Earth Equity News

Worrisome Methane Release Observed in Arctic. By Michael Fitzpatrick, BBC, January 6, 2010. "Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed... The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks... [who] has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean. The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News. Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean... Higher concentrations of atmospheric methane are contributing to global temperature rise; this in turn is projected to cause further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane in a feedback loop. A worst-case scenario is one where the feedback passes a tipping point and billions of tons of methane are released suddenly, as has occurred at least once in the Earth's past." Read WWF, August, 2009 report: Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications [PDF, 100 pp]; Executive Summary [PDF, 13 pp].