Methane not escaping into the atmosphere from Arctic Ocean

[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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