According to a recent research, conducted by the scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Stockholm University, large amounts of methane are bubbling up from a long-frozen Arctic Ocean sea-bed off eastern Siberia.

Noting that the destabilized East Siberian Arctic Shelf is emitting nearly 8 million metric tons, or 8 teragrams, of methane every year, the researchers said that the amount of Arctic emissions of the greenhouse gas are almost equivalent to the emissions from the remaining oceans.

Methane leaks are a cause of concern for the scientists who are involved in the ‘climate change’ study because methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas; and can thus further worsen the global warming scenario.

Saying that the methane leakage is rather disquieting, lead researcher Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, added: “Sub-sea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap. If it further destabilizes, the methane emissions may not be teragrams, it would be significantly larger.”

However, though the study, published in the journal Science, has specified that the methane leakage – which is either new or has remained unnoticed for centuries – would not “alarmingly” alter guesstimates for global emissions, the researchers are apprehensive that it may be an indication of bigger venting of the gas in future.