“The summer was abnormally hot for the Yamal peninsula, with the air temperature reaching 35C.
This heat impacted on the depth of seasonal thawing which grew both deeper spread wider than in the past, so causing the formation of new lakes and a noticeable change in the regional tundra landscape.
Scientists are simultaneously observing the sudden formation of the large craters, evidently caused by eruptions or explosions of methane gas which has melted below the surface.
On Yamal, the main theory is that the craters were formed by pingos—dome-shaped mounds over a core of ice—erupting under pressure of methane gas released by the thawing of permafrost caused by climate change.
The Yamal craters, some tiny but others large, were created by natural gas filling vacant space in ice humps, eventually triggering eruptions, according to leading authority Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of Moscow’s Oil and Gas Research Institute.
Recently there were accounts of a ‘big bang’ triggering the formation of a crater on the Taimyr Peninsula. However, there was no pingo on this spot before the eruption in 2013. The noise could be heard up to 100 km away and one resident saw a ‘glow in the sky’ after the explosion, it was revealed. ”
and Siberian Times just reports the tundra pingos are multiplying
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0905-7000-underground-gas-bubbles-poised-to-explode-in-arctic/
“The summer was abnormally hot for the Yamal peninsula, with the air temperature reaching 35C.
This heat impacted on the depth of seasonal thawing which grew both deeper spread wider than in the past, so causing the formation of new lakes and a noticeable change in the regional tundra landscape.
Scientists are simultaneously observing the sudden formation of the large craters, evidently caused by eruptions or explosions of methane gas which has melted below the surface.
On Yamal, the main theory is that the craters were formed by pingos—dome-shaped mounds over a core of ice—erupting under pressure of methane gas released by the thawing of permafrost caused by climate change.
The Yamal craters, some tiny but others large, were created by natural gas filling vacant space in ice humps, eventually triggering eruptions, according to leading authority Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of Moscow’s Oil and Gas Research Institute.
Recently there were accounts of a ‘big bang’ triggering the formation of a crater on the Taimyr Peninsula. However, there was no pingo on this spot before the eruption in 2013. The noise could be heard up to 100 km away and one resident saw a ‘glow in the sky’ after the explosion, it was revealed. ”