AP: Arctic bubbling with methane. It’s a puzzle, it might not be so bad, it’s an emergency, time for a task force…(pick one, or all or none)
The AP‘s Arctic-roaming Charles J. Hanley posts today from Canada’s Mackenzie River Delta way up in the Northwest Territories. He stands by a boggy lake a-fizz with methane. Park your boat next to one of the bubbling seeps. Light a match and toss it at the water and you’ll set it ablaze, he writes (and one wonders about the peril to inflatable rubber boats in such a case). The vignette is backed by a solid rundown of reports from around the world. He reports on teams of scientists hard at work. The questions are many – how much methane has been bubbling up here all along? Is a calamitous acceleration underway? As permafrost’s organic matter decomposes, what share of the emission will be CO2, and what share methane? How much will be from hydrates, and how much from bacteria consuming thawing vegetation?
It is, he writes, a “possible planetary threat.” Terrifying scenarios are rife. Certainty is not. This is scary but so laden with ifs and maybes it is no exercise in sensationalism. But it is serious, with closing quotesthat provide no relief from worry.
Grist for the Mill: NOAA Earth System Research Lab Press Release ;
Pic: Russia, source ;
-CP
