Monster and Positive Feedback Loop Down for the Count

While it may take a global temperature rise of 1.5C to commence the hydrate thaw, it’s not like the plug to the freezer was pulled out and door left ajar. During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 55 million years ago, it took 100,000 years to release the methane. Even then the methane fizzle was lessened by feasting bacteria and single-celled organisms that lack nuclei (Archaea). Massive marine food chains, for example at deep thermal vents, are fed by such beasties.

Methane, unlike carbon dioxide, is destroyed by solar radiation and breaks down in twelve years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, lasts in the atmosphere for a very long time. Taking this shorter life into account, pound for pound methane is about thirty times more greenhouse potent than is carbon dioxide. However, more like pound for ton, weighing in at 408 parts per million, carbon dioxide is the monster compared to a meek Methane at 1.9 parts per million. In the atmosphere, for every 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide there is 4.5 pounds of methane. At thirty times the strength of CO2 that is 137 vs 1,000 pounds. Meanwhile, with the climate crisis raging all about, anaerobic methanotrophic archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria will flourish.