The University of Alaska Fairbanks: Researchers find unexpectedly large methane source in overlooked landscape

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.uaf.edu/news/researchers-find-unexpectedly-large-methane-source-in-overlooked-landscape.php

Researchers find unexpectedly large methane source in overlooked landscape
Haley Dunleavy
907-474-6407
Aug. 7, 2024

When Katey Walter Anthony heard rumors of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, ballooning under the lawns of fellow Fairbanks residents, she nearly didn’t believe it.

“I ignored it for years because I thought ‘I am a limnologist, methane is in lakes,’” she said.

But when a local reporter contacted Walter Anthony, who is a research professor at the Institute of Northern Engineering at University of Alaska Fairbanks, to inspect the waterbed-like ground at a nearby golf course, she started to pay attention. Like others in Fairbanks, they lit “turf bubbles” on fire and confirmed the presence of methane gas.

Then, when Walter Anthony looked at nearby sites, she was shocked that methane wasn’t just coming out of a grassland. “I went through the forest, the birch trees and the spruce trees, and there was methane gas coming out of the ground in large, strong streams,” she said.

…

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50346-5

[femmedem]

1. Terrifying.

The methane will screw us in the short term. I hope scientists smarter than I am know how to put that genie back in the bottle, because I sure don't.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Piece of cake. Wrap Alaska in a giant plastic bag.

The tougher nut to crack will be Siberia.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ticking-timebomb-siberia-thawing-permafrost-releases-more-methane-180978381/

Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking ‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn
In 2020, temperatures in the region rose nearly 11 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, causing the limestone to release ancient methane deposits

David Kindy
Correspondent
August 5, 2021

In recent years, climate scientists have warned thawing permafrost in Siberia may be a “methane time bomb” detonating slowly. Now, a peer-reviewed study using satellite imagery and a review by an international organization are warning that warming temperatures in the far northern reaches of Russia are releasing massive measures of methane—a potent greenhouse gas with considerably more warming power than carbon dioxide.

“It’s not good news if it’s right,” Robert Max Holmes, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who was not involved in either report, tells Steve Mufson of the Washington Post. “Nobody wants to see more potentially nasty feedbacks and this is potentially one.”

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the study of satellite photos of a previously unexplored site in Siberia detected large amounts of methane being released from exposed limestone. A heat wave in 2020 was responsible for the emissions along two large strips of rock formations in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, located several hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Lead author Nikolaus Froitzheim, a geoscientist at the University of Bonn in Germany, is concerned about his study’s findings. Interpreting this data correctly “may make the difference between catastrophe and apocalypse” as the climate crisis worsens, he tells Tara Yarlagadda of Inverse.

…

[WestMichRad]

3. I wonder...

How much of a factor is escaping methane in making wildfires worse?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Interesting question

Methane releases seem to increase after fires elsewhere…

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-024-00478-9

Article | Open access | Published: 23 January 2024
Elevated methane flux in a tropical peatland post-fire is linked to depth-dependent changes in peat microbiome assembly

Aditya Bandla, Hasan Akhtar, Massimo Lupascu, Rahayu Sukmaria Sukri & Sanjay Swarup

…

Abstract
Fires in tropical peatlands extend to depth, transforming them from carbon sinks into methane sources and severely limit forest recovery. Peat microbiomes influence carbon transformations and forest recovery, yet our understanding of microbiome shifts post-fire is currently limited. Our previous study highlighted altered relationships between the peat surface, water table, aboveground vegetation, and methane flux after fire in a tropical peatland. Here, we link these changes to post-fire shifts in peat microbiome composition and assembly processes across depth. We report kingdom-specific and depth-dependent shifts in alpha diversity post-fire, with large differences at deeper depths. Conversely, we found shifts in microbiome composition across all depths. Compositional shifts extended to functional groups involved in methane turnover, with methanogens enriched and methanotrophs depleted at mid and deeper depths. Finally, we show that community shifts at deeper depths result from homogeneous selection associated with post-fire changes in hydrology and aboveground vegetation. Collectively, our findings provide a biological basis for previously reported methane fluxes after fire and offer new insights into depth-dependent shifts in microbiome assembly processes, which ultimately underlie ecosystem function predictability and ecosystem recovery.

…

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01657-w

Article| Published: 20 April 2023
Wildfire and degradation accelerate northern peatland carbon release

S. L. Wilkinson, R. Andersen, P. A. Moore, S. J. Davidson, G. Granath & J. M. Waddington
Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 456–461 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract
The northern peatland carbon sink plays a vital role in climate regulation; however, the future of the carbon sink is uncertain, in part, due to the changing interactions of peatlands and wildfire. Here, we use empirical datasets from natural, degraded and restored peatlands in non-permafrost boreal and temperate regions to model net ecosystem exchange and methane fluxes, integrating peatland degradation status, wildfire combustion and post-fire dynamics. We find that wildfire processes reduced carbon uptake in pristine peatlands by 35% and further enhanced emissions from degraded peatlands by 10%. The current small net sink is vulnerable to the interactions of peatland degraded area, burn rate and peat burn severity. Climate change impacts accelerated carbon losses, where increased burn severity and burn rate reduced the carbon sink by 38% and 65%, respectively, by 2100. However, our study demonstrates the potential for active peatland restoration to buffer these impacts.

…

[WestMichRad]

5. Thanks for the added input!

The abstract for the second reference (from April 2023) appears to be more relevant to what I was wondering about (how did you know?! , but it sounds like the research was more focused on carbon uptake after a burn. I would need to do more reading, and unfortunately general laziness and a desire to avoid more depressing climate related info means I probably won’t.

I can’t help but expect that escaping methane would accelerate and intensify wildfires. Could also make it harder to extinguish fires after the main event has occurred… like keeping those festering underground fires burning a long time.

Thanks again for the information!

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. I knew that these did not exactly address your concerns

My instinct is that the ongoing releases would not add much fuel to the dramatic tree wildfire. These are intense, with lots of fuel burning very, very quickly. I don’t believe the methane seeps would keep up.

However, the northern fires release much more greenhouse gas than fires in California (for example) when they burn down into the underlying peat. Then, they keep releasing methane long after the fire.