FAIRBANKS, Alaska, March 4 (UPI) — U.S.-led scientists say part of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane has started leaking the gas into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The international team of researchers warns the release of just a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.
The scientists led by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Assistant Professor Natalia Shakhova and Associate Professor Igor Semiletov say the frozen methane is becoming unstable because of the melting of permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
The scientists said their study suggests the permafrost that had long been thought to be an impermeable barrier has become perforated.
“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans,” said Shakhova. “Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”
Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area that encompasses more than 772,000 square miles of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean, more than three times as large as the Siberian wetlands that have been considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane.
“The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict,” Shakhova said.
The research is reported in the journal Science.
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ATLANTA, March 4 (UPI) — U.S. and Dutch scientists say they’ve found climate change is increasing the spread of malaria in some countries, along with migration and land-use changes.
The researchers — Luis Fernando Chaves of Emory University in Atlanta and Constantianus Koenraadt at Wageningen University in the Netherlands — say their study was designed to resolve conflicting scientific conclusions as to of why malaria has been spreading into highland areas of East Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
“We assessed … conclusions from both sides and found that evidence for a role of climate in the dynamics is robust,” they said. “However, we also argue that over-emphasizing a role for climate is misleading for setting a research agenda, even one which attempts to understand climate change impacts on emerging malaria patterns.”
Some studies link the spread of mosquitoes that carry the disease to the insects seeking warmer climates, the scientists said. But other studies found no evidence of warming in the highland regions, which would rule out climate change as a cause.
Chaves and Koenraadt re-examined more than 70 of the studies and said they found those ruling out a role for climate change often used inappropriate statistical tools, thereby casting doubt on the conclusions.
In contrast, they said they found most studies concluding climate change is playing a role in highland malaria were statistically strong,
The research appears in the current issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.
BERLIN, March 4 (UPI) — The German branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said a polar bear housed at the Berlin Zoo should be castrated to avoid breeding.
Frank Albrecht, the head of the PETA branch, said if Knut the polar bear is not castrated, the popular Berlin Zoo attraction could end up mating with a female polar bear on loan from the Munich Zoo, The Times of London said Thursday.
Albrecht said such breeding efforts would essentially represent an act of incest and could result in offspring suffering from genetic abnormalities.
“They have a common grandfather, Olaf, and they are therefore cousins,” he said.
“A long-term cohabitation between Giovanna and Knut is only feasible if Knut is castrated.”
The Times said it is likely Giovanna will return to the Munich Zoo before the two bears become sexually mature enough to procreate.
“We’ll send Giovanna back to Munich, by the autumn at the latest,” Berlin Zoo senior bearkeeper Heiner Klos said.
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PARIS, March 4 (UPI) — The European Space Agency says it has updated its 12-year-old Eduspace Web site that’s designed for Europe’s secondary students and teachers.
“Since its introduction in 1998, (Eduspace) has provided an invaluable educational resource by making available catalogues of Earth imagery and a sophisticated image processing software package called LEOWorks, which enables satellite imagery to be manipulated and analyzed on school computers,” the ESA said.
“The new version of Eduspace is easier to navigate and use,” the space agency said. “The cornerstones of the Web site are the case studies. They provide teachers and students with examples of in-depth studies of a selected area, within a particular theme. The background information and varied exercises are intended to provide a valuable source of ideas about how to introduce Earth observation from space into the classroom.”
Eduspace is currently available in eight languages: English, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, ESA officials said, noting other language versions are planned.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.