Abnormally warm water off the coasts of Oregon and Washington are reportedly causing plumes of greenhouse gases, 25-times more powerful than carbon dioxide, by vaporizing methane gases frozen for thousands of years in deep ocean sediment. Scientists with the University of Washington recently published their findings built on a study a year earlier by researchers at Oregon State University and UW. They found that ocean water below 500-meters has warmed by three-tenths of a degree, enough to melt methane frozen in ocean sediment. Oceanography Professor H. Paul Johnson says they are not predicting an apocalypse, but verification that “global warming is coming to the marine waters off Oregon and Washington.” Methane plumes have also been discovered along the Atlantic and Norwegian coasts and in the Arctic tundra.
