Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor

sciencehabit writes Researchers have discovered 570 plumes of methane percolating up from the sea floor off the eastern coast of the United States, a surprisingly high number of seeps in a relatively quiescent part of the ocean. The seeps suggest that methane's contribution to climate change has been underestimated in some models. And because most of the seeps lie at depths where small changes in temperature could be releasing the methane, it is possible that climate change itself could be playing a role in turning some of them on.

Comments

Re:Global Warming?

[Anon-Admin]

No this is naturally occurring seeps. We have known about them in the past but recent discoveries have shown that more exist than was thought and with methane being 30x more potent of a green house gas than CO2 it throws the models and calculations off.

There is however the hypothesis that we create the CO2 that causes the base warming and the because we are warming the oceans it may be causing more methane to be released.

However, this is not known for sure and the extent at which methane is being released from natural sources is still in question.

Re:I doubt it even makes it to the atmosphere

[Ralph Wiggam]

From TFA-

"Even in the more likely event that aerobic microbes devour the methane while still in the ocean, it is converted to carbon dioxide, which leads to ocean acidification."