Siberian Methane Emissions Have More Than Doubled in a Decade, Satellite Study Published in Science Reveals

A Carbon Time Bomb Beneath the Frozen Ground

Methane emissions from Siberia have more than doubled over the past decade, according to a landmark study published on 7 August 2026 in the journal Science. The research, co-led by scientists at the University of Edinburgh's National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), reveals that rapid Arctic warming is driving a sharp rise in methane release from the vast permafrost regions of northern Russia.

The international research team, which included collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, analysed satellite and atmospheric data spanning 2010 to 2023. They found that methane emissions across Siberia have been rising by approximately 5% per year, with emissions during the summer growing season now more than twice as high as in 2010.

Two Pathways to a Warming Arctic

The study identifies two distinct mechanisms driving the methane increase, each dominant in a different part of Siberia:

In western Siberia, warmer winters and earlier snowmelt increase the amount of heat absorbed at the surface, creating wetter thawed soils that produce more methane. In eastern Siberia, persistent hot and dry conditions—linked to recurring high-pressure weather systems—warm and dry the ground, increase wildfire risk, and contribute to higher methane emissions through both combustion and permafrost degradation.

The Role of Satellite Observation

The research relied heavily on data from Japan's Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT), with NCEO scientists at the University of Leicester providing the long-term methane dataset. The Edinburgh-based researchers used advanced atmospheric modelling and satellite observation techniques to quantify emissions and understand their drivers.

This integrated approach allowed the team to map methane emissions across Siberia in unprecedented detail and identify the underlying climate processes. Satellite observation was essential because Siberia's vast, remote, and often inaccessible landscape makes ground-based monitoring extremely challenging.

As Professor Paul Palmer, NCEO Science Director at the University of Edinburgh and co-lead of the study, explained: "What we are observing is a direct consequence of the Arctic warming, driven by rising greenhouse gases. As previously frozen ground begins to thaw, stored carbon becomes available for microbes, which can produce methane as they break it down. In other regions, warmer and drier conditions are increasing the risk of wildfires, which release additional greenhouse gases."

Wildfires: An Accelerating Threat

The research highlights a sharp rise in wildfire-driven methane emissions in eastern Siberia since 2019. Hotter, drier summers have created ideal conditions for large, long-lasting fires that release methane directly and also accelerate permafrost thaw, potentially leading to longer-term increases in emissions.

Siberia's wildfire seasons have grown longer and more intense over the past decade, with some years seeing fires burn across millions of hectares of boreal forest and tundra. These fires not only release methane and carbon dioxide but also deposit black carbon on Arctic ice and snow, accelerating melting and further amplifying warming.

The 2019 shift identified in the study coincides with a period of unprecedented fire activity in Siberia, including the record-breaking 2020 and 2021 fire seasons that drew international attention to the scale of Arctic burning.

Implications for Global Climate Targets

Although Siberia produces a relatively small share of global methane emissions, the increase matters worldwide because methane spreads quickly through the atmosphere and is approximately 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a warming agent over a 20-year timescale.

The researchers estimate that Siberian emissions could rise by up to an additional 25 million tonnes per year by 2050. This would not cause warming on its own, but it would make climate goals significantly harder to achieve. Additional emissions of this magnitude could offset a substantial share of the methane cuts needed this decade to keep global warming close to the 1.5°C threshold established in the Paris Agreement.

A Feedback Loop with No Easy Off Switch

The findings point to a worrying climate feedback cycle: as the Arctic warms—at nearly four times the global average rate—more methane is released, which then causes further warming, which in turn releases more methane. Siberia contains almost half of the Northern Hemisphere's permafrost, storing vast amounts of frozen carbon.

Scientists are not yet certain how far this process could go, but it raises the risk of a longer-term shift in which the Arctic transitions from storing carbon in frozen ground to releasing it into the atmosphere. Such a transition would represent a fundamental change in the Arctic's role in the global carbon cycle, from carbon sink to carbon source.

The study's publication in Science underscores the significance of the findings for the broader climate science community. It provides some of the clearest evidence to date that Arctic warming is already amplifying methane emissions at a regional scale, with consequences that extend far beyond the Arctic itself.

Sources

• NCEO, Siberian methane emissions have doubled in a decade, study co-led by UK scientists finds, nceo.ac.uk, 7 August 2026
• University of Edinburgh, Siberian methane emissions double in a decade, study finds, ed.ac.uk, August 2026
• University of Leicester, Siberian methane emissions have doubled in a decade, le.ac.uk, August 2026
• Palmer et al., Science, science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea5828, August 2026