Methane not escaping into the atmosphere from Arctic Ocean

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://cage.uit.no/news/methane-not-escaping-into-the-atmosphere-arctic-ocean/

[font face=Serif]27/05/2016
[font size=5]Methane not escaping into the atmosphere from Arctic Ocean[/font][center]

[font size=1]Illustration: Torger Grytå[/font][/center]

[font size=4]Methane gas released from the Arctic seabed during the summer months leads to an increased methane concentration in the ocean. But surprisingly, very little of the climate gas rising up through the sea reaches the atmosphere.[/font]

[font size=1]Text: Maja Sojtaric (CAGE) and Christine F. Solbakken (NILU)[/font]

[font size=3]“Our results are exciting and controversial”, says senior scientist Cathrine Lund Myhre from NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who is cooperating with CAGE through MOCA project.

The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The scientist performed simultaneous measurements close to seabed, in the ocean and in the atmosphere during an extensive ship and air campaign offshore Svalbard Archipelago in summer 2014. As of today, three independent models employing the marine and atmospheric measurements show that the methane emissions from the sea bed in the area did not significantly affect the atmosphere.

“This is an important message to bring to the debate on the state of the ocean and atmospheric system in the Arctic. It is also important to emphasize that the Arctic has in recent years experienced major changes and average temperatures well above normal values. A thorough description of the present state of the Arctic environment, possible only with adequate measurements, is essential to the detection of future changes of potentially global significance.” says Lund Myhre.

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[mackdaddy]

1. So the Ocean water is currently retaining the methane in the Ocean waters?? So...

What does this do to the ocean itself? Does this acidify the water? Does is displace Oxygen or other dissolved gasses? Is the water decomposing the methane into carbon dioxide? Will the ocean release all this methane if disturbed, agitated, or warmed or cooled?

They do state the methane is being released from the frozen hydrates, and mostly being at least temporarily trapped in the ocean. But there are many more open questions than answers here.

If enough methane hit the atmosphere, it could completely overwhelm the amount of Human released Green House Gases, and put global warming into an unrecoverable spiral up and be literally the end of human life on earth.

That might be an important thing to know.

[NickB79]

2. It's either accumulating until a saturation point is reached, or being metabolized by microbes

If it's accumulating, eventually it will start venting, and likely in a very rapid fashion.

If it's being metabolized by ocean microbes, one of the byproducts would be CO2, which would either acidify the ocean further and kill marine life, or be released once ocean CO2 saturation points are reached.

Either way, this study doesn't sooth any fears of the threat thawing methane hydrates pose, IMO. It's not debated any longer that the hydrates are melting. It just shows we have a few more years until we start seeing the consequences of the thawing.

Moreover, they point out that we have already seen statistically significant increases in atmospheric methane in the past decade, most heavily over the Arctic. If it's not coming from the oceans, that means it's coming from the thawing permafrost. And some of the methane releases there have been....energetic:

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[yourpaljoey]

3. well stated