Active methane plumes over the West Spitsbergen shelf discovered last summer are being driven by warming of an ocean current over the last 30 years, a new study(*) reports. The team on the British research vessel the James Clark Ross from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (working with scientists from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany) found more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin at depths of 150 to 400 metres. From the press release:
Graham Westbrook Professor of Geophysics at the University of Birmingham, warns: “If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane per year – equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources, could be released into the ocean.”
New Scientist expands the story somewhat, and looks at the total potential methane release in the region:
The methane being released from hydrate in the 600-square-kilometre area studied probably adds up to 27 kilotonnes a year, which suggests that the entire hydrate deposit around Svalbard could be releasing 20 megatonnes a year.
With global methane emissions of the order of 500 – 600 megatonnes per year, that’s a substantial potential addition to the global budget — and there’s a lot more methane hydrate on the East Siberian Shelf that is already showing signs of breaking down.
(*) Westbrook, G.K. et al. Escape of methane gas from the seabed along the West Spitsbergen continental margin. Geophysical Research Letters, 2009; DOI: 10.1029/2009GL039191 (preprint here: well worth a read)
150 to 400 metres…
This is not shallow water.
Two things come to mind:
First, our oceans are warming at a deeper depth and second, methane hydrate deposits on the sea floor are very sensitive to temperature change.
We are in trouble…
The East Siberian Shelf is shallower…
The East Siberian Shelf is shallower….
I remember the reports from last year about the methane plumes in Siberian waters.
Perhaps I should have said we are in deeper trouble.
Deeper as in having more than one meaning.
Approximately 8000 years ago Scotland was hit by a tsunami that in some places reached 80 km inland. This was caused by a large underwater landslide, known as the Storegga slide.
There is some discussion about what triggered the slide, but reduced shear strength of deposits due to the dissociation of methane clathrates is one of the likely culprits.
Since I live on the 5 metre contour in Northern Scotland, this is a development I’ll be watching with great interest.