If you Thought Carbon was Bad, How About Methane?
Posted by Srikant Rajan | # |
12:37:40 pm on September 25, 2008

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is estimated to contain a greater carbon content than the global coal reserves.And what happens when that methane starts to escape ? Well for starters methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse(GHG) gas and could significantly accelerate global warming.The main reason for methane escaping from underground reserves is the melting of the permafrost layer in the arctic on account of global warming.

The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice.this in turn has caused fissures in the seabed causing trapped methane to escape.In some areas the release is so rapid that methane could not dissolve in the seawater but escaped as bubbles to the sea surface.These methane “   chimneys   ” could cause a spiraling effort by accelerating global warming which would further cause melting of ice sheets and more escape of methane .

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