The climate change movement has long warned that, as global temperatures rise, we run the risk of releasing vast reserves of trapped methane into the atmosphere and bringing about the end of days. New research says: probably not. Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York studied methane emissions from a period in Earth's history which bears many similarities to our current climate, examining ice cores taken from the last period of deglaciation some 8,000 to 15,000 years ago. By closely examining air samples extracted from these frozen ice cores, the researchers found that even if the methane in these vast stores is released, it won't actually reach our atmosphere. "Our data shows we don't need to be as concerned about large methane releases from large carbon reservoirs in response to future warming," said Vasily Petrenko, a professor of Earth and environmental sciences at Rochester. "We should be more concerned about methane released from human activities." When carbon