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Rapid Rise In Methane Emissions In 10 Years Surprises Scientists (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change. Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb. This is a cause for alarm among global warming scientists because emissions of the gas warm the planet by more than 20 times as much as similar volumes of carbon dioxide. In the meantime, emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main component of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere -- have been leveling off. The new research, published in the peer-review journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the world's attempts to control greenhouse gases have failed to take account of the startling rises in methane. The authors of the 2016 Global Methane Budget report found that in the early years of this century, concentrations of methane rose by only about 0.5ppb each year, compared with 10ppb in 2014 and 2015. The scientists speculate that agriculture may be the main source of the additional methane that has been recorded. However, they cannot be sure of all the sources, owing to a lack of monitoring. At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful. Unlike carbon dioxide emissions, however, which have been tracked in various ways since the 1950s, emissions of methane are poorly understood and could represent a threat that scientists have still not accounted for.
Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"Rapid Rise In Methane Emissions In 10 Years Surpasses Scientists"
When you wake up and misread a title like this, you know you need a bit more sleep.
Thought for a minute there we were reporting on quite a flatulent demographic...
Nuclear power. Nuclear power? Nuclear power!
We can keep burning coal and natural gas, reduce our standard of living, or build more nuclear power plants. Those are our choices as of right now. We can wait for wind, solar, and battery technology to get cheaper but that does nothing for the carbon we'd be producing while we wait.
Reducing energy use, by personal choice or by imposing it on others with taxation, is a reduction of our standard of living. That might seem acceptable by many given the potential benefits for society in the future but you are going to get push back from people that are disbelievers in global warming and those that already take cold showers, ride the bus to work, eat little meat, and so forth because of poverty. Imposing expensive energy sources on people with regulation, like wind and solar, is just as detrimental to the poor as a direct tax on energy. Subsidizing these higher cost energy sources with taxation only means reducing the wealth available to society, causing reductions in wages to those that have jobs, and reducing the chances of getting a job for those that can't find work now. Taxing the fossil fuel industry means nothing to them, they just pass that cost onto the poor people that have to buy their products to heat their homes, cook their food, and travel.
If we are to assume that burning methane is bad because of leakage to the environment and the CO2 contribution it has when burned then we'd want to find an alternative that both reduces these emissions and is just as inexpensive. If it costs more then we are again imposing poverty on people. If it does not reduce these global warming gasses then we're just making things worse. Nuclear power is both inexpensive and has a carbon footprint even lower than wind and solar.
So, if we assume global warming is bad and is caused by people burning methane and other fossil fuels, then we need to turn to nuclear power or make a lot of people very angry over their reduced standard of living. Or rather those that survive will be angry, the people that die of hunger, exposure, or being unable to purchase proper medical care will still be dead. Waiting for solar and wind energy to get cheaper is foolish. We've been giving all kinds of money to the wind and solar industry for decades, through taxation and subsidies, in the hope it would be cheaper than coal someday. How much longer do we have to do this before it meets the definition of insanity?
I think we blew past the line of insanity with ludicrous speed a decade or three ago, so fast that few people even saw it go by. We can argue about when that line was crossed exactly or we can stop the insanity and change course.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I'm not going to worry about it until the numbers have meaning.
The models used to predict and support climate change theories are only as good as the assumptions that go in to them. Here is more proof that the assumptions are based on an incomplete knowledge of the processes at work. So the science behind climate change is flawed and we are being fed half-truths BUT BUT BUT
Climate change is likely happening for reasons we don't fully understand however why does fear of it have to be the reason we do things? Why does it take fear to motivate us to use resources more efficiently, harvest resources less destructively, and consume more prudently? Why can't we do those things simply because it is the only rational and reasonable way to proceed?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Please follow the logic: If methane emissions from a warming arctic cause runaway warming,
The flaw in your logic is this. GGGP writes:
"Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions."
To which you respond:
Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now when it (apparently) wasn't then?
This is obviously flawed reasoning since you have not shown that methane was not released ~8000 years ago. You have asked "why would it now?" seemingly doubtful of this well documented fact. You then follow up with a non-sequitor:
I write apparently since there was no runaway warming caused by methane.
This idea of runaway warming was introduced by you. Certainly methane is now escaping from the arctic. Certainly it is now a feedback to the current warming as it may have been then. Nothing you've said addresses the points of the GGGP:
"Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions."
That is very likely true.
20 bpb represents around a 1.1% increase not a .000002% increase. It went from 1810 to 1830 bpb.