© предоставлено пресс-службой ТПУ
TOMSK, June 28 – RIA Tomsk. The scientists working within the
grant of the Government of the Russian Federation on study of the Arctic shelf
found huge bursts of methane and carbon dioxide which happen because of thawing
of permafrost. They will be able to "heat" the earth to critical
temperature within 10 years, the press service of Tomsk Polytechnic University
(TPU) reported.
"The
toughest scenario is that 3-5% of estimated inventories of hydrates can be
released into the atmosphere within 10 years, and concentration of atmospheric
methane will increase many times… There will be a warming more significant,
than doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If it happens, the Kyoto
Protocol (the existing forecast of warming) will seem a good scenario", -
project manager, scientist of Pacific oceanic institute of the Russian Academy
of Sciences Igor Semiletov is quoted.
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By
estimates of scientists, in case of such events fight against consequences of
environmental disaster requires about 70 trillion dollars – the amount, equal
to the summary budget of all economies of the world. Thus Semiletov emphasized
that the data of researches are preliminary, scientists intend to continue
their work.
Experts
clarified that the permafrost at the bottom of the North seas and ocean
gradually fails and melts. Only during the last expedition about 500 zones of
the abnormal burst of methane were revealed.
"We
show that the mega pool of organic carbon of the Siberian shelf is already
involved in the modern circulation of carbon. For example, massive bursts of
methane (hundreds of grams from square meter per day) from the shelf of East
Arctic were for the first time found by our group", - Semiletov marks.
Scientists
from 15 universities of different countries participate in the project: Russia,
Sweden, Holland, Great Britain and others. They already organized two
expeditions to the Arctic: to study the Laptev Sea and the Ivashkinsky lagoon
of the Arctic Ocean. Data are processed on the basis of TPU.