Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, much more powerful than CO2. And emissions of methane keep going up:
The bad news is that the amount of methane in the atmosphere isn't just rising, it's accelerating. The good news is that methane only lasts about 50 years before it breaks down. If we can get a handle on emissions, levels should flatten out as old methane starts to disappear and then should start decreasing. This is unlike CO2, which will stay around forever even if we stop emitting it.¹
¹Which is why some kind of carbon capture technology is important. It's almost a dead certainty that any truly effective response to climate change will eventually require us to reduce not just emissions of new CO2, but actual levels of existing CO2 in the atmosphere.
"It's almost a dead certainty that any truly effective response to climate change will eventually require us to reduce not just emissions of new CO2, but actual levels of existing CO2 in the atmosphere."
'almost' is quite redundant here.
PBS did a show a couple of months ago called Earth Emergency, and covered handheld cameras (albeit expensive) and satellite imaging than can visualize methane leaks to track them down. The big issue isn't the constant leaks but the one offs, like industries doing a purge during maintenance routines etc. They also mentioned the complete lack of rules to even address methane leaks and the positive impact if rolled out internationally.
This is we have global warming,
Indians offering prayers in Yamuna river filled with industrial waste foam,
https://i.redd.it/5br039ig5ur81.jpg
Just give that foam a few days to dry out in the sun and voila, that's where Cheetos come from.
You have to add turmeric, too.
Excellent exfoliating foam treatment. 10 minutes tops otherwise it causes 2nd degree burns and loss of hair.
Well-played, sir. When I'm in the mood I enjoy them immensely.
You can burn methane as a fuel. A growing number of landfills are doing that. A side effect is that as a fuel it gives off less carbon dioxide. They have the advantage of easy capture, which is the major use issue dealing with Methane.
Natural gas is largely methane by way.
Mr. Drum, you are correct to hint that methane is the dark horse of global warming. Add to the baseline of CO2 all the methane that's being released from the usual suspects, at apparently and unsurprisingly accelerating rates, and you have a rolling catastrophe. BTW, how's the East Siberian Arctic Shelf doing these days?
This has been your feel good comment of the day!
I think that all those methane cathrates letting go at once is a nightmare that wakes up more than a few people late night.
We're seeing releases of methane from Arctic regions...that's not good.
No one bothered to write up about the IPCC report this week -- https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/
We're going to fail badly. I mean, we're already failing badly and the only scenarios where we avoid the worst of the worst effects relies on paradigm shifts that I barely know anyone to be doing. Anyone here buy an electric car or otherwise stopped driving a ICE vehicle? Installed solar and batteries? Replaced furnace w/ heat pumps? Replaced old heat pumps with modern ones? Detached natural gas from heating and cooking?
Feels implausible that we'll meet our GHG targets, globally and nationally, given that we can't even implement half the policies needed to hit the overshoot target and most moderate and liberal Ds can't afford (or are unwilling to) implement best practices w/o mandates.
The ipcc is a fraud and covered up the true extent for years. Get rid of them.
I just effin feel so bad for my 21 YO daughter. Me, I will be dead when the poop hits the fan. Damn you stupid right wingers!!!
Right wingers???? What you call right wingers were the foundation of "climate theory".
Kevin, I'm not sure if you know how Methane "is eliminated" from the atmosphere. It is oxidized. Now the four H atoms get down with one Oxygen molecule to make two water molecules. YAY!!!!
But the Carbon atom sucks up another Oxygen molecule and makes......Carbon Dioxide. So the one molecule of Methane spends fifty years superheating the atmosphere ....... and then decays into a molecule of Carbon Dioxide in order to keep the heat in longer.
So, yeah, CH4 is a baddie.
No, that is wrong. Methane turns into water essentially. It's a large part of why early earth got water
Methane can't turn into water, essentially or otherwise, as it lacks an oxygen molecule and before photosynthesizing plants there wasn't m uch free oxygen floating around. Burning methane with free oxygen the equation is
CH4 +2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O but you can't get there until you have free oxygen.
Jeebus, you fool, what do you think happens to the C in CH4?
CO₂ can eventually be recycled by nature. It's just that it will take longer than anyone now alive will live. And we're doing our best to circumvent that process by, say, burning the Amazon jungle. There is no guarantee that conditions will stabilize at what we consider normal climate. So we need to work on ways of speeding up the process.
My guess that successful carbon capture technology will wind up being more based on bioengineering than straight physics and chemistry because it will turn out to be easier to scale.
Plain old geological weathering -- the way nature likes to do it -- is a very effective bang for the buck. As a side comment -- don't want the trolls to jump in here -- this would be an excellent way to engage otherwise excess energy in a nuclear power plant: When demand is slack grind, grind away (or make synthetic fuel, or whatever.)
But yeah, yet another trend we need to reverse is deforestation; doing so would kill two birds with one stone. (Too bad nature came up with those g$@!d fungi to break down cellulose post-Carboniferous period, wink wink.)
On edit: Dang my old school knowledge and my old memory! Turns out thattheory of coal formation as the result of late fungal evolution is going the way of the Brontosaurus. I seem to be caught in a memory loop on this one, first I remember what I was taught back in the day, then I remember that that ain't necessarilly so anymore, then I look up a cite ... then I promptly forget again. Did I mention that I'm a donor/member of the Alzheimer's Association 🙁