In addition to this observation of undersea ocean methane release, it appears the the recent mysterious crater in Siberia is due to permafrost thawing and releasing trapped methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times as powerful as CO2, and if anthropogenic CO2 release (and methane release from fracking) causes enough warming to cause more methane to be freed from the ground and sea, we could easily trigger catastrophic climate change.
Yep. We're fucked.
Climate scientist drops the F-bomb after startling Arctic discovery
In a case where scientists in the Arctic discovered massive plumes of methane escaping from the seafloor, climatologist and Arctic expert Jason Box sums that essence up thusly:
If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd.
— Jason Box (@climate_ice) July 29, 2014...
“Even if a small fraction of the Arctic carbon were released to the atmosphere, we’re fucked,” he told me.