'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

clouds

[LesserWeevil]

Some recent research points to the air-water interface in clouds as an unexpected Hydroxyl source: https://www.chemistryworld.com...

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:clouds

[Gadget_Guy]

Is it wrong to claim phrenology is wrong because there was one thing they hadn't factored. Hint. It's not one thing. It's one thing after another after another - an endless stream of excuses to account for the fact that the models fail to predict accurately. Funny but KE=1/2mv^2 is 100% accurate, every time, day or night, in any newtonian frame of reference.

There have been errors found in the models due to previously unknown factors (like the one being discussed now). It should be noted that these errors were found by scientists; the ones the deniers keep saying are in collusion to only back the existing theories and hide the mistakes. (Oops! Yet another denialist theory that is not borne out by the evidence. Why is it that these errors are not treated with the same passion by the ignorant masses?)

So for all the mistakes found, which ones have ever made enough difference to totally disprove the science behind the climate change theories? Answer: none at all. Some of the updates that have been incorporated into the models have shown that the older models actually underestimated the amount of warming going on. Still, it's far better just to say that there were mistakes in the models, and that therefore is must all be wrong, rather than have to admit that the models keep getting more accurate at showing that AGW is real.

It is the same as bringing up phrenology to show that scientists can get it wrong, and therefore they must be wrong now. That is simply the same fuzzy-headed logic that brought about phrenology in the first place. There have been many more times that science in general got it right, even against opposition by the laypeople; the link between smoking and cancer, that asbestos is dangerous, that electricity doesn't leak from the wall sockets, that seat belts and helmets save lives, that plants and animals evolve to become new species. Congratulations. You have become just another one in the long list of people who think they know better than the trained scientists who spend every day analyzing the facts and figures.

Deniers like to jump on any news they think will embarrass the scientific community and try to pretend that it is a game-changer. They love to say "I told you so" even though they didn't tell us so. No denier has ever said that the methane levels are lower in the atmosphere than predicted because of the effect of hydroxl molecules. They simply don't have the scientific knowledge to understand why they say that AGW is wrong.

On another note, it's a good thing that the Trump administration will gut the funding and ability of NASA and the Department of Energy from being able to help find discoveries that show us where the models are wrong (or even potentially bring about techniques to reduce the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere).

Re:clouds

[Gadget_Guy]

I'm not a denier, and yet I know that it is extremely arrogant to assert that we *know* what is going on with the climate. We don't. We have a hypothesis. Most good scientists will say the same thing. Only arrogant fools assert brazenly that either (a) humans are definitely heating up the planet; or (b) humans are definitely not heating up the planet. We don't have conclusive proof of either.

The IPCC states that the evidence is unequivocal that global warming is occurring and that the odds are at least 95% that humans are the principal cause of it. It seems that the scientists of the world disagree with your assessment. Maybe they are being arrogant as you say, or maybe they just know more about this than you do.

For example, you think that the 200 year timescale is insignificant on a scale of 4.5 billion years, and yet it is the very short time that makes it significant. The temperature rise over such a short period is way above any naturally occurring climate change. You say that we only believe that CO2 and methane are involved, and yet the effect of those gases on the transfer of various forms of energy have been known by scientists for centuries. In fact, the idea that man's increase of greenhouse gases could result in the warming of the planet was postulated long before we had the measurements to back it up. Your notion of what scientists have established is over 200 years out of date.

Finally, another claim that you make that I suspect is wrong is that you are not a denier. It is a favorite tactic of climate change deniers to make it appear that we are less sure of what is going on by suggesting that there is still debate within the scientific community about the causes. This has gone on ever since that leaked Republican party memo that warned "should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly".

Re:Hmm

[quonset]

Would these suffice?

Sharpest drop in 27 years

Year over year drop of 32%

September 2008: housing starts lowest since 1991

Third quarter drop of 20.5% in housing starts.

It should be self-evident if new housing construction plummets as it did in 2007-2009, all the industries who rely on housing construction would also cut back their production of products. It's the only time trickle down works.

The authors clearly have some ideas: The tropics

[laughingskeptic]

Sources of volatile hydroxils include fermentation and plant respiration. The authors did not say "they have no idea", they said they do yet have a mechanistic explanation. They clearly have some ideas and those ideas are related to the differences between the tropics and the rest of the planet and they are all calling for more studies on specifically this.

"However, the authors do not yet have a mechanistic explanation for the last decade's global changes in hydroxyl concentrations. Future studies are needed to investigate this further, Frankenberg says. The researchers also would like to see the trends they detected verified with a more detailed study of both methane sources and sinks."

Re:"The science is settled"

[Gadget_Guy]

You are misrepresenting what was said. The science was settled that an increase in greenhouse gas emissions by humans leads to a warming of the atmosphere. Nobody ever said that all climate research had been finished and that every aspect of global warming was known.

So yes, the science that was being discussed at the time remains settled because this new research does not disprove AGW. It is merely quibbling about the rates of change.

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.

It's "hydroxyl radical" not hydroxl.

[BitterOak]

The spelling mistake in the headline may have had readers scratching their heads wondering what "hydroxl" is and trying to look it up on Wikipedia. (It isn't there.) The correct spelling is "hydroxyl" and the molecule is called the "hydroxyl radical". The Wikipedia article is actually very good and informative.

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.

Re:Hydroxl?

[piojo]

No, that's backwards. Oreo was a Hydrox knockoff.

Note that Hydrox has been reproduced using taste tests, science, and our wonderful legal system. It's available here: https://www.amazon.com/Leaf-Hy...