14 DAY TRIAL // A portion of the Arctic permafrost, called the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), is currently releasing methane in the atmosphere at a rate of 17 teragrams per year, which is the equivalent of 18.7 million tons of the extremely potent greenhouse gas.
In a paper published in the November 24 issue of the top scientific journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by University of Alaska expert Natalia Shakova argues that the permafrost may be even more dangerous for Earth's climate than originally thought.
This high level of methane emissions from the Arctic was previously unknown. Considering that the entire world's yearly methane output is 500 million tons, the new discovery paints a more dire picture of the state of the environment, LiveScience reports.
“We believe that release of methane from the Arctic, in particular, from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, could impact the entire globe, not just the Arctic alone. The picture that we are trying to understand is what is the actual contribution of the [shelf] to the global methane budget and how it will change over time,” Shakova explains.