Methane is a much more powerful global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Why should we care? The quantities of methane stored around the planet are astounding. If the sea warms beyond a certain temperature then the stored methane will be released, in vast quantities, from the sea bed and the seas will appear to boil.

In addition Methane is stored in frozen ground and in some places frozen water. When the methane rich ground or ice thaws across the vast area of Siberia, for example, huge quantities of this planet warming gas will be released. 

This is frighteningly well illustrated in the programme on ice in the recent BBC series: ‘Earth: The Power of the Planet’

In the programme geologist Dr Iain Stewart travels to somewhere in the Siberian wastes and there he is shown, by a scientist who studies this phenomena, a graphic demonstation of the amount of methane trapped in the ice there. They cut a hole in the ice and light the escaping gas. The result is an astonishing flame spurting from the ice. A remarkable sight worth seeing.

The series is very well made and full of lots of fascinating titbits. Very well worth going out of your way to watch it.

 ‘Earth: The Power of the Planet’ Book & DVD

 From the programme notes:
 ”But ice does more than shape the Earth. Its peculiar properties mean that small changes in the Earth’s temperature can be amplified massively. This amplification means that ice ages are times of massive climate change – and that helps drive evolution. In fact, ice played a crucial role in our own evolution, by creating many sudden climate changes in East Africa at a time when our ancestors were struggling to make a living.

Now the ice is in retreat again. We explore the speed at which it’s melting – the newly discovered mechanisms which suggest it will disappear faster than we ever thought. We film with scientists on top of the Greenland ice cap as they explore why the ice is retreating. Startling satellite imagery shows the expanded area of melting. And we discover that the melting ice is going to bring some unexpected effects in unexpected places.” more…

Celebrations! The Americans sign up to an agreement to engage in more negotiations on Climate Change mitigation at UN climate conference in Bali. It may only be talking about talking but at least there’s been some agreement. The nations have agreed to seek a new global climate-change treaty by 2012.

However agreement came at a heavy cost. Canada, the U.S. and Japan banded together to force removal of references to specific emissions targets for developed countries by 2020. References to longer-term targets were also removed.

Though I would like to be only positive about this news, it sits uneasily alongside a comment on BBC news a couple of nights ago from a scientist studying the retreat of the artic ice. He revealed that the ice was disappearing so much quicker than scientists have been expecting that all artic sea ice would be gone within five or six years.

Not only have we been astonishingly slow to get the message about global warming, but the scientists who have been studying this phenomena have, it seems, spectacularly underestimated the speed of warming.

Put alongside the emerging understanding that huge quantities of the powerfully global warming gas methane; currently held trapped in the permafrost & in the sea bed;  will be released as the planet warms; one wonders if our response to this ongoing calamity is about as useful a response as the 1950’s UK government’s ’Duck & Cover’ advice was in response to a nuclear strike.

The climate change conference seems to have made some progress, but is it enough. As the artic sea ice melts faster than our worst expectations, are we fiddling while the planet begins to burn?