"the idea of a ‘methane time bomb’ coming from warming sediments and permafrost is one thing we don't have to worry about in connection with global warming,"
"The researchers believe that soil and marine bacteria that feed on frozen fossil methane as it melts may explain its limited release, by preventing the methane from ever reaching the atmosphere."
I think someone yesterday made a comment here about the value or otherwise of university press releases. That quote is pretty cringey when you think about the effect it will have on the average layperson's understanding of the problem.
Nothing in the abstract or longer explainer contradicts those quotes, whether you consider them "cringey" or not.
"The authors show that the 14C methane signature is relatively constant through this abrupt methane rise. They use a mass-balance calculation to show that this could not have happened if the rise was caused by emissions from geological sources, including hydrates"
"Natural geological methane emissions are expected to have been higher during the past than in modern times12, and so the authors' estimate of emissions 12,000 years ago can be taken as an upper limit for today's climate system."
The closest is the caveat that modern warming may go warmer, and thus further historical analysis and modeling is needed.
If you cannot see what I mean about how that quote was potentially deceptive because of its lack of context, I don't know what to say to you. (but I'm not one of those who downvoted you)
The differences between deglacial and modern warming preclude us from unequivocally ruling
out the possibility of large-scale natural methane releases to the
atmosphere from old carbon reservoirs in the future. Our results do,
however, suggest that such releases are unlikely. This is consistent
with recent atmospheric observations, which suggest that renewed
growth of atmospheric CH4 since 2006 is not driven by emissions
from the Arctic29, where the most vulnerable old carbon reservoirs
are located today. Instead, our results support the hypothesis that any
future increases in natural CH4 emissions to the atmosphere will be
driven by contemporaneous sources such as wetlands.
Another piece of context is that the "don't have to worry" quote was from "Scripps Oceanography geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus, who has been involved with this research project since 2000 and leads the study of ice core records at Scripps." He's in no way a global warming skeptic, but rather an advocate of decarbonization by 2050 to reduce anthropogenic warming, yet he says the sudden arctic methane release is something we don't have to worry about.
There is always more context. Basically anything can be "potentially deceptive", but that does not mean that it is either deceptive or inaccurate. This appears to be a case where the university press release did a pretty good job of remaining true to the paper.
It sounds like you are uncomfortable with the conclusion, rather than the summary of that conclusion.
> Basically anything can be "potentially deceptive"
Come on, stop being disingenuous.
> but that does not mean that it is either deceptive or inaccurate.
The quote you posted bereft of greater context (Which you've now tried to provide. Well done!) could deceive a number of people. It's both potentially deceptive and, in those instances where it deceives someone, deceptive. The linguistic implications alone are... tremendously boring, to be honest.
> It sounds like you are uncomfortable with the conclusion, rather than the summary of that conclusion.
The face-value perception of the quotes I posted ("'methane time bomb’...is one thing we don't have to worry about" with the link for context) is the actual, correct meaning of the quote and conclusion from the climate scientists.
With the face value matching the deeper conclusion, where is the deception?
"The researchers believe that soil and marine bacteria that feed on frozen fossil methane as it melts may explain its limited release, by preventing the methane from ever reaching the atmosphere."
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/natural-methane-time-bomb-unli...