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A new study points to several major earthquakes as a possible cause of methane emissions in the Arctic.
The study was written by Leopold Lobkovsky of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). He is the head of the MIPT Laboratory for Geological Investigation of Arctic and Continental Plates in the World’s Oceans. He is also a member of the Russian Research Academy.
The study is published on the Geosciences research website and is reproduced in a simplified version at Eurekalert. Lobkovsky says this is currently a hypothesis, and that work remains before it can be confirmed or rejected.
Shortcomings in current theory
Global warming is one of the main themes of our time, and the main opinion is that human activity increases the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which prevents heat from escaping from the earth and therefore, warms the planet. In the Arctic, global warming causes the earth to thaw and release methane.
Read also: Meteorologist: – Global warming expands summer in northern Norway
Lobkovsky believes that this theory does not explain that temperatures have sometimes risen dramatically in a short time in the Arctic.
During the time that the measurements have been made, two periods of sharp temperature rise have been observed in the Arctic: the first was in the 1920s and 1930s. The other began in the 1980s and has continued to this day.
The hypothesis
Lobkovsky’s theory is that the sharp rise in temperature is not caused by global warming, but rather methane has been released as a result of earthquakes.
Also read: WMO: 2020 will be one of the three warmest years
In the study, Lobkovsky shows how temperature increases in the Arctic coincide with two series of large earthquakes in the Aleutian archipelago in the far north of the Pacific Ocean. Then you have taken into account that tremors in the earth’s crust travel like waves around the globe.
There are about 2,000 kilometers from the Aleutians to the Arctic areas. Waves in tectonic plates, after earthquakes, travel at a speed of 100 kilometers a year.
Their study shows that between 15 and 20 years after the Aleutian earthquakes, the temperature rose sharply in the Arctic.
Lobkovsky thinks he can show that these earthquakes have shaken the ground enough that methane gas becomes unstable and is released into the sea and into the air, thereby causing warming.
– Clear context
– There is a clear connection between the great earthquakes in the Aleutians and the phases of global warming, says Lobkovsky and points to the transfer of voltage through the earth’s crust.
“These additional charges can destroy metastable gas hydrates and permafrost, and release methane,” he says.
Lobkovsky says that his model and theory are likely to be the subject of much discussion, and that his models can be improved so that the hypothesis can be confirmed or rejected.
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