But there's also a second source, which is probably far less known and
that is the submarine permafrost areas
on the East Siberian Arctic shelf that used to be land.
After the last ice age, when the water levels were rising,
that was covered by water, that's now below water and
in those submarine permafrost, there was also a lot of methane being captured and
because of submarine processes, that's also started to be released.
Slow heating up of that area also caused that
methane potentially becomes available, and is released into the water body.
When we were sailing there in 2008, we already measured the amounts of methane in
the water column there, to be about 1,000 times higher than what is normal.
>> Okay. >> Indicating that there is,
indeed, a release.
>> Hm. >> However,
the interesting point is that there is no connection yet
established between what is in the water column and what actually is in the air.
So there's still a lot of questions,
a lot of things unknown about what's happening to that methane.
>> I see, so that looks like a pretty serious problem.
Once the methane is in the water, does it enter the atmosphere?
So, if it were to enter the atmosphere,
what would we expect to happen to the earth's climate as a result?
>> Well, most of the carbon released we've been studying here in the Arctic,
we've formed part of a positive feedback loop.
So because there is increased CO2 in the atmosphere at the moment and
increased methane levels, then we're getting the warming in Siberia.
The warming is causing the permafrost to thaw, causing the release of methane from
the shelves and that will then go back into the atmosphere as increased CO2 and
increased methane, and so will lead to even further warming.
So you get this loop where more warming leads, to more greenhouse gas release,
leads to more warming, leads to more greenhouse gas release.
So the system can feed itself and can probably amplify how much
climate warming we might expect to see from this kind of region.
>> Wow, so it sounds like we've got a lot more to learn about this.
I mean, there's a lot of exciting research but also potentially,
large changes that could occur to the Arctic as a result of this.
>> Yes, absolutely, and just as an example, we have seen major
methane spikes in the past in our fossil records and that for
instance, has led to amplified global warming to a massive scale.
