Methane is bubbling from lakes all over the warming Arctic. Here ecologist Katey Walter Anthony (at right) ignites a large bubble that was trapped by the fall freeze, then freed by an ice pick.

Over a 20 year time period, methane has global warming potential that is about 72 times stronger than carbon dioxide. As the Arctic sea ice and permafrost continue to melt at accelerating rates, we face the potential of releasing thousands of gigatons of this methane into the atmosphere, reaching a point of runaway climate change with catastrophic consequences that cannot be stopped.