{"id":272599,"date":"2023-08-10T19:11:55","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T17:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=272599"},"modified":"2023-08-10T19:11:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T17:11:58","slug":"oceans-retain-methane-new-nature-study-finds-very-little-danger-of-methane-reaching-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=272599","title":{"rendered":"Oceans Retain Methane: New \u2018Nature\u2019 Study Finds Very Little Danger Of Methane Reaching Surface"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From NoTricksZone<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0P Gosselin<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<\/em>9. August 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Nature study finds there\u2019s very little risk that global warming would lead to more methane escaping from the oceans into the atmosphere.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hat-tip:\u00a0EIKE here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Global warming alarmists have often used the scenario of increased methane in the atmosphere accelerating warming and climatic change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a\u00a0recent study appearing in Nature<\/a>,\u00a0Negligible atmospheric release of methane from decomposing hydrates in mid-latitude oceans,\u00a0<\/em>dumps a lot cold water on this scenario. This is good news, which unfortunately the media refused to report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the bottom of the sea, there are large deposits of naturally occurring methane hydrate. There\u2019s a fear that these ice-like deposits could melt and be released into the atmosphere if the oceans warmed. Methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. The researchers looked at the concentration and natural radiocarbon content of methane dissolved in the water column from the seafloor to the sea surface at seep fields along the US Atlantic and Pacific margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No methane reached the surface<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their measurements revealed no evidence of seep CH4<\/sub>\u00a0reaching surface waters when the water-column depth is greater than 430\u2009\u00b1\u200990\u2009m. \u201cGas hydrates exist only at water depths greater than ~550\u2009m in this region, suggesting that the source of methane escaping to the atmosphere is not from hydrate decomposition,\u201d the authors add.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dissolves in the ocean<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, a\u00a0paper published in the Reviews of Geophysics<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>concluded that the annual emissions of methane to the ocean from degrading gas hydrates are far smaller than greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere from human activities and that most of the methane released by gas hydrates never even reaches the atmosphere. The methane often remains in the undersea sediments, dissolves in the ocean, or is converted to carbon dioxide by microbes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n