Another Source of Greenhouse Gases

[bobabode]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/e...ending_strip_6

"In the past decade, scientists have been training more attention on another deeply troubling consequence. Rapid Arctic warming is expected to lead to the thawing of a great deal of frozen soil or permafrost, which, as it thaws, will begin to emit carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. And if this occurs in the amounts that some scientists are predicting, it could significantly undermine efforts to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Indeed, scientists have discovered a simple statistic that underscores the scale of the potential problem: There may be more than twice as much carbon contained in northern permafrost as there is in the atmosphere itself. That’s a staggering thought."

[Boreas]

It's a hell of a lot worse than that. There's a hell of a lot of frozen methane under the sea floor. As the polar ice melts and the temperature of sea water rises, that methane will thaw and be released.

Methane is a significantly more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

John