THE GLOBAL WARMING BUBBLE:

Good news about climate change is especially rare in the Arctic. But now comes news that increases in one greenhouse gas--methane--lead to the dramatic decline of another. Research off the coast of Norway's Svalbard archipelago suggests that where methane gas bubbles up from seafloor seeps, surface waters directly above absorb twice as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as surrounding waters. The findings suggest that methane seeps in isolated spots in the Arctic could lessen the impact of climate change.

"This is ... totally unexpected," says Brett Thornton, a geochemist at Stockholm University who was not involved in the research. These new findings challenge the popular assumption that methane seeps inevitably increase the global greenhouse gas burden.

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