Arctic Ocean Releasing "Significant" Amounts of Methane [View all]

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arctic-ocean-releasing-significant-amounts-of-methane

The surface waters of the Arctic Ocean may be releasing "significant" amounts of methane into the atmosphere, researchers reported yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Scientists flying a specially equipped plane over the region detected high concentrations of the heat-trapping gas close to the ocean surface during research flights in 2009 and 2010.

During flights in the high Arctic, above 82 degrees north latitude, the research jet's instruments detected methane that seemed to be coming from the ocean surface below. The signal was strongest when the plane was flying at low altitudes, sometimes just 500 feet above the water.

"We were surprised to see these enhanced methane levels over the Arctic at low altitudes," said lead author Eric Kort, a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It was surprising to find that it was probably coming out of the sea."