0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
Thirteen years ago, an emotional interview with geophysicist Natalia Shakhova raised alarm about the Siberian clathrate gun hypothesis. A clathrate is a crystalline solid in which methane molecules are trapped within a lattice of ice under high pressure and low temperature. As the Earth’s surface warms, Siberian permafrost thaws and releases methane, whose radiative forcing potential is roughly 80 times that of carbon dioxide over a short timescale.
This process illustrates a climate feedback loop: global warming triggers the release of trapped greenhouse gases, which in turn amplify the warming and risk a self-reinforcing, potentially runaway scenario. For now, the IPCC considers it "very unlikely" that subsurface clathrates will cause a detectable deviation from expected emission trajectories this century, but the underlying science remains uncertain and under active study.
A related concern has now emerged from Seabrook et al. (2025), who report newly identified methane seeps emanating from the seabed of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean. These seeps were absent in earlier surveys, suggesting they may stem from recent environmental changes (possibly the dissolution of methane hydrates or tectonic rebound following glacial melt).
Those developments warrant close attention as they could challenge, and potentially worsen, the 21st-century climate scenarios (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, or SSPs) currently used in global policy making.
References:
- Shakhova, N. (2012): https://youtu.be/kx1Jxk6kjbQ
- Seabrook et al. (2025): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63404-3 3 replies
10 recasts
36 reactions
1 reply
0 recast
3 reactions
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
0 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
