Advances in Climatic Effects Study of Gas Hydrates

It has been strongly discussed that gas hydrates play a key role in global climate changing,in terms of huge inventory,sensitivity to the climate change and the greenhouse effect.The recent advances in climatic effects study of gas hydrates could be generalized as follows.Firstly,the inventory was accurately constrained by the new data,one fifth of the previous estimate,which basically restricted the possibility of gas hydrates effect on the climate.Secondly,the flux of methane escaped from gas hydrates to the atmosphere was estimated based on different transporting mechanisms.It is found that both "gas bubble" and "hydrates shell" could efficiently prevent methane from dissolving and oxidizing,hence largely increasing the flux.Last but not least,gas hydrates dissociating was re-thought as one of climate driving factors,closely together with other processes,such as marsh activating,to drive the climate change.In short,whether gas hydrates is the cause of the climate change will continually be debated,and should be traced deeply,but its huge feedback has been proved.