'Airpocalypse' Heatwave in Siberia Causes Alarming Surge in Methane Emissions

According to scientists, the 2020 Siberian heatwave prompted new methane emissions from the permafrost. Currently, emissions of the powerful greenhouse gases are not much, the scientists revealed, but more research is required immediately.

The satellite data analysis showed that fossil methane gas escaped from rock formations recognized to be great hydrocarbon reservoirs following the heatwave, which got to a maximum of 6C above average temperatures. Past observations of leaks have been from permafrost soil or beneath skin-deep seas.

Methane Bomb

Most scientists believe the risk of a "methane bomb" - an eruption of large volumes of methane that occurs rapidly thereby resulting in cataclysmic global heating - is low in years to come.

There is little proof of remarkably increasing methane emissions from the Arctic and there is no indication of such a bomb in times that were even extremely hot than today over the last 130,000 years.

Scientists said if the climate crisis gets worse and temperatures keep on rising, large discharges of methane remain possible in the long period of time and must be better understood.

Also Read: Methane Surge Undermines Efforts to Fight Climate Change

Increase in Methane Concentration

In trapping heat, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year duration and has led to about 30% of global heating today.

Presently, its atmospheric concentration is at two and a half times pre-industrial levels and it keeps rising, but the majority of this is from fossil fuel exploitation, rice paddies, cattle, and waste dumps.

"We observed a significant increase in methane concentration starting last summer. This remained over the winter, so there must have been a steady steady flow of methane from the ground. At the moment, these anomalies are not of a very big magnitude, but it shows there is something going on that was not observed before and the carbon stock [of fossil gas] is large," said Prof Nikolaus Froitzheim of Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn, Germany, who headed the Siberian research.

Global Temperature

Froitzheim said they are not aware of how dangerous methane release are, since they are not aware of how fast the gas can be discharged.

It's very crucial to have more knowledge about it, If, at some point in time to come, large global temperature increases prompted a big volume being released, this methane would be the dissimilarity between catastrophe and apocalypse.

Methane releases have been regarded as a potential climate tipping point, in which emissions of the gas prompt additional warming, which in turn drives even more discharges.

The research that was released in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, made use of satellite data to study the Taymyr Peninsula and its environment in northern Siberia, which was affected by the 2020 world's most extreme heat wave.

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