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Andrey Naumenko, OGTRK "Yamal-Region"

Methane: Mystery, fuel, threat

They first appeared online as fuzzy pictures, almost like a hoax for gleeful conspiracy theorists. But the massive, mysterious craters in Siberia were real —…

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They first appeared online as fuzzy pictures, almost like a hoax for gleeful conspiracy theorists. But the massive craters in the Yamal Peninsula of Siberia were real — mini volcanoes capped with ice that melted because of the earth’s changing climate, eventually bursting with built-up methane. At the heels of their discovery, scientists reported methane seepage off the East Coast of the United States, where gas has been bubbling on ocean floor for years without our knowing.

The Earth, it seems, is fizzing at the seams with trapped methane gas. But we may be shaking the bottle.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that at least 60 percent of methane emissions are man-made. Many environment efforts focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions through lowering how much energy humans use, encouraging reduced electricity consumption and transportation use. While U.S. emissions primarily consist of carbon dioxide, the effects of methane are 20 times greater on climate change.

The largest man-made sources of methane are from agriculture (livestock gas) and the natural gas and petroleum industry (natural gas is methane), according to EPA estimates. But a study led by Cornell University’s Jed Sparks, in collaboration with other scientists, reported that the EPA is underestimating how much methane natural gas drilling (fracking) sites are releasing into the atmosphere. The study used aircraft platforms to measure emission rates at fracking sites in Pennsylvania. Scientist's measurements were two to three times greater than what the government agency was reporting.

Methane emissions create a spiral effect — as the Earth’s atmosphere changes, trapped methane is released into the atmosphere where it, in turn, expedites climate change, releasing more gas and so on. The journal Nature reported the findings of archeologist Andrei Plekhanov during an expedition to one of the 100-foot Siberian holes. The air we breathe normally contains 0.000179 percent methane. Nearly 10 percent of the air in the hole contained the gas. It wasn’t secret Russian missiles or extraterrestrial activity that created the massive holes throughout the northern countryside. It was simply some warmer summers, where the temperatures increased by an average of 9 degrees Fahrenheit.

 
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