Increasing amounts of Arctic methane releasing into atmosphere

Methane in today’s atmosphere is a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule than CO₂, and an atmospheric concentration that can change more quickly than CO₂ can. There has been a lot of press coverage of a new paper in Science called “Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf”, talking about the instability of this important greenhouse gas.

Over 80% of the bottom water over the ESAS was found to be supersaturated with dissolved methane, and 50% of the surface water. More than 100 “hotspots’ were discovered, where large quantities of methane are escaping from the sea-floor.

The latest estimate of methane release from the shallow seas off the north coast of Russia, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), suggests that around 8 teragrams per year of the gas are reaching the atmosphere. This is equivalent to prior estimates of methane released from ALL oceans.

Although methane is harmful to the environment, there’s no reason to fixate on methane in particular. Methane is a transient gas in the atmosphere, while CO₂ essentially accumulates in the atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle, so the climate changing from the increasing CO₂ that methane oxidizes into may be as important as the concentration of methane itself.

So just like too much of any greenhouse gas, methane [at this point] is something that isn’t entirely controllable with the little actions we do to protect our environment. We just have to deal with the consequences and do what we can so it doesn’t worsen.

35 Somali Pirates Captured

“The French Defense Ministry claims one of its frigates has seized 35 pirates, four “mother ships” and six skiffs in various sweeps off the coast of Somalia.”

It seems odd that there really still are issues with pirates around the world today, but they are still out there.  The arrests that were recently made in the past few days occured in one of the most vital and busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean seem to be the most at-risk spots for ships to be overtaken by Somali pirates.

If there was more coverage of pirates around the world in general, we would see how big the issue actually can be. Many people see pirates as something of fiction or of old times, but they are still around. Nearly half the 47 ships hijacked off Somalia last year were taken in March and April, which are the most dangerous months of the year for ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. With over four hundred pirate attacks last year the situation has been growing steadily worse and many vessels are choosing alternative routes to avoid the risks now inherent in the area.

Luckily this week, Operation Atalanta, the attempt by an EU joint force to restrict and eliminate pirate attacks has been successful. The operation has two main purposes– to ensure the safety of passing vessels supplying aid on behalf of the World Food Programme (WFP) to those who need it in the African state and also to try and ensure no attacks take place on ordinary freight and container ships while traveling the Gulf of Aden.