Methane Lakes

This is what a methane lake looks like:

Up in the Arctic, inland lakes are bubbling up methane directly into the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, this is bad bad news.

Scientists have been puzzling over a dramatic spike in atmospheric methane levels, which since 2006 have averaged 25 million tonnes more of the gas per year. Walter Anthony’s study found that Arctic lakes could more than double this increase as well.

Anyone who has followed the climate threat very long is aware of the concern of a gigantic methane release coming from the Arctic seabed and melting permafrost. But what won’t happen is it will show up “all at once” because different areas thaw at different speeds.

We’ve already seen enough evidence to consider the possibility that the “methane release” threat is already underway. Stories like this one, and others that convey the same kind of information about methane coming up from the sea floor, pingos and gigantic craters in Siberia are evidence that this is now happening.