Washington's Exploding Manholes Explained?

sciencehabit writes "Researchers who mapped methane concentrations on the streets of the nation's capital found natural gas leaks everywhere, at concentrations of up to 50 times the normal background levels. The leaking gas wastes resources, enhances ozone production, and exacerbates global warming—not to mention powering the city's infamous exploding manholes. Most of the natural gas we burn for heat and on stovetops in the United States is methane, a simple carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogens. Carbon dioxide gets more press, but methane is the more powerful agent of global warming, 21 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. And methane levels are rising fast. Methane levels in the atmosphere were just 650 parts per billion a century ago, versus 1800 ppb today."

Comments

Politicians are all full of crap...

[dgatwood]

...so it kind of goes without saying that there would be a lot of methane.

Re:Politicians are all full of crap...

[PseudonymousBlowhard]

What next Chicken crosses road and is surprised by traffic?

How about: Slashdot poster doesn't RTFA?: "Although Washington's residents often joke that the city was built on a swamp, carbon isotope analysis showed that the methane in the air came from fossil fuels, not modern swamp microbes."

Re:Politicians are all full of crap...

[dkleinsc]

When we came here, all there was was swamp! And people said it would be daft to build a capital in a swamp, but we built one anyways, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So we built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So we built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, the strongest capital in all the world!

Magnitude of effectiveness

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Fun fact: Water vapor makes up 98% of the greenhouse effect.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142

Re:Magnitude of effectiveness

[AlphaWolf_HK]

BTW, disclaimer: We probably do have a contribution to global warming, though I'm not sure to what extent. However, I don't really think it matters. If the pangea ultima theory is correct, it is inevitable that we will lose the ice caps and the planet will be much warmer than it is now, whether humans existed or not. Very large animals thrived in these conditions in the past, so I don't think that means inevitable doom either.

Re:Magnitude of effectiveness

[Mindcontrolled]

And water vapour is in rapid equilibrium with the huge bodies of liquid water we have. Thus, a feedback and not a forcing. How often do we need to go over this again?

Re:Magnitude of effectiveness

[MichaelSmith]

Water vapour is an amplifier. Carbon dioxide traps more heat which causes more humidity which traps more heat. Feedback is the most dangerout aspect of climate change because climate may be bistable.

Re:Magnitude of effectiveness

[Namarrgon]

Inevitable doom isn't the problem; doubtless ecosystems will adapt eventually. Until then, crop failures, population displacement, extreme weather, extinctions and ecosystem disruption on a global scale over the next 50-100+ years are to be expected. What if those trillions in adaptation costs could be reduced or avoided?

Re:Magnitude of effectiveness

[flyneye]

You mean like the dinosaurs could've avoided it? I guess they didn't have enough money.
No one promised everyone a guaranteed long life, but, survival of the fittest, was mentioned at some point.
Just business as usual, another aeon in the life of a planet. If man doesn't survive, Jack Russell terriers will probably rise to the top of the food chain.
Monkeys are much like Washington Politicians and have no survival skills without the herd, so I'm pretty sure Jack Russells are next in line.

Decaying infastructure is a huge problem

[eksith]

Far bigger than most most give attention to. And it isn't just gas lines; it's bridges/overpasses, roads, dams, levys, sewers, tunnls, heck even our data channels etc... People tend to forget that while there has been a lot of new construction, a lot of our infastructure is still decades old. Some of it going back at least 30 - 50 years and prohibitively expensive to replace/upgrade all at once. It doesn't help that there's so much expendeture on stupid things like wars on x and a hopelessly inefficient workforce. All the while the newer buildings, those things that only house prestige and drones, are being created purely by corporate entities.

There's no immediate ROI for fixing these things that don't kill people in droves.

This is a serious problem.

[jd2112]

I propose we give each member of Congress a cigarette lighter and send them into the sewers until all the gas leaks are round.

atmospheric methane levels

[nblender]

I watched a youtube video a while back from a leading researcher who outlined their methods of data collection and analysis. In the video he plotted atmospheric methane levels and showed how methane was steadily increasing until the collapse of the soviet union at which point levels fell dramatically. The explanation offered was that at that time, the gas pipelines to europe had become privately owned forcing accountants to discover that "gas in" was way less than "gas out" at the other end so there was a big campaign to fix the many pipeline leaks that were ignored during communist rule.

I shudder to think how many other gas pipelines around the world are leaking...