Methane Gas Could Increase From Oceanic Vents
New MIT research by Denise Brehm, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy looked at the potential for a compound affect of warming global temperatures on the level of methane being released by oceanic vents.
The premise is that rising global temperatures could be accompanied by melting permafrost in arctic regions and that this could initiate the release of underground methane into the atmosphere. Once released, that methane gas would speed up global warming by trapping the Earth’s heat radiation about 20 times more efficiently than does the better-known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.