Antarctic Methane Could Escape, Worsen Warming
As glaciers melt, gas could belch into atmosphere, study suggests.
The researchers suggest that microbes isolated from the rest of the world since the ice closed over them, some 35 million years ago, have kept busy digesting organic matter and making methane—a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
If global warming causes the ice sheets to retreat in the coming decades or centuries, the researchers warn, some of the methane could belch into the atmosphere, amplifying the warming.
The presumption now is: Microbes are everywhere. In the seething water of an undersea volcano? Obviously. In the crushing pressure half a mile (0.8 kilometer) under the pitch-dark seafloor? Demonstrably. Under a mile or two of Antarctic ice? Why not?—there've been a few unconfirmed reports already—and why wouldn't some
