Ancient Methane derived from Rock Underneath Thawing Glaciers Detected in Outflow Rivers

Ancient Methane derived from Rock Underneath Thawing Glaciers Detected in Outflow Rivers Methane concentrations have been measured over 3 melt seasons in the meltwater at the outlet of a melting glacier in Svalbard Norway. Concentrations over 800x that in the atmosphere were measured, and this methane was shown to be derived from thermogenic sources, meaning from the rock itself underneath the glacier, where it has been trapped for millions of years. With more warming leading to more glacial melt leading to more release of methane, we have a vicious positive feedback leading to yet more warming. Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. Location of Svalbard on Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/web/search/Svalbard/@77.53450046,12.98312587,-39.27161634a,457756.89017326d,35y,126.66338062h,0t,0r/data=CncaSRJDCiUweDQ1YTFjZmRjNGZhM2MwNDk6MHgyYmYzNzNlNzFiMzVlODc1GY8ZqIz_d1NAIQQlu4il-TRAKghTdmFsYmFyZBgBIAEiJgokCc1INl6RJVFAEWZfnyEXR0lAGR5bXNqBuGVAIesxfuO9R2LAQgIIAToDCgEwQgIIAEoNCP___________wEQAA Methane Concentrations in atmosphere at NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory location: https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=ZEP&program=ccgg&type=ts Article from Norwegian center for ice, cryosphere, carbon and climate IC3 ‘Glacial fracking’: A hidden source of Arctic greenhouse gas emissions February 17th, 2025 https://ic3.uit.no/news/glacial-fracking Peer-reviewed open source scientific paper: Proglacial methane emissions driven by meltwater and groundwater flushing in a high-Arctic glacial catchment Abstract. Glacial groundwater is a conduit for geologic methane release in areas of glacier retreat on Svalbard, representing a large, climate-sensitive source of the greenhouse gas. Methane emissions from glacial melt rivers are known to occur in other regions of the Arctic, but such emissions have not yet been considered on Svalbard. Over the summer of 2021, we monitored methane concentrations in the proglacial groundwater springs and river network of an ∼ 20 km2 valley glacier in central Svalbard to estimate melt season emissions from a single catchment. We measured methane concentrations in the glacial river of up to 3170 nM (nearly 800 times higher than the atmospheric equilibrium concentration) and found the methane to be of thermogenic origin through isotopic analysis. We estimated a total of 1.0 t of methane emissions during the 2021 melt season from the catchment, of which nearly two-thirds are being flushed from the glacier bed by the melt river. These findings provide further evidence that terrestrial glacier forefields on Svalbard are hotspots for methane emissions, with a climate feedback loop driven by glacier melt. As the first investigation into methane emissions from glacial melt rivers on Svalbard, our study suggests that summer meltwater flushing of methane from beneath the ∼ 1400 land-terminating glaciers across Svalbard may represent an important seasonal source of emissions. Glacial melt rivers, including those from small valley glaciers, may be a growing emission point for subglacial methane across other rapidly warming regions of the Arctic. Link: https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/22/659/2025/bg-22-659-2025.pdf Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.