Arctic melt prompts historic methane rise
Methane is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and it’s rate of emission has risen for the first time in eight years, prompting concern about the pace of climate change. This is in part due to release of gas in and near the Arctic.
CSIRO senior climate scientist Paul Fraser said the data was in line with predictions that rapid melting of Arctic ice would create natural wetlands, one of the most common methane emitters. “This is not good news for global warming.” Over the past decade, methane emitted from wetlands, rice fields, cattle, bushfires, landfill and coalmines had been largely offset by absorption of the gas by dry soil and through atmospheric oxidation, Dr Fraser said but “Over the past year, the total sources have overwhelmed the total sinks and methane has started to rise,” he said.
Scientists aboard a Russian research ship had found millions of tonnes of subsea methane bubbling to the surface and being released into the atmosphere off the Siberian coast this northern summer.
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