In Siberia, the summer of 2017 is on, even though it’s barely started, officially. Which brings up a problem: much of Siberia is permafrost. That’s frozen soil, a dirt and ice matrix, cemented by the cold hard as rock. The growing season is really short, and dead plant and other material builds up, giving off methane. Theory has it that the methane can become concentrated and, under the pressure of overburden and warming temperatures, it can detonate and blast out. It would be a sign of serious climate change, a visceral example of a warming Arctic:
Scientists have located two fresh craters formed on Yamal peninsula this year, with the latest exploding on 28 June with the eruption picked up by new seismic sensors specifically designed to monitor such events, The Siberian Times can disclose. First pictures of the large craters - or funnels as experts call them - are shown here, and add to four other big holes found in recent years and examined by experts, plus dozens of tiny ones spotted by satellite.
The formation of both craters involved an explosion followed by fire, evidently signs of the eruption of methane gas pockets under the Yamal surface.
Reporting from Siberia isn’t the fastest or even the most reliable. There’s not many journalists assigned to that frigid beat! But this article is consistent with past, similar events that came to the world’s attention in 2014. The features are called pingos. The problem isn’t just that pingos may signal climate change is happening, fast, the problem is they contribute to it. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Depending on how you measure, it’s dozens of time more greenhouse-y than carbon dioxide. Worse still, methane breaks down into other compounds, like water vapor and carbon dioxide, which are also greenhouse gases.
There would have to be a lot more of these kinds of “burps” before it would significantly add to our planetary thermal imbalance. But that stuff can leak out of the ground without a dramatic explosion, in fact that’s probably how most of it will get out as the icy ground warms up. And there is a lot of thick, thawing permafrost in the Arctic.
