Arctic News: Methane Danger

Saturday, October 11, 2025

Methane Danger

Global methane concentrations have not risen as fast over the past few years as they did in 2020-2022, as illustrated by the above image, showing monthly methane concentrations through May 2025, and the image below, showing annual methane growth through 2024.

Is the rise in methane releases partly masked?

Temperatures were very high during the El Niño in 2023 and 2024, and temperatures have been somewhat lower since, due to borderline La Niña conditions in 2025. So, why did the growth in methane concentrations slow down in 2023 and 2024?

One possible mechanisms, described here earlier, is that, as temperatures increase and water vapor in the atmosphere increases accordingly (7% more water vapor for every 1°C warming), more hydroxyl in the atmosphere, more methane gets broken down by the increased hydroxyl in the atmosphere. Accordingly, the stronger methane breakdown by more hydroxyl in 2023 and 2024 may give the impression that methane releases appeared to slow down, whereas methane releases may actually have kept growing and because this growth was getting masked, it was overlooked.

In other words, methane releases may have continue to grow at accelerating pace, but since an increasingly large part of the methane releases was decomposed by more hydroxyl, the growth in methane concentrations in the atmosphere only appeared to slow down because methane releases were partly masked by growth in hydroxyl, as discussed in earlier posts such as this 2017 one.

Where could the extra methane releases have come from? In part, they may have come from seafloor methane releases. In a 2014 post, methane releases were estimated at 771 Tg/y, whereas the IPCC's estimate was 678 Tg/y. That post estimated methane from hydrates and permafrost at 13% of total methane emissions, whereas the IPCC's estimate was a mere 1% of total methane emissions.

The danger is that from the early 2000s, methane releases actually started to increase more strongly (partly due to more methane erupting from the seafloor of oceans), while hydroxyl also kept increasing even faster. Eventually, methane releases (including seafloor methane releases) kept increasing faster, resulting in methane releases progressively overwhelming the growth in hydroxyl, resulting in a stronger rise in overall methane concentration in the atmosphere, with methane growth peaking in 2022.

So, while growth in methane concentrations appears to have slowed down over the past few years, the danger is that some methane releases are overlooked, particularly methane releases for the seafloor of oceans, due to increased hydroxyl production in line with more water vapor in the atmosphere over the past few years.

Earthquake danger

Further illustrating the danger of seafloor methane releases, the combination image below shows an earthquake that occurred on October 10, 2025, in between South Africa and Antarctica (left). Methane at 1000 mb (near surface) shows up in a magenta colored area in between South Africa and Antarctica, indicating methane releases of 1950 mb and higher (right).

Note that the high methane concentrations near Antarctica are not in the same spot where the earthquake occurred, due to the wind moving air clockwise around Antarctica. The combination image below shows wind at 10 m (left) and at 250 mb or hPa (right) on October 11, 2025.

To watch the wind at 1000 hPa or mb (near surface) move around and over Antarctica on October 12, 2025, click on this nullschool.net link.

Danger of increase snowfall over Antarctica

The combination image below shows a distorted Jet Stream (250 hPa) moving over Antarctica, which result in high preciptable water anomalies over that area (left) and snowfall (right), as illustrated by the attached image.

The danger of increased snowfall over Antarctica is described in the image below.

[ screenshot from earlier post ]

The methane danger has been described in many earlier posts, e.g. the image below is from a 2014 post. The image shows a polynomial trend based on IPCC AR5 data from 1955 to 2011, pointing at methane reaching mean global levels higher than 3000 ppb by the year 2030. If methane starts to erupt in large quantities from clathrates underneath the seafloor of oceans and from thawing permafrost, then something like this may well happen and the amount of methane in the atmosphere could double by 2030.

Climate Emergency Declaration

UN secretary-general António Guterres recently spoke about the need for “a credible global response plan to get us on track” regarding the international goal of limiting the global temperature rise. “The science demands action, the law commands it,” Guterres said, in reference to a recent international court of justice ruling. “The economics compel it and people are calling for it.”

What could be added is that the situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as this 2022 post and this one and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.