This is why the global climate emergency is far greater than many scientists, politicians or the entire public understand. The positive feedback mechanisms built in to our environmental situation results in drastic changes that once set into motion cannot be overcome. Combining this release of CO2 as the earth heats up with the albedo effect from melting sea ice, means if we do not solve this issue soon, the earth will reach a point that we will never recover from. If only the Sarah Palin's of the world could understand these basic science concepts that threaten our societies...

All this proves is that carbon dioxide levels rise after ice melts morons. Your so god damn stupid that you don't realize that this proves every scientist who said carbon dioxide does not cause climate change right.

Huh? europeanguy, that doesn't make any logical sense, if you would like to site a scientific source for that let us know, but I know you don't have one, so thats ok

UNGHH! It is painful for me to hear alarmist hype that takes a scientific study and bends it to panic others.

Yes there is a massive amount of gas hydrate contained in permafrost (also in ocean beds). Yes, this is a large amount of methane. Yes, if a specific temperature/pressure thresshold is reached it might release into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas. Okay, you have sent up the green flag but you didn't even use the term gas hydrate. Was it too technical for a science site? Or was it because people might do a little research on their own and find out that even by the most conservative estimates this FUEL store quite possibly contains more than TWICE the known amount of oil, coal, and gasified natural methane combined? Consider that gas hydrate has a 56:1 expansion concentration meaning that one liter of gas hydrate contains the equivalent of 56 liters of uncompressed methane. Considering that the study tended to focus more on the extreme energy potential of this technology why did you instead focus on a very subcontext of the study?

I have not heard or seen anything on this site yet as to the possibilities of the energy source of gas hydrate except for this meager coverage in a completely biased viewpoint.

I guess we just don't want to solve the energy problem.

Oh and by the way gas hydrate is cleaner than oil and coal. Who cares if it could power the future. It could possibly DESTROY THE EARTH. Of course it isn't mentioned in the article that the conditions necessary to produce a massive release of gas hydrate would already be so extreme that all life would be already gone. Okay so once global warming wipes out the earth there will be a masive gas hydrate relase that realllly makes it hot. Nice coverage POP SCI.

Even more permafrost is under the ocean. For instance, off the coast of Siberia there is an area six times the size of Germany containing about 540 billion tons of carbon. That submarine permafrost is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast the sea sediment is just below freezing. The permafrost has grown porous, there is a loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor, and the surrounding seawater is highly oversaturated with solute methane.

"...Researchers were investigating "alarming" reports in the last few days of the release of methane from long frozen Arctic waters, possibly from the warming of the sea…" --"Arctic sea ice drops to 2nd lowest level on record," AP, 27 Aug '08

The CH4 level in the air never reached 750 parts per billion (ppb) the last million years, but is now 1,780 ppb. Currently there is about 5 billion tons of CH4 in the air; 10 billion more would be like doubling the CO2 level for 20 years. Since the future amount of CH4 (or CO2) entering the air from melting permafrost isn't known, it is not included at all in current climate models. The UN warned this year natural CH4 emissions are a major climate wild card.

"If the Siberian (submarine) permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes, the methane content of the planet's atmosphere would increase twelve fold. The result would be catastrophic global warming." --"A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia," Spiegel, 17 April '08