The UK’s National Oceanography Centre in Southampton reports:

The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed.

German and British scientists “have found that more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas are rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 metres” [See figure on right].

Methane released from gas hydrate in submarine sediments has been identified in the past as an agent of climate change. The likelihood of methane being released in this way has been widely predicted.

A lead researcher said, “Our survey was designed to work out how much methane might be released by future ocean warming; we did not expect to discover such strong evidence that this process has already started.”

This is the first time that such behaviour in response to climate change has been observed in the modern period.

While most of the methane currently released from the seabed is dissolved in the seawater before it reaches the atmosphere, methane seeps are episodic and unpredictable and periods of more vigorous outflow of methane into the atmosphere are possible. Furthermore, methane dissolved in the seawater contributes to ocean acididfication.

Geophysics Professor Graham Westbrook warns: “If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane per year – equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources, could be released into the ocean.”

For more on this, see the original GRL study here (subs. req’d).

The rest of this post, which reviews some recent findings on the not-so-perma-frost, is a guest blog by Ken Levenson, who blogs at checklisttowardzerocarbon.

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From Facebook:

Tonight, at 11:30pm on Comedy Central, Bill is appearing on the The Colbert Report.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, The Colbert Report is a satirical (and hilarious!) late-night TV show that criticizes politics, media, and just about everything else. Its fictional anchorman, Steven Colbert, is a right-wing bully who has often declared his skepticism of global warming.

Going on The Colbert report is very exciting, and it gives us a chance to reach a very wide audience with the 350 message. It’s also a bit of a gamble””Colbert himself is sharp as a tack, and his writers come up with questions designed to embarrass and flummox his guests. Which is probably why Bill didn’t want to publicize tonight’s show. :)

But the secret is out””so make some popcorn, tell your friends, and prepare to watch Bill and Stephen duke it out Monday at 11:30! And it repeats on Tuesday at 8:30 if you miss it!

For more on 350 ppm, click here!

China study urges greenhouse gas caps, peak in 2030

China should set firm targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions so they peak around 2030, a study by some of the nation’s top climate change policy advisers has proposed ahead of contentious talks on a new global warming pact.

The call for “quantified targets” to cap greenhouse gas pollution marks a high-level public departure from China’s reluctance to spell out a proposed peak and date for it.

“By 2008 China had become the world’s biggest national emitter of greenhouse gases and faces unprecedented challenges,” says the preface of the 900-page report, setting aside China’s reluctance to say it has passed the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning coal, gas and oil.

See also China climate change report sets out options for key proposals of that study, “2050 China Energy and C02 Emissions Report”  — China signals long-term plans to curb GHGs, Cabinet report finds “The large amount of greenhouse gases emitted through human activities is the main reason for global warming leading to extreme weather events” and China softens climate rhetoric, commits to emissions peak (again), shows flexibility on Western reductions.

Study links drought with rising emissions

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U.S. Senators are attacking the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act as threatening farmers even though America is suffering from the ravages of a climate out of control — heat waves, floods, storms, droughts, and seasonal shifts. Scientific studies show global warming has already hurt American agriculture, and that the damages will grow catastrophic if action is not taken. In a new video, the Center for American Progress Action Fund argues that passage of a strong climate bill is imperative, and senators should stop filibustering our farmers’ future. Watch it:

The rising tide of climate change — the catastrophic droughts in Texas and California, the heat waves in Louisiana and Nebraska, the storms across the High Plains and the Midwest, the floods in North Dakota and Minnesota — require action. Instead, both Democratic and Republican senators are arguing that a limit on carbon pollution would be too costly for farmers:

Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “No farmers will escape the effect of this bill.” [Senate agriculture hearing, 7/22/09]

Jim Inhofe (R-OK): “I had the opportunity of going and talking to the national farm co-ops the other day and addressed to them if we were to pass the cap-and-trade system what that would do to my folks in Oklahoma and all of America . . . It would be disastrous for our farmers in America.” [Senate floor, 7/15/09]

Mike Johanns (R-NE): “The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would have a significant if not severe impact on agriculture. . . . Different studies come up with varied numbers but they all paint the same picture: agriculture loses.” [Senate floor, 7/20/09]

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): “I just worry if you’ve taken the kind of look at USDA at the potential impact of the house legislation on the food processing industry and the disproportionate costs on that industry that could lead to really high, higher food prices in these difficult economic times.” [Senate agriculture hearing, 7/22/09]

Ben Nelson (D-NE): “I’m concerned that if this is going to be the approach that is taken, that it be the most benign approach to balancing the economy and the environment. It’s not just agriculture, it’s people turning on their lights and businesses as well.” [Senate agriculture hearing, 7/22/09]

John Thune (R-SD): “They’re worried about the EPA regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and what that would mean for the future of the production of agriculture.” [Senate agriculture hearing, 7/22/09]

The effort to filibuster clean energy legislation means that a minority of senators can block the effort to preserve the livelihood of farmers in America. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) have committed to cloture — standing against the filibuster. The rest of the senators need to join them.

Here’s a follow up to “Coal lobby hires top GOP voter-fraud company to run massive ‘grassroots’ efforts to undermine climate and clean energy action.”  This post was first published by ThinkProgress here.  See also this UK Guardian story — “Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy.”

The American oil industry, working with a coalition of business interests, plans to manufacture rallies in opposition to clean energy reform, an internal document reveals. According to the plan acquired by Greenpeace, the American Petroleum Institute (API) will “coordinate transportation” for oil industry employees to “Energy Citizen” rallies targeting U.S. Senators in 21 states. The document’s author, API president Jack Gerard, discusses how it is “important that our views” supplant “constituents’ views”:

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Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) may have had a Probability of a Yes Vote of 84% on a climate and clean energy bill to Nate Silver (see “Epic Battle 3: Who are the swing Senators?“).   But others, like E&E News (subs. req’d), had him as a straight fence sitter with the likes of John McCain (R-AZ) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Now, Specter joins Brown, who says he won’t filibuster climate bill. This is video of Specter from Netroots nation (h/t TPM).