International think-tank has discovered a new underwater source of methane, located on the Arctic sea shelf of Eastern Siberia.
      
      The think-tank, consisting of scientists from United States, Canada and Russia, warns that if even a small part of methane, hidden under ice of the arctic shelf of Eastern Siberia, broke free, our climate would become abruptly warmer.
      
      Recent studies showed that methane emission in this region had first stopped and then resumed in larger scale. East-Siberian shelf covers territory of 800 000 square miles, being the largest and most shallow continental shelf on our planet. 15 thousand years ago it was a part of Siberian tundra, carrying a permafrost layer, “locking” methane under it.
      
      Methane, buried under water, is much more sensitive to temperature changes than methane, buried under continental permafrost, because water temperature is higher, and its slightest changes may cause methane “eruption”.
      
      Source: Science & Technologies