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.

…”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 Programme last year. Large amounts entering the atmosphere, it concluded, could lead to “abrupt changes in the climate that would likely be irreversible.”

…The upper 3 meters (about 10 feet) of permafrost store 1.7 trillion metric tons of carbon, more than double the amount in the atmosphere today, according to a recent study in the journal Bioscience.

“We are seeing thawing down to 5 meters,” says geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska. “A third to a half of permafrost is already within a degree to a degree and a half [Celsius] of thawing.”

If only 1% of permafrost carbon were to be released each year, that could double the globe’s current annual carbon emissions, Romanovsky notes. “We are at a tipping point for positive feedback,” he warns, referring to a process where warming spurs emissions, which in turn generate more heat, in an uncontrollable cycle.

LA Times