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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

#41

Post by KerrAvon »

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…

“Better things aren’t possible.”

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

#42

Post by badgley »

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 think you're spot on in your observation. Reducing methane would help and definitely has its place, but CO₂ is a totally different beast. CO₂ is best thought of as a "stock pollutant" meaning that the more you have of it, the worse the effects. This follows directly from that fact that CO₂ sticks around in the atmosphere for millennia, increasing atmospheric radiative forcing. Methane, on the other hand, is better framed as a "flow pollutant" - it's harm is ~proportional to the rate of emission. This is a direct consequence of its much shorter atmospheric lifetime.

Here's a useful twitter thread from a real expert: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425572803508465664

And if you're up for a pretty technical (but still fairly approachable) read, check out R.T. Pierrehumbert ''Short-Lived Climate Pollution.'' Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 2014 42:1, 341-379 [https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060313-054843]. Near the end of the paper, he delivers this gem: "Methane mitigation is like trying to stockpile bananas to eat during retirement. Given the short lifetime of bananas, it makes little sense to begin saving them until your retirement date is quite near."

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

#43

Post by simion314 »

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…

>China and India will not play ball.

That is a lame excuse, mostly used by people from developed countries that are responsible for the issue, so you dodge responsibility and also try to put blame on the developing country why you are continuing screwing the environment. It is like you have a history of you and your ancestors abusing your children and you don't want to stop because the new neighbor is also abusing his children too (I am thinking especially at coal plants and cars that have effects locally too, so cleaning yup your house means you will have healthier population and less CO2)

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

#44

Post by mistermann »

twayt wrote: post #4
rjbwork wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. We're definitely gonna fail to do anything significant about any of this crap until it forcibly ends the way everyone actually lives their lives.

It’s time to mandate a law that requires people in power to take a heroic dose of mushrooms twice a year

This would make for a good viral meme, how could something like that be pulled off in the real world I wonder?

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

#45

Post by oivey »

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…

Creating “useful” compounds from atmospheric green house gasses isn’t some “have your cake and eat it, too” type thing. It is going to be extremely inefficient and expensive. Emitting less is still cheaper.

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

#46

Post by aero-glide2 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #34

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 co…

4 : space colonies

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

#47

Post by p1necone »

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…

Watching climate change deniers periodically change up their bullshit because the old bullshit got too obviously wrong has been equal parts hilarious and frustrating.

I guess now we're at the "okay okay fine, it's a problem, and humans are causing it. But we should still do nothing to fix it, because... China?"

Screaming right past the acceptance stage and in for another loop of denial.

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