Escape of methane gas from the seabed along the West Spitsbergen continental margin

More than 250 plumes of gas bubbles have been discovered emanating from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin, in a depth range of 150–400 m, at and above the present upper limit of the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Some of the plumes extend upward to within 50 m of the sea surface. The gas is predominantly methane. Warming of the northward‐flowing West Spitsbergen current by 1°C over the last thirty years is likely to have increased the release of methane from the seabed by reducing the extent of the GHSZ, causing the liberation of methane from decomposing hydrate. If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of Teragrams of methane per year could be released into the ocean.

[1]  Randy Showstack,et al.  World Ocean Database , 2009 .

[2]  Calin Baciu,et al.  Terrestrial methane seeps and mud volcanoes: A global perspective of gas origin , 2009 .

[3]  Angelo Camerlenghi,et al.  Estimation of gas hydrate concentration from multi-component seismic data at sites on the continental margins of NW Svalbard and the Storegga region of Norway , 2008 .

[4]  U. Riebesell.  Climate change: Acid test for marine biodiversity , 2008, Nature.

[5]  M. Edwards,et al.  An improved bathymetric portrayal of the Arctic Ocean: Implications for ocean modeling and geological, geophysical and oceanographic analyses , 2008 .

[6]  Bob Dickson,et al.  Arctic–Subarctic Ocean Fluxes: Defining the Role of the Northern Seas in Climate , 2008 .

[7]  E. Fahrbach,et al.  Variation of Measured Heat Flow Through the Fram Strait Between 1997 and 2006 , 2008 .

[8]  Observational program tracks Arctic Ocean transition to a warmer state , 2007 .

[9]  J. Piechura,et al.  Pathways of the Greenland Sea warming , 2007 .

[10]  J. Greinert,et al.  Fate of rising methane bubbles in stratified waters: How much methane reaches the atmosphere? , 2006 .

[11]  Ilse Aben,et al.  Atmospheric constraints on global emissions of methane from plants , 2006 .

[12]  J. Greinert,et al.  Geological and morphological setting of 2778 methane seeps in the Dnepr paleo-delta, northwestern Black Sea , 2006 .

[13]  Timothy P. Boyer,et al.  World ocean database 2009 , 2006 .

[14]  Timothy P. Boyer,et al.  NOAA Atlas NESDIS 61 , 2006 .

[15]  Andreas Mackensen,et al.  Pathways of methane in seawater: Plume spreading in an Arctic shelf environment (SW-Spitsbergen) , 2005 .

[16]  J. Mienert,et al.  Rethinking Late Weichselian ice‐sheet dynamics in coastal NW Svalbard , 2005 .

[17]  F. Godtliebsen,et al.  Holocene paleoceanography and glacial history of the West Spitsbergen area, Euro-Arctic margin , 2004 .

[18]  Ó. Ingólfsson,et al.  A review of postglacial emergence on Svalbard, Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, northern Eurasia , 2004 .

[19]  E. Fahrbach,et al.  Arctic warming through the Fram Strait: Oceanic heat transport from 3 years of measurements , 2004 .

[20]  P. Vogt,et al.  Effects of bottom water warming and sea level rise on Holocene hydrate dissociation and mass wasting along the Norwegian-Barents Continental Margin , 2004 .

[21]  J. Gutt,et al.  Near‐surface hydrocarbon anomalies in shelf sediments off Spitsbergen: Evidences for past seepages , 2004 .

[22]  G. Dickens.  Rethinking the global carbon cycle with a large, dynamic and microbially mediated gas hydrate capacitor , 2003 .

[23]  James P. Kennett,et al.  Methane hydrates in Quaternary climate change : the clathrate gun hypothesis , 2003 .

[24]  J. Zachos,et al.  Warming the fuel for the fire: Evidence for the thermal dissociation of methane hydrate during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum , 2002 .

[25]  E. Nisbet.  Have sudden large releases of methane from geological reservoirs occurred since the Last Glacial Maximum, and could such releases occur again? , 2002, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[26]  D. Valentine,et al.  Water column methane oxidation adjacent to an area of active hydrate dissociation, Eel river Basin , 2001 .

[27]  Lance A Ealey,et al.  END OF THE ICE AGE , 2001 .

[28]  Leslie S. Ettre,et al.  Static Headspace-Gas Chromatography: Theory and Practice , 1995 .

[29]  M. Hovland,et al.  A large methane plume east of Bear Island (Barents Sea): implications for the marine methane cycle , 1995 .

[30]  D. Quadfasel,et al.  Warming in the Arctic , 1991, Nature.

[31]  E. Nisbet.  The end of the ice age , 1990 .

[32]  Norman L. Guinasso,et al.  Equilibrium Solubilities of Methane, Carbon Monoxide, and Hydrogen in Water and Sea Water, , 1979 .