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Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

nature.com

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Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#31

Post by mjevans »

istorical wrote: post #9
gpt5 wrote: post #5

Genuinely curious - while Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, isn’t its half life in the atmosphere only 9 years? Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years? Looking for serious answers.

Carbon emissions are correlated to human activity. We can dial them up or down theoretically through human action. Methane emission through permafrost (both land and submarine) could end up as a cascading natural emission that forms a feedback loop. I think that's a big part of why people are panicking.

The cheap option of going out of our way to do less (so we emit less) is very probably off the table at this point.

As a species we need another plan. I like a mixed approach of sequestering atmospheric gasses via processes that synthesize useful compounds from the components we don't want in the air as well as hard scifi concepts like giant reflective surfaces in space. Throttling the quantity of sunlight by reflecting a portion away from the earth sounds super expensive... but that might be the only viable option left.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#33

Post by trsohmers »

wizardforhire wrote: post #12
gpt5 wrote: post #5

Genuinely curious - while Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, isn’t its half life in the atmosphere only 9 years? Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years? Looking for serious answers.

Clathrate Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

If we haven’t fired the clathrate gun already, I’m personally convinced it is inevitable in the next ~decade. Practically no one I talk to, who are generally concerned about climate change, have the same fear I do about the clathrate gun and most just point to the Wikipedia article downplaying it as “proof” it isn’t a big deal. While it is super depressing to think we have already lost the climate change battle, intelligent people keeping their heads in the sand and not seriously looking at what the next steps are assuming the clathrate gun has already fired are doing a huge disservice to humanity. Absolutely none of the 2030/2050/2100 climate change measures are taking this into account and it is mind boggling to me.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#34

Post by throwawaysea »

Many humans. Rich life (individual freedoms and high material quality of life). Low environmental impact. Pick two.

EDIT: this apparently is one of my most disliked comments. To clarify, my point is that we can’t have both unlimited population growth and a high quality of life without accepting environmental impacts. If a high population of people have to crowd into dense micro apartments and give up cars and face constant bans on things they like, then their environmental footprint may reduce but their quality of life will go down. On the other hand if population controls were instituted, then a high quality of life could be possible with a sustainable level of environmental impact.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#35

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

mjevans wrote: post #31
istorical wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon emissions are correlated to human activity. We can dial them up or down theoretically through human action. Methane emission through permafrost (both land and submarine) could end up as a cascading natural emission that forms a feedback loop. I think that's a big part of why people are panicking.

The cheap option of going out of our way to do less (so we emit less) is very probably off the table at this point. As a species we need another plan. I like a mixed approach of sequestering atmospheric gasses via processes that synthesize useful compounds from the components we don't want in the air as well as hard scifi concepts like giant reflective surfaces in space. Throttling the quantity of sunlight by reflect…

Or we could go with the cheap option. If there’s anything that the global pandemic taught us, it is that nothing about human behavior is ever set in stone and there will always be a way to make even draconian policies like lockdowns and mandatory face masks politically viable. The billions we’d spend building the crazy ideas you suggested which also have no guarantee of success, could be channeled into whatever it takes to get people to care more about the planet.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#36

Post by tonyedgecombe »

julienb_sea wrote: post #26
breakyerself wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple things. First is that we are on track to overshoot the goal of limiting warming to 1.5C. It's now more a question of how much we are going to blow past 1.5C. Every bit counts now and a pulse of very potent greenhouse gasses at this time is very unhelpful. 2. There could be tipping points that aren't predictable. Methane may temporarily add a small increase to the global average temps, but could end up being…

Alternatively, attempting to curtail human emissions to some arbitrary level will, unquestionably, have drastic impact on human quality of life worldwide and the impact will be particularly acute on the developing world and those in poverty in the developed world. Large, influential emitters like China and India will not play ball. As such, the climate experiment will inevitably continue unabated, despite any of the…

Given enough time climate change will have a drastic impact on human quality of life and it's the poorer parts of the world that will feel it most.

We seem to be going through stages of climate denialism: Climate change doesn't exist -> it does exist but it isn't man made -> it is man made but it's too expensive and disruptive to fix -> ???

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#37

Post by teslabox »

gpt5 wrote: post #5

Genuinely curious - while Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, isn’t its half life in the atmosphere only 9 years? Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years? Looking for serious answers.

> Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years?

In the pre-industrial era the oceans outgassed CO2 to the atmosphere to prevent land plants from suffocating themselves by sequestering all the carbon dioxide. In the post-industrial era the oceans capture a significant percentage of the CO2 that humans generate (because CO2 is heavier than air, and easily dissolves in water).

The most important considerations for the earth's atmospheric heat balance are the heat inputs from the sun (solar cycle) and underwater volcanoes, and the shielding provided by volcanic eruptions. The oceans store heat during the summer, and release heat during the winter.

My previous comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20002823 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013166

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#39

Post by sa1 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #29
gpt5 wrote: post #5

Genuinely curious - while Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, isn’t its half life in the atmosphere only 9 years? Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years? Looking for serious answers.

I hadn't thought of carbon emissions in terms of half lives before. I thought that carbon emissions (presumably from fossil fuels) were more of a permanent change. The carbon used to be deep underground, and now it's in the atmosphere. Where does half of it go? I know that it ends up as part of a photosynthetic organism, but then later that plant decays and its back in the atmosphere again, right? And given a changin…

Methane breaks down into CO2 and water in a few years, which is why half life of methane is relevant. My understanding is that for CO2, thinking in terms of half-life is less relevant, the CO2 goes to plants and to the ocean, and if those two sinks are at saturation, then CO2 levels in the atmosphere will keep increasing.

But there's a good article I found now which might shed more light : https://euanmearns.com/the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosp...

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#40

Post by XorNot »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #29
gpt5 wrote: post #5

Genuinely curious - while Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, isn’t its half life in the atmosphere only 9 years? Wouldn’t this make it far less concerning than CO2 with its half life of 120 years? Looking for serious answers.

I hadn't thought of carbon emissions in terms of half lives before. I thought that carbon emissions (presumably from fossil fuels) were more of a permanent change. The carbon used to be deep underground, and now it's in the atmosphere. Where does half of it go? I know that it ends up as part of a photosynthetic organism, but then later that plant decays and its back in the atmosphere again, right? And given a changin…

Some amount of carbon is sequestered by plants getting buried when they die, though not as much as in the past because we have well- slated decay organisms in the biosphere. Some makes its way into the sea and gets stuck there. And a decent chunk is bound up as carbonate minerals from the weathering of the Earth (one of the future biosphere death states is when this process outstrips CO2 production due to the increase in the sun's luminosity about 700 million years from now).
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