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So there are these things called methane clathrate deposits which everyone has been a bit worried about, because if they break down they will release huge volumes of the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. If this happened, we'd all fry for sure.

A , for those of us lacking a chemistry degree, is a molecule that 'imprisons' another molecule. Methane clathrate is methane trapped in the crystalline structure of frozen water (which is why you can set fire to it - see image courtesy of the US Office of Naval Research). It's present in huge volumes beneath both permafrost and the seabed of our oceans.

Clathrates are pretty stable up to 0°C, or about 18°C under deep sea pressure. The worry was that as atmospheric and water temperatures increased, these clathrates would start to pump out methane at a ferocious rate. So scientists turned to atmospheric records trapped in ancient glacial ice for evidence of this happening before.

They focused on a 'spike in atmospheric methane gas' that occured around 11,600 years ago. By carrying out analysis of tiny air bubbles trapped in glacial ice, it was determined that the surge was 'more chemically consistent with an expansion of wetlands'.

Vasilii Petrenko, the scientist who led the analysis, said: 'This is good news for global warming, because it suggests that methane clathrates do not respond to warming by releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.'

Nice to have a bit of good news occasionally!

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