Dear Stefan,
It was good to meet you at the EGU conference in April - though I am not
sure I managed to convince you of a methane crisis in the Arctic. We
discussed use of geoengineering to cool the Arctic, but I now fear that
this could come too late to avoid risk of a large and potentially
catastrophic methane excursion. Hence some more direct, local action is
needed to reduce that risk.
One of the factors which could be relevant to methane production in the
Arctic is the effect of freshwater - both from rivers and from melting
glaciers or icesheets. The paper you co-author [1] finds an increase
in river flow. This has a warming effect, especially in the shallow
seas of East Siberian Arctic Shelf, where there is a danger of methane
from clathrates being discharged into the atmosphere in large
quantities, sufficient to initiate positive feedbacks on local and
global warming [2].
There has been a massive accumulation of freshwater in the Arctic, with
possible effects on thermohaline circulation both locally and globally
(via AMOC) [3]. Local circulation can destabilise water whose lower
depths are saturated with methane and/or carbon dioxide emitted from the
sea bed. We are seeking ways to reduce the ebullition of methane, and
wonder if you have any ideas which you could share with the
geoengineering group, where we have been brainstorming on Arctic methane
issues. If you are interested, we are planning a workshop in London on
weekend 3-4 September for further brainstorming and with a view to
initiating a pilot project to investigate all possible techniques for
dealing with the methane.
Best wishes,
John
[1]
http://terra-geog.lemig2.umontreal.ca/donnees/geo6142/08%20-%20Peterson%20et%20al.%202002.pdf
[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1246.short
[3] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110405/ap_on_sc/eu_climate_oceans
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