The ground in Siberia is turning into a trampoline and we should all be worried
The ground in Siberia has been behaving strangely for a while now.
Remember those insanely giant craters that opened up out of nowhere? And how recently one of them exploded so violently you could hear it from 60 miles away?
You can add this to the list of strange things the ground really shouldn't do.
Siberian Times/YouTube
Why is the ground bouncing like some sort of unholy trampoline?
According to a story at the Siberian Times (which Motherboard was among the first to take note of), scientists aren't totally sure yet.
However, it's probably for similar reasons to those terrifying, hell-mouth craters keep opening up: The unseasonably warm weather in the Arctic regions (and let's be honest, everywhere) is causing permafrost — that is, the ground that should literally be permanently frozen — to thaw.
When permafrost thaws into soft soil, the liquid methane trapped underneath is released as a gas. This seems to be the case here; the research team who discovered the 15 or so patches of wobbly ground told the Siberian Times that methane and carbon dioxide emanated from the patch when they pierced it.
Methane and carbon dioxide are both potent greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere. One study found that if permafrost all over the world releases the gases currently bottled up underground, we could double the amount of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
So not only is the weird behavior of the Siberian tundra probably a result of climate change, but it could also potentially bring about a whole bunch more of it. And that's a scary thought.
Watch the full video of the bouncy methane bubbles below.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/06Xc3LtZRWo?rel=0
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