ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Arctic methane release

Okay, so you know the Arctic? It’s a really, really cold place up north where there’s lots of ice and snow. Well, under all that ice and snow, there’s a bunch of little creatures called microbes. Microbes are really tiny living things that you can’t see with your eyes.

Now, when these microbes eat things in the ground, like dead plants or animals, they produce something called methane. Methane is a gas that’s kind of like the air we breathe, but you can’t see it or smell it.

Normally, the methane stays in the ground because it’s too cold for it to escape into the air. But when the Earth starts to warm up, the ice and snow in the Arctic start to melt. This means the ground under the ice and snow starts to get warmer too, and the microbes start producing more and more methane.

If too much methane gets released into the air, it can cause even more warming and make the Earth even hotter. This is called the “Arctic methane release”, and it’s a big problem because it can contribute to climate change.

Scientists are really worried about this, so they’re studying the Arctic to try and figure out how much methane might be released and how we can stop it from happening.