Arctic glaciers hide methane time bomb: what scientists warned us about

The melting of Arctic glaciers opens up groundwater sources that release large amounts of methane into the Earth's atmosphere. This powerful greenhouse gas will potentially intensify climate change.

This is stated in a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Scientists warn that plans for global greenhouse gas emission reductions will now likely need to be revised, as methane released by melting glaciers must be accounted for.

Researchers at Cambridge University and the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, who conducted field research have found that melting glaciers are exposing groundwater sources that could become an underestimated source of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.

The researchers suggest that methane emissions are likely to rise as Arctic glaciers retreat, opening up new sources and increasing global warming.

The sources studied by the researchers have not previously been considered a potential source of methane emissions.

"This is a significant and potentially growing source of methane emissions that so far has not been factored into our estimates of the global methane budget," said Gabrielle Kleber, lead author of the study from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences.

She spent nearly three years observing the water chemistry of more than a hundred springs on Svalbard, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the Arctic average.

"Because it's warming faster than the rest of the Arctic, we can get a preliminary idea of the potential methane release that could occur on a larger scale in that region," the scientist said.

For his part, study co-author Andrew Hodson, a professor at the University Center on Svalbard, added that he couldn't imagine "anything more terrifying than the spectacle of methane emissions in the immediate vicinity of a retreating glacier."

Previous research in the Arctic has focused on the release of methane from melted permafrost (frozen ground).

"While the focus is often on permafrost, this new discovery suggests that there are other pathways for methane emissions that may be even more significant in the global methane budget," explained study co-author Alexander Tur, professor in Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences .

The methane sources discovered are fed by an aquatic system hidden beneath most glaciers, using large groundwater reserves in sediments and surrounding bedrock. As glaciers melt and retreat, springs emerge where the groundwater network makes its way to the surface.

Researchers have found that methane emissions from underground glacial springs in Svalbard can exceed 2,000 tons in a year, about 10 percent of Norway's annual methane emissions from oil and gas production.

According to Kleber, this source of methane is likely to become more significant as melting glaciers open up more and more sources.

"If global warming continues unchecked, methane emissions from underground glacial sources are likely to become larger," she summarized.

Kleber also urged scientists to pay more attention to this problem because she believes the amount of methane they have already recorded will prove scarce when the "total volume of gas under these glaciers waiting to escape" reaches the surface.

Previously OBOZREVATEL also told that scientists have catastrophically miscalculated with melting glaciers.

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