Assessing the potential for non-turbulent methane escape from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) hosts large yet poorly quantified reservoirs of subsea permafrost and associated gas hydrates.  A major unknown in assessing the contribution of this CH4 flux to the global CH4 cycle and its climate feedbacks is the fate of CH4 as it migrates towards the sediment–water interface. However, a number of environmental conditions can reduce the efficiency of this biofilter. Here, the authors used a reaction-transport model to assess the efficiency of the benthic methane filter and, thus, the potential for benthic methane escape across a wide range of environmental conditions that could be encountered on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.