Saturday, March 6, 2010

Methane Escaping From Arctic Faster Than Expected And Could Stoke Global Warming, Warn Scientists

Photo: Researcher Katey Walter lights a pocket of methane on a lake in Siberia showing just how explosive the greenhouse gas is

From The Daily Mail:

The potent greenhouse gas methane, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic much faster than expected and could stoke global warming.

Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and now 8million tonnes of it is seeping out due to rising temperatures, researchers said today.

'Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap,' Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement.

She co-led the study published in today's edition of the journal Science.

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