China News Service, September 30. According to the British "Financial Times" Chinese website reported on the 30th, the damaged European pipeline from Russia to Germany is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

The damaged pipeline will release 300,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, according to estimates by Germany's Federal Environment Agency.

　　Satellite imagery services that identify and quantify methane leaks have reportedly had difficulty analyzing the Nord Stream pipeline leak due to cloud cover.

While it is difficult for scientists to quantify exactly how much methane leaks from these underwater pipes to the atmosphere, experts say the estimated methane leaks from the four leaks detected in the Nord Stream pipeline are likely to be substantial.

　　Paul Balcombe, honorary lecturer in chemical engineering at Imperial College London, said that if only one of the two leaking pipes released all of the material it contained, the amount of methane leaking would be roughly twice that of the 2015 underground Aliso Canyon in California. Storage facility spill.

Aliso Canyon released about 100,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere between October 2015 and February 2016, in one of the worst spills on record.

　　Methane is a major component of natural gas and a key driver of climate change.

Compared to carbon dioxide, methane traps more heat in a shorter period of time: over a 20-year period, its global warming potential (GWP) is about 80 times that of carbon.

　　"It's a big problem," Balcomb said.

He noted that several leaks "appeared to be large, showing considerable diameters."

　　Methane released into seawater behaves differently than it is emitted directly to the atmosphere.

Some of the leaked methane dissolves in seawater, although huge surface bubbles in the Baltic Sea indicate that a lot of methane has risen to the surface and escaped into the atmosphere.

　　“By any measure, this is a catastrophic level,” said Jean-Francois Gauthier, vice-president for measurement and strategic initiatives at GHGSat, a global emissions modelling service. Its environmental impact It will likely be something like at least 1 million cars on the road for a year."

　　It was previously reported that on the 26th local time, huge bubbles were found on the surface of the Baltic Sea, and two "North Stream" pipelines leaked in the waters near Denmark and Sweden.

Denmark and Sweden have announced official investigations.