Private donors have pledged   $41 million   to the Woodwell Climate Research Center to monitor thawing of permafrost in the Arctic.   Buried beneath the Arctic Ocean are 60 billion tons of methane and 560 billion tons of organic carbon.  This carbon is more than humans have released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.  The problem is that global warming is causing the   permafrost to thaw , and 140 million tons of carbon dioxide and 5.3 million tons of methane are already escaping into the atmosphere. The danger is really methane, as molecule for molecule, this gas is from 20 to 100 times more dangerous for global warming than carbon dioxide.  Thus, those 60 billion tons of methane are the equivalent of at least 1200 billion tons of carbon, compared to the current estimate of 560 billion tons of carbon. Further, there is a  lot more methane stored as methane hydrates in the ocean than on land.   There is more potential fuel contained in these methane deposits than all