Locating sources of the world's highest methane levels

Above image shows IASI methane readings end October 2013 on the Northern Hemisphere. Clearly, high methane levels are very prominent over the Arctic. Over this period, the following peak methane readings have been recorded:
- October 28 - 2369 ppb
- October 29 - 2303 ppb
- October 30 - 2480 ppb
- October 31 - 2332 ppb

[ click on image to enlarge ]

Above image shows methane readings of 1950 ppb and higher in yellow, but only on October 31, 2013, pm.

This image is easier to analyze, since there are only a few areas where high methane readings show up, such as:

• The Gobi Desert, on the border of China and Mongolia. This is an area of concern, as discussed in the post Is Global Warming breaking up the Integrity of the Permafrost?

• Areas along the bounderies of the Okhotsk Plate; seismic activity appears to be contributing to methane releases here, as earlier discussed in the post Earthquake hits waters off Japan. Zoom in at methanetracker.org for details on earthquakes. 

• Last but not least, there's a huge area with high methane readings over the Arctic Ocean.

The image below again shows methane readings of 1950 ppb and higher in yellow on October 31, 2013, pm, but this time only for 3 altitudes, i.e. 451 mb, 469 mb and 487 mb. These levels were selected for their proximity to the altitude of 469 mb, where typically the highest mean global methane levels are recorded, i.e. from 1809 ppb to 1812 ppb for the period from October 28 to 31, 2013. Not surprisingly, the image below looks much the same as above image.

Things look rather different, though, when 3 altitudes are selected closer to sea level. The image below again shows methane readings of 1950 ppb and higher in yellow on October 31, 2013, pm, but this time only at 718 mb, 742 mb and 766 mb. These altitudes showed the highest methane readings that day, of 2322 ppb, 2332 ppb and 2316 ppb, respectively.

Ominously, high methane readings at these lower altitudes show up mostly in the Laptev Sea. In conclusion, some of the world's highest methane levels show up over the Laptev Sea, a huge area most prone to abrupt release of huge amounts of methane from the seabed.

This is further evidence in support of the looming threat of Abrupt Climate Change leading to extinction of many if not all species (i.e. including humans) within decades. It disproves the efforts of the IPCC, as discussed in the post Just do NOT tell them the monster exists, and further organizations to downplay the threat by spreading myths.

How much methane is located in the Arctic?

Arctic sources of carbon have been studied by a team of researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, United States, led by Joshuah Stolaroff. Their estimates are illustrated in the image below, showing the potential total release, next to their characteristic annual release of methane and the geographic extent for each source.

Stolaroff et al., 2012, DOI: 10.1021/es204686w 

Note: Numbers in brackets behind the figures in above table relate to references below. If you cannot view these references, click here. 


For comparison, the NOAA image below shows the world's carbon dioxide emissions for each year in PgC (i.e. GtC or billions of tonnes of carbon).

Annual total emissions. The bars in this figure represent carbon dioxide emissions for each year in PgC yr-1 from the specified region. The final bar, labeled 'Mean', represents the 2001-2010 average. CarbonTracker models four types of surface-to-amosphere exchange of CO2, each of which is shown in a different color: fossil fuel emissions (tan), terrestrial biosphere flux excluding fires (green), direct emissions from fires (red), and air-sea gas exchange (blue). Negative emissions indicate that the flux removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and such sinks have bars that extend below zero. The net surface exchange, computed as the sum of these four components, is shown as a thick black line. 

Clearly, if merely a fraction of the sources at the top would end up in the atmosphere, we'd be in big trouble. Some of the carbon may be released gradually in the form of carbon dioxide, but it's much worse if large amounts of methane escape abruptly into the atmosphere, given factors such as methane's high Global Warming Potential. Anyway, it should be clear that the huge size of some of these sources poses a terrifying threat.