- Illustration showing methane chimney from sea floor to surface (USGS)
A team of scientists confirms that sea-bottom and surface waters of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are “super-saturated” with Methane (CH4) gas and “out-gassing” this potent GHG to the Atmosphere.
A variable quantity known as the “venting flux” was calculated for the ESAS and found to be nearly equal to that amount from the entire World Ocean. Previous calculations by climate scientists estimated that “remobilization” of only a small fraction of of this trapped methane could potentially trigger “abrupt climate warming”.