Nature Communications (Oct 2016)

Increased methane emissions from deep osmotic and buoyant convection beneath submarine seeps as climate warms

  • Silvana S. S. Cardoso,
  • Julyan H. E. Cartwright

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13266
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 6

Abstract

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Large methane hydrates reserves are found in mud volcanoes, but climate change may lead to methane release. Here, the authors show that methane adsorption creates overpressures leading to rapid recirculation of seawater, thus reducing the melting timescales of methane hydrates from millennia to decades.