It’s happened: Methane, previously trapped in the ocean floors, is out gassing into the atmosphere at an extraordinary rate. This will cause the flow of the Gulf Stream to weaken even further, essentially producing climate change that it’s–even now–too late to do anything about. In 2010, methane levels in the arctic atmosphere were 1,850 parts per billion–higher, it is believed by paleoclimatologists–than at any time in the past 400,000 years (historically, concentrations are only 300 to 400 parts per billion).
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We’re still releasing the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere today, but there was a massive release in the past: About 55 million years ago, the Earth burped up a massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere–an amount equivalent to burning all the petroleum and other fossil fuels that exist today. Geologist Will Clyde is concerned because "We don’t know where it came from. This is a big part of the carbon cycle that affected the climate system, and we don’t understand it."
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