by David Sassoon -
Sep 24th, 2008
The Independent (UK) reported in an exclusive story today that scientists have discovered "chimneys" of methane -- a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide -- rising from the melting Arctic seabed.
Scientists believe sudden release of stores of methane have in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and mass extinctions.
Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.
"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. 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]."
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