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Thawing permafrost has released so much methane into Esieh Lake near Fairbanks, Alaska that the air above it is flammable.
A new study shows microbes in Arctic lakes are driving methane emissions - fueling a dangerous feedback loop as the region ...
But the permafrost keeping that methane contained isn’t uniform or continuous, and neither is the security of these methane deposits. Ocean currents can thin permafrost and create patchy density.
The heat that hit Svalbard in February was so intense that scientists could dig into the ground with spoons, "like it was ...
If all of that permafrost were to thin out and eventually melt, it could raise global temperatures even more, causing other permafrost in the area to thaw, too, releasing the methane trapped within.
Tucked below the vastness of the Arctic’s permafrost ice lies a climate-changing sea of methane gas. It’s trapped below the ever-present layers of ice, slowly leaking out when cracks appear.
A buildup of methane and other fluids in open and closed "systems" in the permafrost could explain why strange, icy mounds sometimes erupt to form giant crater, researchers say.
They used this information to map the permafrost across Svalbard and to pinpoint the methane gas accumulations. "I and my supervisor Kim looked through a lot of the historical wellbore data in ...
Permafrost in the highlands is drier and more permeable, while permafrost in the lowlands is more ice-saturated. The rocks beneath are often fossil fuel sources, releasing methane which is sealed ...
Longyearbyen, Svalbard and (inset) a 3D illustration of methane. A study found that greenhouse gas emissions could skyrocket it methane escapes from the permafrost on the Arctic island.
Some geographical features of the permafrost in Svalbard could allow gas to escape as well. Studying how the methane moves below this thick slab of ice, however, can prove difficult.
Wildfires in the permafrost regions are a growing concern. Our budget's final year was 2020, so we missed the unprecedented wildfires of 2021 in Siberia and 2023 in Canada.