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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

#71

Post by kergonath »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #51
masklinn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane is CH4. It decays to CO2 + 2 H2O. So as long as it’s methane it’s hundreds of times worse than CO2, then it becomes the same as co2[0]. Never better. Which is why despite a short half life it has a global warming potential of ~25 over 100 years (Co2 is 1). Then you also have the issue that even if it’s short (relatively, it takes multiples of the half-life to really taper off) for that duration your GW effect…

Let’s not forget that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. That makes methane worse than CO2 100% of the time.

Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, but it comes back down as rain quite quickly. It's also more or less in (dynamical) equilibrium, because there is always a huge source of atmospheric water in the form of evaporation from the oceans' surface. The way to meaningfully increase atmospheric water content is to increase atmospheric temperature, which methane contributes to, but that's a second order effect.

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

#72

Post by refurb »

p1necone wrote: post #47
julienb_sea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is that unreasonable? US emissions are actually lower than in the past.

But the US could go to zero and if China and India don't lower emission it won't matter.

Tragedy of the commons and all.

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

#73

Post by spenczar5 »

gumby wrote: post #68

Note: I work at a startup working on removing methane from the atmosphere. Responding to several comments: yes, we need to get rid of the excess CO2. In fact when CH4 is broken down (mostly via hydroxyl† or, over oceans, Cl reactions) you end up with CO2 anyway. So, as you ask, why worry about CH4? The radiative forcing function of CH4 is, depending on your baseline, 30-80X‡ worse than C02. The rise in methane levels…

This is pretty interesting/terrifying. Could you say more about the startup? At least its name?

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

#74

Post by hendler »

gumby wrote: post #68

Note: I work at a startup working on removing methane from the atmosphere. Responding to several comments: yes, we need to get rid of the excess CO2. In fact when CH4 is broken down (mostly via hydroxyl† or, over oceans, Cl reactions) you end up with CO2 anyway. So, as you ask, why worry about CH4? The radiative forcing function of CH4 is, depending on your baseline, 30-80X‡ worse than C02. The rise in methane levels…

What is the startup removing Methane? (sorry if I missed it in your profile)

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

#75

Post by misja111 »

philshem wrote: post #58

Here's a related, recent New Yorker article about the melting permafrost. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-sibe... https://archive.is/ZyhPf > Over thousands of years, the frozen earth swallowed up all manner of organic material, from tree stumps to woolly mammoths. As the permafrost thaws, microbes in the soil awaken and begin to feast on the defrosting biomass. It’s a funky, organic process, a…

But doesn't the article suggest that the recent rapid rise comes from methane produced by microbes? If this is true, it is not the melting permafrost, but (intensive) agriculture that is the culprit.

> But since 2007, when methane levels began to rise more rapidly again, the proportion of methane containing 13C began to fall (see ‘The rise and fall of methane’). Some researchers believe that this suggests that much of the increase in the past 15 years might be due to bacterial sources, rather than the extraction of fossil fuels.

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

#76

Post by rtpg »

alex_sf wrote: post #67
simion314 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 hi…

> 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 This is a poor metaphor. It's more akin to having a family history of child abuse, trying to stop the cycle, explaining to your neighbor why it's bad, and then your neighbor saying "well, your grandpa beat the shit out of your dad, so we get to beat our k…

I thought it was pretty well understood by now that given that manufacturing of goods destined for the US is happening in China or SE Asia, that there's effectively a miscount.

It's not like china is sitting there burning coal for no reason. And all those ships are going to ports in the US and the like.

Of course this is all a shared responsibility, but let's not act like all of those "CO2 emissions by country" calculations are not extremely fudged by how consumption, manufacturing, and recycling happen in various parts of the world.

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

#77

Post by WaxedChewbacca »

p1necone wrote: post #47
julienb_sea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#78

Post by omgitsabird »

gumby wrote: post #68

Note: I work at a startup working on removing methane from the atmosphere. Responding to several comments: yes, we need to get rid of the excess CO2. In fact when CH4 is broken down (mostly via hydroxyl† or, over oceans, Cl reactions) you end up with CO2 anyway. So, as you ask, why worry about CH4? The radiative forcing function of CH4 is, depending on your baseline, 30-80X‡ worse than C02. The rise in methane levels…

Speaking of diffuse, how do you sequester something that is at super low concentrations like atmospheric methane?

As an analogy, my home reverse osmosis filter doesn't even come close to touching things that are in the parts per billion.

Also, it isn't as if atmospheric methane is evenly distributed across the globe [0]. How do you expect to collect methane across borders?

[0] - https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4798

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

#79

Post by hyperman1 »

alex_sf wrote: post #67
simion314 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 hi…

> 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 This is a poor metaphor. It's more akin to having a family history of child abuse, trying to stop the cycle, explaining to your neighbor why it's bad, and then your neighbor saying "well, your grandpa beat the shit out of your dad, so we get to beat our k…

This is a poor metaphor. A lot of the CO2 is for producing stuff for the western world. So your neighbor is saying: If I don't beat my kids, they won't come over to you and do slave work, and you'll have to beat your own kids again.

Or we can just agree that this metaphor doesn't work.

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

#80

Post by drallison »

twayt wrote: post #13
tangjurine wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So methane should be 25 / (120 / 9) = 1.875 times as harmful as CO2 in the long run? How much does the long run matter in this case?

The GWP is computed for a period of 100 years to account for the various half-lives. The 25x figure is normalized over a 100 year period. Over a 20 year period, it is about 85x more harmful

So methane control is a significant handle to control global warming. It is not a solution but it will buy time if we globally "burn" methane to COP2. See BlueDotChange.org.
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