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.

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.