Studies published in 2000 considered this hypothetical effect to be responsible for warming events in and at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. Although periods of increased atmospheric methane match periods of continental-slope failure, later work found that the distinct deuterium/hydrogen (D/H) isotope ratio indicated that wetland methane emissions was the main contributor to atmospheric methane concentrations. While there were major dissociation events during the last deglaciation, with Bølling–Allerød warming triggering the disappearance of the entire methane hydrate deposit in the Barents Sea within 5000 years, those events failed to counteract the onset of a major Younger Dryas cooling period, suggesting that most of the methane stayed within the seawater after being liberated from the seafloor deposits, with very little entering the atmosphere.
In 2008, it was suggested that equatorial permafrost methane clathrate may have had a role in the sudden warm-up of "Snowball Earth", 630 million years ago. 
Other events potentially linked to methane hydrate excursions are the Permian–Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.