Sources of Arctic Methane | Igor Semiletov | Unseen footage of methane plumes from 2020 voyage | pt1

The whole series will also be published on and This is part 1 in series of three posts on methane releases from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf recorded in 2021. This is the first in a miniseries discussing the ongoing work in the Russian Arctic talking to Dr Igor Semiletov, one of the lead scientists who has been studying the region for over twenty years. Old deep thermogenic pool In assessing whether the potential for increased climate warming is a significant risk, scientists look at the size of the carbon pool and also the origin of the methane. In many cases where methane is produced from biogenic sources, such as animals and plants, it is created by microbes and although has the same global warming potential, it is created very slowly and is often broken down to CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere. The other source is thermogenic methane that occurs due to the decay of organic matter at high pressure and temperature.