Methane Gas Leaking from the Ocean Floor fuels Climate change

The Pacific Northwest coast now could be seen bubbling large amount of methane gas. A new study suggests that rising ocean temperatures one-third mile below the surface are the reason behind these bubbles of harmful methane gas. The University of Washington has been researching this matter since last 10 years and has said that 168 bubble plumes have been studied. The study also stated that most of these bubbles were at a ‘critical depth’ which is not safe for methane hydrate to maintain its stability. H. Paul, professor of oceanography at University of Washington and the lead author on the study said, “We see an unusually high number of bubble plumes at the depth where methane hydrate would decompose if seawater has warmed. So it is not likely to be just emitted from the sediments; this appears to be coming from the decomposition of methane that has been frozen for thousands of years.”

In a last few months, the U.S. government has taken a lot of measures for reducing these methane emissions in their effort to curb climate change. Methane is the second major greenhouse gas in U.S. that results from human activities. In the year of 2013, 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions accounted for methane. This 10 percent resulted only from human activities according to EPA. Although the percentage of methane in the atmosphere is lesser than the carbon dioxide, it can trap heat 23 times more than carbon dioxide. Measures to reduce methane emissions were proposed by the Obama administration back in august, 2015. The U.S. government aims at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent by 2025. The proposed measures include search and repair of gas leaks in oil and gas production chain by the oil and gas firms, capturing methane emissions from oil wells by energy firms and limiting the emissions from natural gas storage and transportation equipment.

By 2025, the proposed measures expect to reduce methane by 340,000-400,000 tons. This is same as cutting down 9 million tons of carbon dioxide. According to EPA, the benefit from reducing greenhouse gas emissions will come around $460 – $550 million whereas the cost in implementing these rules will come around $420 million. Earlier in 2015, White House said the methane and related emissions will be reduced by 45 percent by 2025. Others find this rule as inadequate. Fred Krupp, President of Environment Defense Fund said, “Setting the first national standards for methane emissions from the oil and gas industry is an important move, but it can’t be the last. This proposal addresses methane emissions from newly built and modified oil and gas operations, but not from the existing facilities that account for all of today’s emissions and will still account for 90 percent of the problem by 2018.”

Image Courtesy: Csmonitor.com