Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice

[babylonsister]

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice

As permafrost thaws in the Arctic, huge pockets of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- could be released into the atmosphere. Experts are only beginning to understand how disastrous that could be.

By Margot Roosevelt
February 22, 2009

(Video at link)

Reporting from Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska -- Four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the morning sky is streaked with apricot. Frozen rivers split the tundra of the Seward Peninsula, coiling into vast lakes. And on a silent, wind-whipped pond, a lone figure, sweating and panting, shovels snow off the ice.

The young woman with curly reddish hair stops, scribbles data, snaps a photo, grabs a heavy metal pick and stabs at white orbs in the thick black ice.

"Every time I see bubbles, I have the same feeling," says Katey Walter, a University of Alaska researcher. "They are amazing and beautiful."

Beautiful, yes. But ominous. When her pick breaks through the surface, the orbs burst with a low gurgle, spewing methane, a potent greenhouse gas that could accelerate the pace of climate change across the globe.

International experts are alarmed. "Methane release due to thawing permafrost in the Arctic is a global warming wild card," warned a report by the United Nations Environment Program last year. Large amounts entering the atmosphere, it concluded, could lead to "abrupt changes in the climate that would likely be irreversible."

Methane (CH4) has at least 20 times the heat-trapping effect of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). As warmer air thaws Arctic soils, as much as 55 billion tons of methane could be released from beneath Siberian lakes alone, according to Walter’s research. That would amount to 10 times the amount currently in the atmosphere.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-global-warming-methane22-2009feb22,0,1984453.story

[Blue_In_AK]

1. A couple summers ago we were camping at Harding Lake

up by Fairbanks and we noticed streams of bubbles popping up on the surface of the lake at various points. We assumed that maybe they were from some little critters living in the mud at the bottom of the lake, but maybe it was this methane, I don't know. There's a tremendous amount of organic material locked in the permafrost here -- as things melt I guess we Alaskans will have to learn to breathe a different kind of air.


ed. I dug out some pictures of the bubbles. As I said, I don't know if these are from methane or things living in the water, but from this article I would guess maybe it is the gas.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Yes, that's probably methane. I don't know if it has anything to do with permafrost, though.

I've seen a similar phenomenon many times on temperate lakes. Rotting vegetation on the lake bottom, probably down in a few feet of muck, would give off methane gas which would bubble to the surface like that.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. It's kind of fascinating to watch

and listen to the tiny little pops as the bubbles burst.

[sam sarrha]

6. there are Bacteria in the ice that produce it.. link>>

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/scientists-link.html
"Researchers from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Amherst College have linked the methane production of a subsurface consortium of fermentative and methanogenic bacteria in shale rock to increases in concentrations of atmospheric methane associated with the retreat of the continental ice sheets. The study also concluded that these bacteria produced large amounts of methane in a relatively short time.

[skids]

4. One way to tell for sure...

Hold a flame to them. A flame attached to a very, very long stick that is :-)

[sam sarrha]

7. i saw them burning it in Canada on a program about it...

[LongTomH]

2. K & R

Cross post this to GD. Everyone needs to read it!:kick:

[htuttle]

8. This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends,

...Not with a bang or a whimper, but with a fart.

[babylonsister]

10. OK

:spank::rofl:

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Dup

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=187721&mesg_id=187721