COP30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, closed in Brazil in November with a promise to help developing countries adapt to future weather disasters, but without condemning fossil fuel use because of threats by oil producing countries. There is no realistic plan to reduce the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere before they reach a tipping point that jeopardizes civilization as we know it. Donald Trump, who repeatedly labels climate change a “hoax,” had the United States withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord and boycott the conference. In the meantime, with the Siberian tundra, the Earth is responding to climate change with explosive methane farts that will make global warming even worse.
Spontaneous underground explosion are erupting in high latitudes where permafrost with tons of rotting organic material containing carbon dioxide and methane is defrosting. The Earth’s oldest permafrost has been frozen for about 700,000 years, long before humans evolved.
Permafrost begins to melt when the mean annual ground temperature exceeds 0°C or 32°F. The Arctic regions is currently warming three times faster than the rest of the planet. There is an estimated 1,500 gigatons of carbon stored in permafrost, twice as much as the atmosphere contains. Estimates for arctic methane emissions show it increased from 3.8 million tons a year in 2006 to 17 million tons in 2013. Methane is about eighty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Some of the explosions are creating craters more over 150 feet deep. According to climate scientist Helge Hellevang the frozen Siberian tundra contains large deposits of natural gas. Conditions for the explosive farts occur when the gas escapes through faults in the rock into a cavity under the permafrost until higher temperatures thaw the permafrost and it is released into the atmosphere with a giant blast.
Hellevang believes “As atmospheric heating and weakening of the surface permafrost continues, it is likely that more explosions will occur,” releasing more methane, further heating the planet, and increasing the number of explosions.
