{"id":40882,"date":"2023-12-06T15:17:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T15:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=40882"},"modified":"2023-12-06T15:17:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T15:17:34","slug":"climate-change-causes-methane-emissions-to-be-released-from-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/climate-change-causes-methane-emissions-to-be-released-from-the-ocean\/40882\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change causes methane emissions to be released from the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"
An international team of researchers led by Newcastle University found that as frozen methane emissions and ice melt, methane is released and moves from the deepest parts of the continental slope to the edge of the underwater shelf.<\/p>\n
They even discovered a pocket which had moved 25 miles (40km). The researchers said this means that much more methane could potentially be vulnerable and released into the atmosphere due to climate warming.<\/p>\n
The research, \u2018Long-distance migration and venting of methane from the base of the hydrate stability zone<\/a>,\u2019 is published in Nature Geoscience<\/em>.<\/p>\n Methane hydrate, or fire-ice, is an ice-like structure containing methane buried in the ocean floor.<\/p>\n Vast amounts of methane emissions are stored as marine methane under oceans. It thaws when the oceans warm, releasing methane into oceans and the atmosphere \u2013 known as dissociated methane \u2013 contributing to global warming<\/a>.<\/p>\n The scientists used advanced three-dimensional seismic imaging techniques to examine the portion of the hydrate that dissociated during climatic warming off the coast of Mauritania in Northwest Africa.<\/p>\n They identified a case where dissociated methane emissions migrated over 40km and were released through a field of underwater depressions known as pockmarks during past warm periods.<\/p>\n Professor Richard Davies, lead author of the study, said: \u201cI revisited imaging of strata just under the modern seafloor offshore of Mauritania and stumbled over 23 pockmarks.<\/p>\n \u201cOur work shows they formed because methane released from hydrate from the deepest parts of the continental slope vented into the ocean.<\/p>\nHow methane emissions contribute to climate warming<\/h3>\n