IT’S a nightmare scenario – slowly rising sea temperatures trigger the release of massive amounts of methane that dramatically amplify the greenhouse effect, causing runaway global warming. Hopefully it won’t happen, but if it does it won’t be the first time. This exact chain of events was played out 55 million years ago.
Tremendous amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas methane are stored in icy hydrates under the seabed and in permafrost. The total amount of carbon in the hydrates is an estimated 10,000 gigatonnes, twice that in the reserves of all other fossil fuels combined and more than enough to…
