Sources of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere: Hydrocarbon Emission from Gas Hydrates in Focus

• Published in: Atmosphere
• Main Authors: Vladimir Kutcherov, Daniil Kudryavtsev, Aleksandr Serovaiskii
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2023
• Subjects: carbon dioxide emission; methane emission; gas hydrates; hydrocarbons; atmosphere; Arctic shelf; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14020321; https://doaj.org/article/93b750caf25b4f818f1feadcab420282

The concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere has significantly increased over the last 60 years. One of the factors in the growth of methane and its homologue emissions is the intense thawing of gas hydrates, mainly from the Arctic shelf, which remains one of the less studied sources of atmospheric hydrocarbon emissions. Oxidation of methane and light-saturated hydrocarbons by ozone in the upper part of the atmosphere leads to the formation of CO 2 . The analysis of several datasets presented in this paper allows us to find the correlation between CH 4 and CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This finding suggests that methane and its homologues released from gas hydrates mainly in the Arctic shelf zone become a significant source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Because the amount of hydrocarbons located in gas hydrate deposits on the Arctic shelf is huge, further evolution of this process can become a serious challenge.