The Sinclair video raises a number of questions.

Katey Walter, Asst. Professor at the University of Alaska says that there is as much carbon in the permafrost as in the atmosphere. She says, “If all that carbon is converted to greenhouse gases, it would double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

I assume she’s talking about the carbon in methane gas, is that correct?

For the climate scientists here, what is the mechanism by which methane is converted to CO2 in the atmosphere? Is it simply that the sunlight (solar energy) breaks it down? Would all of the methane be converted to CO2? If not, what percentage?

When speaking of the methane being released by thawing permafrost, Walter states, “But, much of the permafrost thaws beneath lakes. We estimate that the amount of methane that can come out of lakes is ten times the amount of methane that’s now in the atmosphere.”

There seems to be a non-sequitor here. In the first comment she talks about the carbon in the permafrost being converted into CO2. But in the second comment, she seems to be implying that the greater danger is that the permafrost methane is not converted to CO2, but simply rises up into the atmosphere and multiplies the current atmospheric concentration of methane by 10.

Further, she implies (but doesn’t explain) that there is some kind of multiplication of the methane if it’s under a lake. At that point, the video switches to Sinclair’s voice-over where he says something about a “methane feedback,” but he does not explain how that feedback works.

From table 7a-1 on this web page:
physicalgeography.net
methane makes up 0.00017% of the atmosphere. If none of the methane in the permafrost is converted to CO2, then the potential amount of methane in the atmosphere (taking Walter’s ‘ten times’ figure) would be 0.00170%. But if some of the methane is converted to CO2, then this percentage would be somewhere between 0.00017 and 0.00170. Have there been studies made to determine what concentrations of methane in the atmosphere produces what amount of global temperature increase?

Is it true that methane breaks down into CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere? If so, and this happens over the arctic, will that result in increased cloud cover that warms the arctic, or increased precipitation (as snow) that cools the arctic, or increased precipitation (as rain) that contributes to thawing and melting?