http://climateanalyst.blogspot.

com/ Arctic Methane as a Driver of Climate Change

Last summer, 2011, there were reports of the ocean bubbling from tankers traveling through the Chukchi Sea north of Russia. It is north of Siberia and a section of the Arctic Ocean, one of the last places in the Arctic to receive extensive research. It runs along the coast of northeastern Siberia which is home to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). The ESAS is the shallowest portion of the Arctic Ocean at an average depth of 50m. In response to the freighters reports a team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks that had been studying the area for 10 years decided launched an expedition to the region. What they found were plumes of methane bubbling from the ocean up to a km across. These areas had not been explored yet by the team. Areas close to it however had only had plumes tens of meters across. Why does this matter? Methane is one of the more potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) that occur naturally on Earth in large quantities. Over 20 years methane has 72 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide and 25 times more over 100 years. Scenarios from the SRES, SREX, and the two latest comprehensive climate change reports from the IPCC, the TAR and AR4, don't include methane emissions outside of anthropogenic sources (agricultural emissions due to livestock and rice and other industry). As a result, the effects of methane emissions from many natural sources has not been quantified and the effect of such large additions of methane into the atmosphere is unknown. The ESAS is home to the largest concentration of methane hydrates or clathrates in the world. Clathrates are solid crystal structures created under pressure near the bottom of the ocean or within the sediment. Beneath the sediment clathrates extend until the geologic heat from the Earth becomes too much for the solid crystal structure to be maintained. 80% of the world's clathrates are located in the ESAS. It is estimated that around 1750Gt of methane are stored within the ESAS. In 2010 Shakhova et. al estimated that it was possible for a 50Gt release of methane from the clathrates of the ESAS to happen at any time. 50 Gt of methane is enough to double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, tipping us past current estimates of 90% safety from dangerous climate change. In earlier periods, methane release from clathrates played a role in massive extinctions. In fact, the largest extinction know to date, occurred in conjunction with massive methane releases from clathrates. The Permian-Triassic extinction killed off 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, 90% of marine life. and is the only know mass extinction of insect life. During that period carbon supersaturated the oceans turning the ocean from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Oxygen levels are presumed to no have been at such a low proportion that some forms of life could not be supported. Massive wildfires roamed the continents.

This is an extreme example of the ability methane has of wreaking havoc on our climate system. There is not nearly as much methane deposited in hydrates as there had been at that time. It is also believed that the release of the hydrates was caused by the seismic activity of volcanoes located in Siberia. Both of these point toward changes in climate not being as drastic as the Permian extinction. Any change caused by the release of large amounts of methane from the ESAS would be swift and have a large impact on the climate system. What is most worrisome about this latest development in the ESAS is that the Arctic is already warming quicker than the rest of the world. Some of this warming is unaccounted for. It has been acknowledged that there is a feedback mechanism that inherently speeds the loss of Arctic ice as it melts. As the ice melts and breaks apart it becomes surrounded by water which has a lower albedo (or reflectivity). Heat energy is more easily trapped by surfaces with low albedo, causing the water surrounding the ice to heat up faster, causing the ice to melt quicker. This vicious cycle does not account for all increases in warming however. Recently, NASA performed flyovers of the oceans spanning from one pole to the next. They flew over the Arctic five times and discover that methane levels from the Arctic ocean were .5% higher than background levels. (See my entry from April 24, 2012.) The higher methane levels were concentrated where there were leads in the ice, meaning the methane was coming from the ocean and not already present in the atmosphere. This discovery may account for the additional warming we are experiencing in the Arctic. The source of this methane has not been identified yet. This leaves us with the question, "What is happening in the Arctic climate?" Aside: It would seem to me that the increasing levels of methane are indicative of a positive feedback beginning in the Arctic. The ocean water that is coming in contact with the permafrost on the ESAS is 12-17 degrees Celsius warmer than the ice that had previously covered it. With the greater release of ESAS methane Arctic waters will become supersaturated with carbon, become warmer more easily, turn the ocean into a source, and aid the release of additional clathrates in Arctic. GHG emissions must be limited NOW in order to prevent this... References Kort, E., Wofsy, S., Daube, B., Diao, M., Elkins, J., Gao, R., et al. (2012). Atmospheric observations of Arctic Ocean methane emissions up to 82 north. Nature Geoscience, 5, 318-321. "Methane releases from Arctic shelf may be much larger and faster than anticipated." National Science Foundation - US National Science Foundation (NSF). Version 10-036 . N.p., 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 11 May 2012. . Romm, Joe. "Science stunner: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting | ThinkProgress." ThinkProgress. N.p., 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 11

May 2012. . Shakhova, N.E, V.A Alekseev, and I.P Semiletov. "Predicted methane emission on the East Siberian Shelf." Doklady Earth Sciences 430.2 (2010): 190-193. Shakhova, N., Semiletov, I., Sergienko, V., Pipko, I., & Dudarev, O. (2012). On carbon transport and fate in the East Siberian Arctic landshelfatmosphere system. Environmental Research Letters, 7, 1-13. Shen, S, J.L Crowley, Y Wang, S.A Bowling, D.H Erwin, P.M Sadler, and C Cao. "Calibrating the end-Permian mass extinction." Science 334 (2011): 1367-1372.