This isn't exactly new news, Huffington Post ran a story based on it back at the end of October, but they seemed to downplay it somewhat:
it's still early and the data are far from conclusive, but scientists say they are concerned that what they are seeing could be the start of the release of Arctic methane.
In the past couple of months, as researchers prepare their notes and data for eventual publication, more information is available on what "scientists say they are concerned about."
As reported at Synergy-Space (French)here is what scientists are concerned about:Dr. Orjan Gustafsson led a group of researchers into Arctic waters off the northern coast of Russia this summer, where they measured methane concentrations in the water and atmosphere near the surface.
The scientists, on board Russian scientific research vessel Smirnitskyi Jacob, discovered intense methane concentrations - sometimes going up to 100 times usual levels - in several zones, covering thousands of square kilometers on the Siberian continental shelf.
While there, Dr. Gustafsson reported
A vast zone of intense methane release was discovered. On preceding sites we had observed strong dissolved methane concentrations. Yesterday, for the first time, we observed a zone where the release is so intense that methane did not have time to dissolve in sea water, but arrived at the surface in the form of methane bubbles. These "methane chimneys" were observed on sonar and seismic instruments.
The arctic methane was thought to be permanently trapped in undersea sediment layers beneath a "lid" of permafrost. Scientists suspect that the methane releases they are seeing now are happening because that permafrost lid is becoming peforated from an increased volume of relatively warmer runoff water flowing into the Arctic Ocean from Siberian rivers.
It is estimated that the quantity of methane trapped under the Arctic Ocean is greater than the total quantity of carbon contained in world coal reserves.
This is, of course, not good news. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by a factor of 20. The question is whether the permafrost will refreeze during the winter, blocking the excape of more methane, or whether the methane chimneys will remain open and increase in number and volume of released gas. There have been 10 research cruises to the area since 1994, it's highly likely they will return next summer.