http://www.agu.org/j...p01-tn-350x.jpg
According to this chart from a paper reporting CH4 measurements from a WAIS core, the sharp rise appears to be well mixed.
Unclear if the stuff being reported from the ESCS (or Svalbard, for that matter) has had any influence on it.
I would have thought that much of the general post-industrial revolution increase (shown in the chart) is due to intensive livestock practices and possibly the release of natural gas from oil drilling/extraction operations.
Although it seems likely that CH4 played a major role in the 55mya event (and also the Permian/Triassic event BTW), we admittedly don't know how much CH4 increase from sites like this can trigger those types of runaway increases.
This is the real issue - whether current AGW-induced thawing of the region is setting us up for catastrophic increases in CH4 from shallow Arctic sources such as the ESCS, which certainly have the POTENTIAL to trigger self regenerating changes (based on the total amount sequestered in nearby areas (remember we are fairly close to huge peat deposits in weak permafrost in the Ob/Irtysh located just above sea level, so we don't require deep oceanic warming to mobilize lots of carbon here)). This is why the recent reports of locally massive releases (i.e. "fountains" on the scale that the OP reported - much larger than any reported previously) from that particular region are so disturbing.
IMHO, anyone who isn't concerned about the possibility of something really bad coming of this just isn't paying attention......but I am admittedly a Nervous Nellie who looks for oncoming traffic whenever I turn into an intersection.