IT’S been predicted for years, and now it’s happening. Deep in the Arctic Ocean, rising temperatures appear to be triggering the release of methane from beneath the sea floor.
Over 250 plumes of gas – mostly methane – have been discovered bubbling up in the sea west of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. This is the first time such plumes have been seen. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The plumes, discovered by an expedition led by Graham Westbrook of the University of Birmingham, UK, are probably coming from methane hydrates – chunks of…
