One of Iceland ’s largest and most participating volcanoes sits below a monolithic chalk capital hide nearly 595 satisfying kilometers ( 230 square knot ) of the Nordic nation . Though a apparently unlikely pair of attack and ice , new research print inScientific Reportssuggests the two make a rather dynamic methane - producing squad .
Descending from theMýrdalsjökullice crown , we find an 8 - kilometer - long ( 5 - mile ) outlet glacier calledSólheimajökullthat flow from the nearby ice - covered Katla vent . Here , geothermic activity create an idealistic environs for the growth of germ that remain lock in by the glacier during the cold calendar month but is released when the ice melts in the summertime . With the button arrive the nursery gas methane in tremendous amounts – up to 41 t of methane every sidereal day , or the equivalent of more than 136,000 belching cows .
" This is a huge amount of methane lost from the glacial meltwater flow into the atmosphere , " read biochemist and study author Peter Wynn in astatement , add that methane has a global warming potential of 28 times that of carbon dioxide . " It greatly exceeds average methane exit from non - glacial rivers to the atmosphere reported in the scientific literature . It rival some of the world ’s most methane - producing wetlands , and represents more than twenty times the have sex methane emissions of all Europe ’s other volcano put together . "
To assess the release of methane , the team took samples from the edge of a meltwater lake in front of the glacier during the summer between 2013 and 2017 and compared these levels to those in sediment and other rivers in the area . They find that the cracking assiduity of methane occur where the river upwells from below the glacier and flows into the lake . ordinarily , methane convert to carbon dioxide when it comes into contact with atomic number 8 , but in Sólheimajökull ’s glacial environment , meltwater come up into contact with flatulence bring forth by the volcano . This can depress the atomic number 8 contentedness of the water , dissolve some of the methane into the river water and then enchant the gaseous state out into the environment .
Together , the resolution salute the “ strongest evidence yet ” that glaciers secrete methane .
" There has been a lot of speculation about whether or not glaciers can free methane . The bed of glaciers incorporate the perfect cocktail of conditions for methane production – bug , low oxygen , constitutive matter , and water – along with an impermeable cap of Methedrine on the surface trapping the methane beneath , ” explained Wynn .
Like Iceland , Antarctica also has active geothermic system and volcanoes . The author note that understanding how methane is produced under ice caps will help further inform climate change manikin and emission anticipation , in particular as glaciers and glass sheets are “ seldom describe for as methane contributors . ”
