Greenhouse Effect Arctic Ocean?
Just when you thought it was safe to come in from the cold the Greenhouse Effect is being highlighted in the Arctic Ocean.
It seems wherever you look these days, there are new warnings on global warming, and now even the Arctic regions are coming under the spotlight.[box style=”rounded”]Make sure you click here to like > Daily Green Post on Facebook < to be updated every time we find new tips on helping the environment, plus exciting and innovative new ways to help you and your family.[/box]
Arctic Ocean could be source of greenhouse gas: study
A new airborne study with NASA contributions measured surprising levels of the potent greenhouse gas methane coming from cracks in Arctic sea ice and areas of partial sea ice cover.
(Phys.org) — The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming.
Now a multi-institutional study by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself….
Kort, a JPL postdoctoral scholar affiliated with the Keck Institute of Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, led the analysis while he was a student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
During five HIPPO flights over the Arctic from 2009 to 2010, Kort’s team observed increased methane levels while flying at low altitudes over the remote Arctic Ocean, north of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
The methane level was about one-half percent larger than normal background levels.
But where was the methane coming from?
The team detected no carbon monoxide in the atmosphere that would point to possible contributions from human combustion activities.
In addition, based on the time of year, location and nature of the emissions, it was extremely unlikely the methane was coming from high-latitude wetlands or geologic reservoirs.
By comparing locations of the enhanced methane levels with airborne measurements of carbon monoxide, water vapor and ozone, they pinpointed a source: the ocean surface, through cracks in Arctic sea ice and areas of partial sea ice cover.
I have to admit that as fascinating as this study is, it still leaves me feeling rather cold in a global warming kind of way, (sorry, I had to get that in).
I just wonder where we are heading next; what will the outcome of the next greenhouse effect be?
Arctic Ocean could be source of greenhouse gases – InterAksyon.com
Global warming: Colorado researchers pinpoint atmospheric …
The greenhouse effect is creating situations on a worldwide level and it’s causing problems to every kind of living thing, from us humans (who are the architects of the problems) and animals, plant life, you name it and it’s having an impact.