LIVE SCIENCE - The Arctic Ocean was once an important source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — and it could become one again, researchers warn.
Methane (CH4) is second only to carbon dioxide (CO2) in trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Since 2020, human-driven greenhouse gas emissions have increased atmospheric methane by about 10 parts per billion per year, more than twice as much as CO2. However, scientists don't yet know how the methane cycle will respond as our planet continues to warm.
In a new study, published Sept. 25 in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers looked to methane cycling in Earth's past for clues about our future.
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However, other scientists are less certain. "The factors that led the Arctic to become a carbon source in the past may not be directly analogous for the future — the Arctic Ocean was physically more restricted from the global ocean and ocean chemistry was different in significant ways," said Sandra Kirtland Turner, associate professor of paleoclimate and paleoceanography at University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the study.