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Climate and Environment

Scientists expected thawing wetlands in Siberia’s permafrost. What they found is ‘much more dangerous.’

A 2020 heat wave unleashed methane emissions from prehistoric limestone in two regions stretching 375 miles, study says

By
August 2, 2021 at 11:42 p.m. EDT
Permafrost, seen at the top of the cliff, melts into the Kolyma River outside of Zyryanka, Russia, in July 2019. A new study has found that methane is being released not only from thawing wetlands but also from thawing limestone. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
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Scientists have long been worried about what many call “the methane bomb” — the potentially catastrophic release of methane from thawing wetlands in Siberia’s permafrost.

But now a study by three geologists says that a heat wave in 2020 has revealed a surge in methane emissions “potentially in much higher amounts” from a different source: thawing rock formations in the Arctic permafrost.