Ocean warming related to climate change has been proposed to cause the dissociation of gas hydrate deposits and methane leakage on the seafloor. This process occurs in places where the edge of the gas hydrate stability zone in sediments meets the overlying warmer oceans in upper slope settings. Here we present new evidence based on the analysis of a large multi-disciplinary and multi-scale dataset from such a location in the western South Atlantic, which records massive gas release to the ocean. The results provide a unique opportunity to examine ocean-hydrate interactions over millennial and decadal scales, and the first evidence from the southern hemisphere for the effects of contemporary ocean warming on gas hydrate stability. Widespread hydrate dissociation results in a highly focused advective methane flux that is not fully accessible to anaerobic oxidation, challenging the assumption that it is mostly consumed by sulfate reduction before reaching the seafloor.

Besides long-term average temperature increases, climate change is projected to result in a higher frequency of marine heatwaves. Coastal zones are some of the most productive and vulnerable ecosystems, with many stretches already under anthropogenic pressure. Microorganisms in coastal areas are central to marine energy and nutrient cycling and therefore, it is important to understand how climate change will alter these ecosystems. Using a long-term heated bay (warmed for 50 years) in comparison with an unaffected adjacent control bay and an experimental short-term thermal (9 days at 6–35 °C) incubation experiment, this study provides new insights into how coastal benthic water and surface sediment bacterial communities respond to temperature change. Benthic bacterial communities in the two bays reacted differently to temperature increases with productivity in the heated bay having a broader thermal tolerance compared with that in the control bay. Furthermore, the transcriptional analysis showed that the heated bay benthic bacteria had higher transcript numbers related to energy metabolism and stress compared to the control bay, while short-term elevated temperatures in the control bay incubation experiment induced a transcript response resembling that observed in the heated bay field conditions. In contrast, a reciprocal response was not observed for the heated bay community RNA transcripts exposed to lower temperatures indicating a potential tipping point in community response may have been reached. In summary, long-term warming modulates the performance, productivity, and resilience of bacterial communities in response to warming.

Increased ocean temperature associated with climate change is especially intensified in coastal areas and its influence on microbial communities and biogeochemical cycling is poorly understood. In this study, we sampled a Baltic Sea bay that has undergone 50 years of warmer temperatures similar to RCP5-8.5 predictions due to cooling water release from a nuclear power plant. The system demonstrated reduced oxygen concentrations, decreased anaerobic electron acceptors, and higher rates of sulfate reduction. Chemical analyses, 16S rRNA gene amplicons, and RNA transcripts all supported sediment anaerobic reactions occurring closer to the sediment-water interface. This resulted in higher microbial diversities and raised sulfate reduction and methanogenesis transcripts, also supporting increased production of toxic sulfide and the greenhouse gas methane closer to the sediment surface, with possible release to oxygen deficient waters. RNA transcripts supported prolonged periods of cyanobacterial bloom that may result in increased climate change related coastal anoxia. Finally, while metatranscriptomics suggested increased energy production in the heated bay, a large number of stress transcripts indicated the communities had not adapted to the increased temperature and had weakened resilience. The results point to a potential feedback loop, whereby increased temperatures may amplify negative effects at the base of coastal biochemical cycling.

The unsustainable settlement and high industrialization around the catchment of the Baltic Sea has left records of anthropogenic heavy metal contamination in Baltic Sea sediments. Here, we show that sediments record post-industrial and anthropogenic loads of Cd, Zn, and Pb over a large spatial scale in the Baltic Sea. We also demonstrate that there is a control on the accumulation of these metals in relation to oxic/anoxic conditions of bottom waters. The total concentrations of Cd, Zn, and Pb were obtained with the near-total digestion method in thirteen cores collected from the Bothnian Bay, the Bothnian Sea, and the west and central Baltic Proper. The lowest average concentrations of Cd, Zn, and Pb were observed in Bothnian Bay (0.4, 125, 40.2 mg kg⁻¹ DW, respectively). In contrast, the highest concentrations were observed in the west Baltic Proper (5.5, 435, and 56.6 mg kg⁻¹ DW, respectively). The results indicate an increasing trend for Cd, Zn, and Pb from the early nineteenth century until the 1970s, followed by a decrease until 2000–2008. However, surface sediments still have concentrations above the pre-industrial values suggested by the Swedish EPA (Cd is 0.2, Zn is 85, and Pb is 31 mg kg⁻¹ DW). The results also show that the pre-industrial Cd, Zn, and Pb concentrations obtained from 3 cores with ages < 1500 B.C. were 1.8, 1.7, and 1.2 times higher, respectively, than the pre-industrial values suggested by the Swedish EPA. To conclude, accumulations of metals in the Baltic Sea are governed by anthropogenic load and the redox conditions of the environment. The significance of correct environmental governance (measures) can be illustrated with the reduction in the pollution of Pb, Zn, and Cd within the Baltic Sea since the 1980s.

Continental margin sediments contain large reservoirs of methane stored as gas hydrate. Ocean warming will partly destabilize these reservoirs which may lead to the release of substantial, yet unconstrained, amounts of methane. Anaerobic oxidation of methane is the dominant biogeochemical process to reduce methane flux, estimated to consume 90% of the methane produced in marine sediments today. This process is however neglected in the current projections of seafloor methane release from gas hydrate dissociation. Here, we introduce a fully coupled oxidation module to a hydraulic-thermodynamic-geomechanical hydrate model. Our results show that for seafloor warming rates > 1 °C century⁻¹, the efficiency of anaerobic oxidation of methane in low permeability sediments is poor, reducing the seafloor methane emissions by <5%. The results imply an extremely low mitigating effect of anaerobic oxidation of methane on climate warming-induced seafloor methane emissions.

Deep-sea fans have been proposed to act as carbon sinks, rapid deposition driving shallow methanogenesis to favor net storage within the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Here, we present new evidence of widespread gas venting from the GHSZ on the upper Amazon deep-sea fan, together with analyses of the first samples of gas hydrates recovered offshore NE Brazil. Multibeam water column and seafloor imagery over an 18,000-km² area of the upper Amazon fan reveal 53 water column gas plumes, rising from venting features in water depths of 650–2600 m. Most gas vents (60%) are located along seafloor faults that record the ongoing gravitational collapse of the fan above deep décollements, while others (40%) are located in water depths of 650–715 m within the upper edge of the GHSZ. Gas compositions from hydrates recovered in vents at three locations on and north of the fan indicate biogenic sources (dominantly methane with 2–15% of CO₂; δ¹³C from − 81.1 to − 77.3‰), whereas samples from vents adjacent to the fan proper include possible thermogenic contributions (methane 95%, CO₂ 4%, and ethane 1%; δ¹³C – 59.2‰). These results concur with previous findings that the upper edge of the GHSZ may be sensitive to temporal changes in water temperatures, but further point to the importance of gas escape from within areas of gas hydrate stability. Our results suggest the role of fluid migration along pathways created by faulting within rapidly deposited passive margin depocenters, which are increasingly recognized to undergo gravitational collapse above décollements. Our findings add to evidence that gas can escape from sediments to the sea in areas where gas hydrates are stable on passive margins, and suggest the need of further studies of the dynamics of deep-sea depocenters in relation to carbon cycling.