A research team led by McGill University geochemist Peter Douglas has used a new method for measuring the rate at which methane is produced by microbes breaking down thawing permafrost.
The breakthrough could lead to an improvement in our ability to predict future releases of the potent greenhouse gas as long‑frozen layers of soil begin to thaw.
“There is a lot of concern about methane being released from permafrost, but we don’t know how available carbon that has been frozen for thousands of years is to microbes,” says Douglas, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
In a study published online in Geophysical Research Letters on March 9, 2020, the researchers combined established radiocarbon dating techniques with ‘clumped isotope’ measurements of methane collected from lakes in permafrost areas – the first time the latter method had been used in this way. The results revealed a link between the age of the organic matter in the permafrost and the rate of methane production, suggesting that methane is produced more slowly when older carbon is released from permafrost.
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