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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

#121

Post by breakyerself »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36
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…

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 -> ???

The last stage is ->it's happening, but it's too late and were all doomed anyway so lets just have a good time while we still can.

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

#122

Post by ornornor »

useragent86 wrote: post #101
nosianu wrote: post #86

To see both the longer trend (graph), a comparison with the value at the same time the previous year, and the current value for CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6 I occasionally check the Global Monitoring Laboratory (NOAA): https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/ Link to methane, click on one of the four switched at the top for the others. Warning: It always is pretty depressing to visit this site. You can also check out a tab "G…

[flagged]

See https://xkcd.com/1732/ for why the current temperature trend IS a big deal, unprecedented in our planet’s history.

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

#123

Post by refurb »

breakyerself wrote: post #111
refurb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because accepting the potential demise of modern complex society and the collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity world wide and a mass exctinction event because "Fuck it China and India are bad so lets just party until the end." Is fucking stupid. The proper framing is we need to reduce emissions and so does China and India so how do we facilitate that. The answer is to 1.) Reduce our own emissions to have the moral…

Sure we “need to do that” but you know it won’t ever happen right?

Scientists have already said if we stop all emissions tomorrow, across the globe, we’re still hitting catastrophic climate change.

The boat to fix this left decades ago.

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

#124

Post by jules-jules »

nosianu wrote: post #86

To see both the longer trend (graph), a comparison with the value at the same time the previous year, and the current value for CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6 I occasionally check the Global Monitoring Laboratory (NOAA): https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/ Link to methane, click on one of the four switched at the top for the others. Warning: It always is pretty depressing to visit this site. You can also check out a tab "G…

I found this interview with former chief scientific advisor for climate change to the UK Government and Oxford professor Sir David King both timely and relevant to your point. He now works at the Centre of Climate Repair at Cambridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLd4EqQywwQ

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

#125

Post by WithinReason »

ornornor wrote: post #122
useragent86 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

See https://xkcd.com/1732/ for why the current temperature trend IS a big deal, unprecedented in our planet’s history.

That XKCD concatenated data from different studies with different temporal resolution, so it's very misleading. Past data came from Marcott et. al, who said:

“the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of about 120 years on average.”

“no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1,000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2,000-year periods and longer.”

Recent data came from yearly measurements, so preserves variability on a yearly basis.

In other words, the way past data was determined, sudden changes would be hidden, like the temperature spike that it shows in the 20th century.

You also have to wonder why the chart stopped 20000 years in the past:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#Ov...

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

#126

Post by cloudfifty »

refurb wrote: post #123
breakyerself wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because accepting the potential demise of modern complex society and the collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity world wide and a mass exctinction event because "Fuck it China and India are bad so lets just party until the end." Is fucking stupid. The proper framing is we need to reduce emissions and so does China and India so how do we facilitate that. The answer is to 1.) Reduce our own emissions to have the moral…

Sure we “need to do that” but you know it won’t ever happen right? Scientists have already said if we stop all emissions tomorrow, across the globe, we’re still hitting catastrophic climate change. The boat to fix this left decades ago.

It's funny how reactionaries have gone from "it's not really happening", "it's not man made" to "it's too late anyways" in no time. The same goal remains; to keep doing nothing.

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

#127

Post by useragent86 »

breakyerself wrote: post #118
useragent86 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

""Before humans burned the first coal to fire the first steam engine, the planet was warmer than this and had much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Both went back down." Yes. That's true and it doesn't in any way mean that it is at all safe for humans to jack up co2 levels in such a short period of time. All of the available evidence from the people who discovered those things in the first place sugg…

No post body was provided.

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

#128

Post by h0l0cube »

jules-jules wrote: post #124
nosianu wrote: post #86

To see both the longer trend (graph), a comparison with the value at the same time the previous year, and the current value for CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6 I occasionally check the Global Monitoring Laboratory (NOAA): https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/ Link to methane, click on one of the four switched at the top for the others. Warning: It always is pretty depressing to visit this site. You can also check out a tab "G…

I found this interview with former chief scientific advisor for climate change to the UK Government and Oxford professor Sir David King both timely and relevant to your point. He now works at the Centre of Climate Repair at Cambridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLd4EqQywwQ

If anyone is interested in an antecedent to our current climate change situation, BBC's In Our Time did an excellent deep-dive into the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hpmmf

The kind of carbon ejection and correlated temperature change we're seeing today hasn't really been seen since the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. That atmospheric event happened over the course of 50_000 years, we're looking to replicate it in a matter of 100s of years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Therm...

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

#129

Post by useragent86 »

nosianu wrote: post #109
useragent86 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What are you talking about? Where did I make an end of the world prediction? It is you who brought that up. Of course nothing is going to end. Nice strawman. You even try to bring COVID into the discussion? What are you doing, and why?

> What are you talking about? Where did I make an end of the world prediction? It is you who brought that up. Of course nothing is going to end. Nice strawman.

What do you think I refer to by "end of the world"? Don't you think I refer to this part of your comment?

> I look at that data and I think to myself, in a few decades we will have problems, many indirectly from more and more troubled nations who will bear the brunt of the climate change, that that silly little piece of software I write seems meaningless if I start thinking about the bigger picture.

Don't you think that I refer to the numerous comments seen on HN whenever this topic comes up, from people saying that they're expecting massive global upheaval in a few years, that they're not having children because they think society will collapse?

> You even try to bring COVID into the discussion?

Do you not see a parallel between the way the media has stirred panic about global warming^W^Wclimate change^Wcrisis for decades, and the way the media has stirred panic about COVID for the last two years?

> What are you doing, and why?

I would ask you the same.

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

#130

Post by useragent86 »

bamboozled wrote: post #115
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…

So then what happens, the microbes eat stuff, more soil is produced, more trees and animals grow, more rain comes, more stuff gets buried, and the cycle repeats itself? Honest question, not refuting anything here just a lot of the articles stop at the melting part, what happens after that?

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