“Frozen, solid methane is turning into methane gas. “These phenomena have already been recorded in the Arctic, but this is the first time they have been detected in Antarctica,” says León, from the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain. His team met two EL PAÍS journalists on Antarctica’s King George Island on February 8, the day they ended their expedition. Their results, still very preliminary, suggest that the gas is bubbling up from the subsoil along faults, often through mud volcanoes hundreds of meters above the seabed.”
“Geologists Ricardo León and Roger Urgeles warn of another threat. The instability of marine sediments can cause huge landslides on the continental slope, with the potential to generate tsunamis. “When methane hydrates turn into gas, they occupy a volume 160 times greater. If they do not dissipate quickly, they can cause huge landslides, such as the Storegga landslide in the Arctic,” stresses Urgeles, alluding to the largest known submarine landslide, which caused a tsunami that devastated the coasts of northern Europe some 8,150 years ago.”
Massive methane leaks detected in Antarctica, posing potential risks for global warming
Contemporaneous with this latest development in the Antarctic, my friend and colleague Professor Guy McPherson has delved into more instability in the region in a Substack article titled: Science Snippets: Scientists Terrified as Unstable Antarctic Ice Sheet Declines
“As I have reported many times in this space, Arctic ice is the planetary air conditioner, at least on this planet. However, recent research based on the South Pole has been attracting the attention of scientists, including me. I still believe ice floating on the Arctic Ocean is the most important factor over which we have no control that affects habitat for life on Earth, including human life. However, the collapsing Antarctic ice fields are a cause for considerable concern. Given the rapidity with which Earth is warming, and the many factors contributing to this unprecedented event, we need ice and snow everywhere we can get it if life is to persist on this planet.”
“When glaciers melt, the massive weight on the Earth’s crust reduces, and the crust bounces back in a process called isostatic rebound. This process can reactivate faults and lift pressure on magma chambers that feed volcanoes, thereby increasing seismic activity. As such, it indicates the relationship between melting ice and seismic activity, including volcanism.”
I have covered Isostatic Rebound on this blog previously
In the excellent video below Professor McPherson makes the connection between loss of land ice and the phenomenon of Isostatic rebound. It’s my contention that that Isostatic rebound is destablising the Methane Clathrates that have already been made unstable by higher sea surface temperatures.
Professor McPherson and I have previously delved into the issue of methane releases: Abrupt Climate Change, the Nuclear Threat, Methane in the ESAS: Robert Hunziker interviewed on Nature Bats Last
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
New dataset suggests that East Antarctica ice shelves may be unstable https://ic3.uit.no/news/fimbulisen-ice-shelf
Hydrography and circulation below Fimbulisen Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, from 14 years of moored observations – by Julius Lauber et al. https://os.copernicus.org/articles/20/1585/2024
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I’m 70, learned about global warming in 9th grade. We’re toast. I also follow Dr James Hansen.
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Thank you, Kevin. Kurt Vonnegut was right. Humans did not like it here. (on this planet)
very truly yours Nancy Beiman
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LOL. Remember “Ice 9”?
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Isostatic Rebound, love that when it comes up every few years. Nature’s fusion bomb, for when the standard anti-virus program (climate change) and enhanced anti-virus program (methane clathrates) doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
Not that there’ll be sufficient civilisation left to measure these things when Isostatic Rebound really kicks in. The surviving bands of mobile scavenger-gatherers will merely see massive earthquakes and mega volcanoes wrecking the existing wreckage of civilisation and probably blame some weird gods or other.
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“There is an important message, which is that we should not expect the Earth to always return to a cold state as it was in the pre-industrial age,” he said. “The cool conditions which have allowed ice caps to form on Earth are rare events in the planet’s history and require many complex processes working at once, according to new research.”
from:
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-reveals-earth-ice-caps.html, and:
Andrew Merdith, Phanerozoic icehouse climates as the result of multiple solid-Earth cooling mechanisms, Science Advances (2025) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adm9798
So, dearies, get used to it.
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Hi Kevin – thanks for this. One question: won’t increased volcanism result in lowering global temperature? I’m just wondering if this is pointing to a form of homeostasis.
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It’s complex because increases volcanic activity dumps heaps of CO2 into the atmosphere but the aerosols have a cooling effect. The net effect is more warming!
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Proglacial methane emissions driven by meltwater and groundwater flushing in a high-Arctic glacial catchment https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1074222
Proglacial methane emissions driven by meltwater and groundwater flushing in a high-Arctic glacial catchment – by Gabrielle Kleber et al. https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/22/659/2025
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Professor Guy McPherson’s latest on the methane threat:
Science Snippets: Responding to Persistent Methane Sources
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That the oil & gas, coal, and leaking landfills aren’t added in is just plain ridiculous. I do understand that constant leakage is easier, but not even trying to monitor?
Then this came up. Welcome to Trump’s world of madness:
Trump, EPA Aim to Remove Finding That Mandates Action on Greenhouse Gas Pollution
Experts expect Trump’s team to lean on legal arguments, not science, to take down EPA’s 16-year-old endangerment finding.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032025/trump-epa-greenhouse-gas-pollution-endangerment-finding/
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The insanity is getting deep, isn’t it? And it hasn’t even been two months since the Fascists grabbed power!
sealintheSelkirks
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