Russian Scientist Discovers Giant Arctic Methane Plumes

thomst writes "Russian scientist Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks revealed in an interview with The Independent that his team discovered 'powerful and impressive seeping structures (of Methane gas) more than 1,000 metres in diameter' during their survey of the Arctic Ocean earlier this year. 'I was most impressed by the sheer scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them,' Semiletov told The Independent's Steve Connor. This finding is important because methane is estimated to be 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and it could indicate that global warming is about to accelerate dramatically."

Comments

Why do scientists make these statements?

[Zondar]

""The concentration of atmospheric methane increased unto three times in the past two centuries from 0.7 parts per million to 1.7ppm, and in the Arctic to 1.9ppm. That's a huge increase, between two and three times,"

I'm OK with her statement, until this:

"...and this has never happened in the history of the planet," she added.

So there's data for the last 4+ BILLION years with 10-50 year precision so that over a 100-200 year timespan, she can measure the slope of the line (rate in rise over the run of time) precisely enough to say that the slope of the line over the last 200 years is steeper than it has been in any other 200 year period in the last 4 billion years? Sorry, but I find that hard to believe.

Re:Why do scientists make these statements?

[TheRaven64]

I'd believe most of what a scientist says to a journalist. I have more of a problem believing things that a journalist hears from a scientist...

Re:The next question

[Joce640k]

The momentary heat would be nothing compared to having all that methane around for the next hundred years.

when did it start?

[argStyopa]

Nothing I see in that article suggests that this is a new phenomenon...aside from the hyperbolic statements of the scientists.

The author is astonishingly remiss in not asking the obvious question: did this just start? It could be that such methane plumes have existed forever, we just never detected them. This is the EIGHTH such cruise/survey. They should be able to conclusively say "we checked this area in at least one or two previous instances and such seeps weren't observed", no?

It seems logical that there must have been plumes like this for a while, to prompt (and justify) such a large-scale survey.

Yet both the scientists and article author seem to gloss over the fact that "never seen before" != "never happened before".

Re:when did it start?

[wytcld]

Plumes have been seen before. This has been reported in other articles on this. However the plumes seen before were neither so large nor grouped so closely together.

Your painting the scientists as "hyperbolic" speakers establishes, what, that you know a big word and can use it correctly in a sentence? This should cause us to see you as smarter than research scientists with advanced degrees and many years of expeditions to gather evidence? Trust me, they have a far larger vocabulary than you do. Yet you are the one speaking hyperbolically. Now, what drives you to that?

It's not as if the waters where these were found were terra incognito - or mare incognito - the arctic has been peopled for thousands of years, particularly by the Russians, which is how they came to possess not just Siberia but Alaska. So when a Russian, in particular, says the like has not been seen before, that's someone reporting from a culture which has a good historical knowledge of what's been there to be seen. Sort of like getting a report on the normalcy or not of current tornadoes from someone with deep roots in Oklahoma.

Re:when did it start?

[c0lo]

Nothing I see in that article suggests that this is a new phenomenon...aside from the hyperbolic statements of the scientists.

Hmmmm... TFA...

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.

So, 20 years of beating around the Arctics and seeing seepings of 10s m in diameter and, unlucky them, it is only recently that they found the larger ones... What are the chances? I mean, pretty hard luck to miss something that large and find only the smaller ones for 20 years... I wonder why the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks keeps such unlucky researchers on its payroll?