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.

Comments

Artic methane emissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that this was highly anticipated, and they even have a short note about it in the article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions

Re:We're so screwed

[Troed]

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?

I write apparently since there was no runaway warming caused by methane.

(Yes, the "up to 9 degrees warmer" is according to peer reviewed climate science)

More simple than that

[dbIII]

Mining companies have been under-reporting and trying to cover up the levels of methane

A lot of the time it isn't measured and they don't even know, which is a lot more simple than a coverup. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to not giving a fuck.

Re:We're so screwed

[MightyMartian]

A 2C rise by the end of this century is going to create some major problems. The whole "hyper-alarmism" thing is pretty much been manufactured by the pseudo-skeptics to make scientists look bad. No climate researcher I'm aware of thinks we're going to turn into a Venus, but we are going to see significant changes in rain belts, sea levels, oceanic pH levels, desertification, and some of this is already apparent.

Let me ask you. What do you think your grandchildren are going to think when the Midwest grain belt suddenly finds much higher precipitation winters and springs, and frequent summer droughts? That's the sort of changes researchers are talking about. How about large chunks of Florida under water? How about ever worsening storm surges in Britain, a country with a helluva lot of lowlying territory? How about hundreds of millions of people in Asia being misplaced? Think that might have some significant regional and even global ramifications?

Things don't have to be apocalyptic to be bad, really bad, and the point of trying to educate people is so that you can say "Look, we have to do something now, or we are going to cost our grandchildren trillions of dollars."