circumstances: Abiotic methane is formed by chemical reactions in the oceanic crust beneath the seafloor.

New findings show that deep water gas hydrates, icy substances in the sediments that…

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Surprise finding: Arctic Ocean methane does not reach the atmosphere

Watts Up With That?

From the CAGE – CENTER FOR ARCTIC GAS HYDRATE, CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT and the cancel the “methane time bomb” department comes this surprising finding:

Ocean floor observatories, research ship and airplane were deployed to a area of 250 active methane gas flares in the Arctic Ocean. CREDIT Torger Grytå/CAGE

250 methane flares release the climate gas methane from the seabed and into the Arctic Ocean. During the summer months this leads to an increased methane concentration in the ocean. But surprisingly, very little of the climate gas rising up through the sea reaches the atmosphere.

“Our results are exciting and controversial”, says senior scientist Cathrine Lund Myhre from NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who is cooperating with CAGE through MOCA project.

The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The scientist performed simultaneous measurements close to seabed, in the ocean and in the atmosphere during an…

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