NASA scientist: “It’s possible that as large areas of sea ice melt and expose more ocean water, methane production may increase, leading to larger methane emissions…. So our finding could represent a noticeable new global source of methane.”
A new airborne study measured surprising levels of the potent greenhouse gas methane coming from cracks in Arctic sea ice and areas of partial sea ice cover. Photo: JPL.
NASA news release
Study Finds Surprising Arctic Methane Emission Source
The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, that methane is vulnerable to possible release into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming.
Researchers have known for years that large amounts of methane are frozen in Arctic tundra soils and in marine sediments (including gas hydrates). But now a multi-institutional study led by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of methane: the Arctic Ocean itself.
The photograph above was taken by Kort, and it shows leads and cracks in the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. During five research flights in 2009–10, Kort and colleagues measured increased methane levels while flying at low altitudes north of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in a National Science Foundation/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Gulfstream V aircraft as part of the HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) airborne campaign.
The methane level detected during the flights was about one-half percent higher than normal background levels. But where was the methane coming from? The team detected no carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, which would have been a signature of methane coming from the human combustion of fuels. And based on the time of year, the location, and the nature of the emissions, it was unlikely that the methane was coming from high-latitude wetlands or geologic reservoirs.
By comparing the locations of the enhanced methane levels with airborne measurements of carbon monoxide, water vapor, and ozone, the researchers from six institutions pinpointed a source: the ocean surface, in places where there were cracks and openings in the sea ice cover. The cracks were allowing methane in the top layers of the sea to escape into the atmosphere. The team did not detect enhanced methane levels over areas of solid ice.
Kort noted that previous studies had detected high concentrations of methane in Arctic surface waters, but no one had predicted that this dissolved methane would find its way into the overlying atmosphere. Scientists are not yet sure how the methane is produced, but Kort suspects biological productivity in Arctic surface waters may be the culprit.
“It’s possible that as large areas of sea ice melt and expose more ocean water, methane production may increase, leading to larger methane emissions,” he said. “While the methane levels we detected weren’t particularly large, the potential source region, the Arctic Ocean, is vast. So our finding could represent a noticeable new global source of methane.”
Kort, E.A., et al (2012) Atmospheric observations of Arctic Ocean methane emissions up to 82° north.Nature Geoscience 5, 318–321.
– Alan Buis, NASA JPL
Related Climate Progress Posts:
- The Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Thick, Multi-Year Sea Ice Melting Faster, NASA Study Finds
- NSIDC/NOAA: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100
- Nature: Climate Experts Warn Thawing Permafrost Could Cause 2.5 Times the Warming of Deforestation!
- Arctic Methane Outgassing On The East Siberian Shelf: A Primer Plus an Interview with Dr. Natalia Shakhova
- RealClimate Is Alarmed by Arctic Methane, Should You Be?
- Carbon Time Bomb in the Arctic: New York Times Gets the Story Right
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Not entirely surprising. Where carbon dioxide is the major electron acceptor for biological oxidation of organic matter, cold conditions are conducive to methanogenesis.
Numerous papers have been published on methanogenesis in cold conditions, though I haven’t dug into them enough to see if there is an outstanding review reference.
Once the ice is gone, the albedo effect from the lce is gone too. The darker ocean water takes up more sunlight and this will greatly impact the earth energy balance (imbalance for the current climate state).
“Just the melting of all the floating ice in the arctic ocean, will add as much heat to the earth, as all the Co-2 we put in the atmosphere to date.” Dr. James Lovelock
Estimating the Global Radiative Impact of the Sea-Ice-Albedo Feedback in the Arctic a more realistic ice-free-summer scenario (no ice for one month, decreased ice at all other times of the year) results in a forcing of about 0.3 W m−2, similar to present-day anthropogenic forcing caused by halocarbons. The potential for changes in cloud cover as a result of the changes in sea ice makes the evaluation of the actual forcing that may be realized quite uncertain, since such changes could overwhelm the forcing caused by the sea-ice loss itself, if the cloudi- ness increases in the summertime. http://climateforce.net/2012/01/11/bbc-james-lovelock-interview-2011/
Further submarines should take water samples, and analyze the carbon content and survey the ocean floor for potential methane deposits. Also due to the following changes in water temperatures, the ocean currents and entire marine ecosystem is profoundly impacted too. The temperature rise is a potential source for underwater slides, which can pose a significant tsunami threat for the eastern US coast and europe!
There are still some unknowns about the biological formation of methane, but “nickel-containing methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR)” also called the “nickel enzyme” is definitely part of the picture.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20520712
It may be relevant, or just ironic, that nickel is an atmospheric pollutant from the burning of fossil fuels.
The arctic and Greenland ice are giant stabilizers of climate. They tend to maintain a stable long term climate in the North.
When it goes, and it is going, then the giant ice cube keeping climate stable is no longer acting on the climate. More wild swings coming?
“Scientists are not yet sure how the methane is produced”
So presumably they haven’t been able to absolutely rule out seabed sources or they would have said so? Why wouldn’t this be the first assumption?
It was already known to them that methane is produced in Arctic ocean surface water, in addition to methane released from thawing of clathrates and permafrost. It would have helped to make that clearer in the press release.
Please follow the links from the NASA press release to the article abstract.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n5/full/ngeo1452.html
The authors refer to previous work, “Furthermore, methane is produced in the surface ocean3 and the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean are supersaturated with respect to methane4, 5.”
The news here is that the methane formed in ocean water is escaping to the atmosphere. The authors compare the release rate from the surface water to that of the methane release from the Siberian shelf, which is attributed to sediment release.
I took the NASA comment about “how the methane is produced” to refer to unknowns in the biochemistry in the surface water. How, not where.
Seabed emissions is a given though some claim emissions become exempt somehow while bubbling up to the surface. That the ocean waters contain a higher % of methane is given. That the breaks in ice cover allow methane a contact surface to the air is given.
That there is a higher % of methane in the air is given.
Looks like something is going on in the Arctic with something called methane.
Humm, methane in the air could help to raise local temps. Fancy building could go off kilter as the usted to be always frozen ground thaws sometimes.
Is it getting their attention that it will be difficult but in their own interests to catch the methane before it leaks into the water and somehow reaches a contact point with the air?
Raul,
The article is about methane in Arctic surface water that is not from seabed emissions.
In Science Daily’s review, they wrote:
“During five HIPPO flights over the Arctic from 2009 to 2010, Kort’s team observed increased methane levels while flying at low altitudes over the remote Arctic Ocean, north of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The methane level was about one-half percent larger than normal background levels.
But where was the methane coming from? The team detected no carbon monoxide in the atmosphere that would point to possible contributions from human combustion activities. In addition, based on the time of year, location and nature of the emissions, it was extremely unlikely the methane was coming from high-latitude wetlands or geologic reservoirs.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120424145145.htm
I still think it should be getting the attention of the one who build in the Arctic.
Course the cracks in that floor of the capital building etc. anyway there are now elec. plugin gas detectors for those traveling to the frozen lands.
In other news there is free natural gas for the taking in those waters and airs.
Anyone seen a utube scene yet where they have spread a tarp on the ice and run the fuel cell from the bubbles coming up through the ice? Plastic sheet on the pond and running the picnic concert with the fuel cell?
First there was fire from the ice then someone thought of a way to power the town hall with a fuel cell bucked up to the bubbling gasses.