Name: The Siberian tundra is exploding again as methane gas builds up - Digital Journal
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The Siberian tundra is exploding again as methane gas builds up - Digital Journal

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Hi, what are you looking for?The holding Russia’s biggest natural gas reserves. The region is also home to the 572 kilometers (355 miles) long Obskaya–Bovanenkovo railway, completed in 2011, the northernmost railway in the world. Russian gas company, Gazprom operates the vast Yurkharovskoye gas field, estimated to hold 55 trillion cubic meters of LNG.This latest discovery of a giant hole in the tundra was made by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment. These holes, or funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface, according toThe holes are called hydrolaccoliths or bulgunnyakhs by scientists – and this one was given the number 17, and is seen as the most impressive of the large holes to suddenly appear in recent years as the permafrost thaws.Giant new 50-metre deep 'crater' opens up in Arctic tundra. Blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of metres from epicentre of the funnel at the Yamal peninsula— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times)In August 2020, the RAS Institute of Oil and Gas Problems, supported by the local Yamal authorities, conducted a major expedition to the new crater. Dr. Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading researcher at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, said:”‘What we saw today is striking in its size and grandeur. These are the colossal forces of nature that create such objects.”Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of the Russian Oil and Gas Research Institute in Moscow, told Vesti Yamal: “This object is unique. It carries a lot of additional scientific information, which I am not yet ready to disclose. This is a subject for scientific publications. We have to analyse all this, and build three-dimensional models.”Bogoyavlensky has studied the emergence of these craters since the first one appeared back in 2013, and he has previously claimed that human activities, like drilling for gas from the vast Yamal reserves could be a factor in the eruptions. And he is concerned at the risk of ecological disasters if mounds of methane gas in the tundra build up close to gas pipelines, production facilities or residential areas.Mounds of gas and mounds called pingosThese mounds, are formed when a mass of ice grows beneath an earthen cover, pushing the ground upward. They can grow more than 150 feet high and 1,500 feet across.It is estimated that there are more than 11,000 pingos on Earth, all in permafrost environments, such as the Arctic and subarctic. The Tuktoyaktuk peninsula, in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, is an area that has the greatest concentration of pingos in the world with a total of 1,350 pingos.And while Professor Bogoyavlensky is right to be concerned over the collapse of pingos causing an ecological disaster, the build up of methane gas in many of the mounds could result in explosions causing damages far greater than what a collapsing pingo could cause.Because of anthropogenic climate change, the Arctic is undergoing a rapid collapse of its permafrost, and while the crater phenomenon is probably influenced by these changes, there are still very few studies investigating how climate change specifically induces their collapse.Even more disturbing is the amount of methane gas, a greenhouse gas that is about 30 times more potent than corbon dioxide, that is being released due to the melting of the permafrost. Besides the release of methane, there are additional problems to contend with.Sue Natali, Arctic program director at Woodwell Climate Research Center, said in an email that the gas can build up in pockets of unfrozen soil in the permafrost known as cryopegs, according to “Warming and thawing of surface soil weakens the frozen ‘cap,’ resulting in the blowout that causes the craters,” she said.Scientists have found millions of methane hot spots dotting the landscape, and the Arctic has become a net carbon dioxide emitter for the first time on record. And as we have learned, as prermafrost thaws, it can slump, erode, or simply flood the landscape by creating marshy formations known as thermokarst.Besides the melting permafrost spewing incredible amounts of methane, scientists are also worried what will happen if melting permafrost unleashes ancient diseases we know nothing about, according toPresident Joe Biden. — Source: — The White House.Mandel Ngan, with Sebastian Smith in WashingtonPresident Joe Biden issued an executive order Monday boosting the...An uncrewed Blue Origin rocket carrying research payloads crashed shortly after liftoff from Texas on Monday.British gross domestic product expanded 0.2 percent after a drop of 0.6 percent in June, the Office for Statistics said in a statement.An auction to pay out insurance on Russia’s unpaid debt was due to take place on Monday.

Hi, what are you looking for?The holding Russia’s biggest natural gas reserves. The region is also home to the 572 kilometers (355 miles) long Obskaya–Bovanenkovo railway, completed in 2011, the northernmost railway in the world. Russian gas company, Gazprom operates the vast Yurkharovskoye gas field, estimated to hold 55 trillion cubic meters of LNG.This latest discovery of a giant hole in the tundra was made by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment. These holes, or funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of...

The Siberian tundra is exploding again as methane gas builds up - Digital Journal

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