Hydrates are real carbon reservoirs
Methane hydrate is an ice-like solid stable under particular pressure and temperature conditions in marine sediments and permafrost. Warming can shift the stability boundary and cause some deposits to dissociate.
The ocean is not a transparent pipe to the atmosphere
Most marine hydrates occur hundreds of metres below the sea surface. Methane released from deeper sediments faces strong microbial and water-column sinks, greatly reducing the fraction that can reach the atmosphere.
Measurements constrain the catastrophe scenario
A 2022 USGS-linked Nature Geoscience study found no evidence of seep methane reaching surface waters from water depths greater than roughly 430 metres at surveyed US margins; hydrate stability there begins deeper than about 550 metres.
That does not make hydrates irrelevant
Hydrate breakdown can alter sediment stability, ocean chemistry and local methane cycling, and long-term climate interactions remain important. The unsupported step is jumping from those real processes to an imminent global atmospheric pulse large enough to overwhelm other climate forcing.
Research record
USGS — Gas Hydrate Breakdown Unlikely to Cause Massive Greenhouse Gas ReleaseOfficial synthesis · open sourceRuppel & Kessler (2017) — The interaction of climate change and methane hydratesReview · open sourceJoung et al. (2022) — Negligible atmospheric release from decomposing hydratesPeer-reviewed · open sourceCould Methane Hydrates Trigger an Abrupt Climate Disaster?
Direct answer: Methane hydrates can destabilise and contribute to carbon-cycle feedbacks, but current evidence does not support a near-term catastrophic global methane release from marine hydrates.
Real feedback, overstated apocalypse. Hydrates deserve monitoring in climate and geohazard science; the popular 'clathrate gun' is not a demonstrated near-term climate trigger.