'Detergent' Hydroxl Molecules May Affect Methane Levels In The Atmosphere (caltech.edu)

An anonymous reader quotes Caltech's announcement about the results of a study funded by NASA and the Department of Energy: During the early 2000s, environmental scientists studying methane emissions noticed something unexpected: the global concentrations of atmospheric methane -- which had increased for decades, driven by methane emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture -- inexplicably leveled off. The methane levels remained stable for a few years, then started rising again in 2007... New modeling by researchers at Caltech and Harvard University suggests that methane emissions might not have increased dramatically in 2007 after all. Instead, the most likely explanation has less to do with methane emissions and more to do with changes in the availability of the hydroxyl radical, which breaks down methane in the atmosphere... If global levels of hydroxyl decrease, global methane concentrations will increase -- even if methane emissions remain constant, the researchers say...

Tracking decadal trends in both methane and hydroxyl, Christian Frankenberg and his colleagues noted that fluctuations in hydroxyl concentrations correlated strongly with fluctuations in methane... "Think of the atmosphere like a kitchen sink with the faucet running," Frankenberg explains. "When the water level inside the sink rises, that can mean that you've opened up the faucet more. Or it can mean that the drain is blocking up. You have to look at both."
So what's changing the level of hydroxl in the atmosphere? The researchers say they have no idea.

Comments

Re:clouds

[Gadget_Guy]

Don't you think that it is more arrogant to claim that all the climate models are wrong in their entirety simply because there was one thing that they hadn't factored? What will happen is that once some more research is done, the models will be updated and the outcomes will be affected in an insignificant way. But the graphs will continue to go in the same direction and none of this will suddenly disprove the theories. And above all, the temperatures will keep on rising.

The habit of the deniers to find hope in even the tiniest of adjustments to the theories and models show how unscientific their viewpoint is. It is the same as how they all claimed that the world was actually cooling and pointed to how in 1998 it dropped back to same level as 1997 because it was an unusually hot year. They ignored all the decades of warming that we have had up until that point and desperately clung to the smallest of blips on the graph (which has been shown since then to be entirely insignificant). And yet they are still so sure of their beliefs (without any evidence) that they call the people who do have theories, equations, facts, and figures arrogant!

Re:Global warmists.

[gtall]

You needn't believe in anthropomorphic global warming. However, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is raising the PH of the oceans. You do recall the oceans, yes? Base of the food chain?

BTW, check in with the fishermen along the East Coast of the U.S. Their fish have been moving north as their water has gotten warmer. Damn those fish, they are more intellligent than you.

Re:"The science is settled"

[hey!]

Some of the science is settled, certainly. Methane is a greenhouse gas; nobody expects that to change. Atmospheric methane decays primarily through a long, well-documented chain of reactions starting with oxidation by the hydroxyl radical; the carbon in the CH4 eventually ends up in a CO2 molecule. This is nothing new, and nobody expects it to change.

The precise dynamics by which CH4 interacts with hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere is far from settled science, and nobody should be particularly surprised that there are things about the process we don't know. Not knowing some things about a process doesn't mean we can't know other things about that process.

But some people obviously do believe it means that. They do not distinguish between not knowing everything and knowing nothing. Implicitly requiring scientists to know everything before you consider science credible makes everything a matter of opinion, and all opinions more or less equally valid, at least as far is evidence is concerned. And it's easy to see the attraction: if everything is a matter of opinion you can believe whatever you find comforting. Why not believe Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs? After all scientists don't know everything, which means science is never "settled".

But of course settling questions with evidence is what science is all about. True, there is no science so settled it cannot be attacked; but there *is* science sufficiently settled that claims to the contrary require extraordinary evidence.