We could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age

[Admin]

Methane emissions from tropical wetlands have been soaring since 2006 and accelerating at the same breakneck speed as they have when Earth's climate flipped from a glacial to an interglacial period.

We could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age : Read more

 

[Ken Fabian]

So far natural sinks have mostly taken up carbon (but not all) in response to raised CO2 or else global warming would be stronger than it is but carbon feedbacks (sinks becoming sources) in response to warming have been a foreseeable looming problem that can undo the early ocean and vegetation take up. We are reaching the stage where climate impacts are above and beyond ordinary variability.

We need to know what to expect from global warming in order to respond appropriately - the more significant our knowledge about it is the uncomfortable and inconvenient; if it weren't so significant it wouldn't matter so much. Knowledge may be uncomfortable but not nearly as uncomfortable and inconvenient as getting global warming impacts entirely in the form of unwelcome surprises.

 

[spacepixel]

Given me enormous leakage from many of the methane gas fracking facilities around the planet, the rise is not surprising.
So called 'fugitive' emissions have been belching out - from early this century.
Infrared imagery captures the methane plumes escaping from pipelines, gas wells, and city distribution networks, not to mention appliances around the home.
Satellite imagery of the gas plumes were released either last year or earlier this year.
Kazakhstan was identified as being one of the worst offenders, is Australia, & the US.

 

[Osbert]

Methane emissions from tropical wetlands have been soaring since 2006 and accelerating at the same breakneck speed as they have when Earth's climate flipped from a glacial to an interglacial period.

We could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age : Read more

The year 3797 A.C.E. makes more sense these days.

 

[bioform]

Not trying to be funny, but we are trying to get back to the moon, establish a base, mine resources... Try to get to mars.... Testing concepts for a nuclear powered rocket ... Just saying I won't be able to flee....

 

[Classical Motion]

Methane. Stored solar power.

 

[daveburton]

Over the last 16 years, the atmospheric CH4 level measured at Mauna Loa Observatory rose from 1.8431 ppmv in 2016 to 1.9135 ppmv in 2022, which is a mere 0.0704 ppmv change (= a 3.82% increase in 16 years). By my calculation, that increase caused a total radiative forcing of about 0.035 W/m². With feedbacks, that's enough to cause only about 0.02 °C of warming.

0.02 °C is about the temperature change you get from a ten foot change in elevation, or a 1.2 mile change in latitude. It's about 1/70-th of the "hysteresis" (a/k/a "dead zone" or "dead band") designed into a typical home thermostat. That's what space.com calls a "termination event."

For comparison, over the same 16-year period, the atmospheric CO2 concentration rose from 404.41 ppmv in 2016 to 418.56 ppmv in 2022, That's a 14.15 ppmv change (= a 3.50% increase in 16 years). That increase caused a total radiative forcing of about 0.15 W/m². With feedbacks, that's enough to cause about 0.1°C of warming.

Even if you don't burn it, methane in the atmosphere oxidizes fairly rapidly, changing ultimately into small amounts of CO2 and water:

CH4 + 2⋅O2 → CO2 + 2⋅H2O (caveat: that's very simplified!)

Various sources give the half-life of CH4 in the atmosphere as 6 to 8 years, which would make the average lifetime 1.4427 times that, yielding an average lifetime for a molecule of CH4 in the atmosphere of 8.7 to 11.5 years. The AMS gives a figure of 9.1 years. (That's from Pranther et al 2012, but Pranther actually reports it as 9.1±0.9 years.) However, Prof. Lyatt Jaeglé has identified a feedback mechanism which she believes effectively increases the atmospheric lifetime of additional CH4 to about 12 years.

So call it 8-12 years. That's pretty short. It means the only reason CH4 levels are as high as they are (about 1.9 ppmv = 5.58 Gt) is that total CH4 emissions (natural + anthropogenic) are already high (between 550 and 710 Mt/yr). There would have to be a very large, sustained increase in CH4 emissions to cause much increase in long-term average atmospheric CH4 levels.

CH4 removal processes (mainly oxidation) dwarf the rate of CH4 accumulation in the atmosphere, and they accelerate with increasing atmospheric methane concentration, making them negative (stabilizing) feedbacks. Assuming the Pranther atmospheric lifetime estimate (9.1±0.9 years), we can calculate that the rate of increase in CH4 level (which averages about 0.0044 ppmv/year) is less than 1/40-th of the rate of the CH4 removal processes, and less than 1/25-th the rate of anthropogenic emissions.

That's very different from CO2. Natural CO2 removal processes are also linearly related to the atmospheric CO2 concentration, but for CO2 the net natural removals are only about 50% of the rate of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, compared to 96% for CH4.

That means the CH4 does not accumulate in the atmosphere. Instead, the CH4 level responds quickly to changes in CH4 emission rate. If the total CH4 emission rate were to cease increasing then the level of CH4 in the atmosphere would rise at most only a few percent before plateauing.

It's a shame to see space.com publishing such misinformation.

 

[Osbert]

Methane. Stored solar power.

"Stored solar power" ? Seriously ?
Does the word BATTERY make a person sound dumb to you?
Because "Stored Solar power" is not a thing. It's something you want to say to sound SMART - but - you are not.

TRYING TO SOUND SMART - SIMPLY MAKES YOU DUMB !!!

CALL THINGS WHAT THEY ARE !!!!!!

BATTERY
MAN
WOMAN
WAR

READ A BOOK !!!! AND STOP BURNING THEM !!!!!!

 

[Osbert]

Over the last 16 years, the atmospheric CH4 level measured at Mauna Loa Observatory rose from 1.8431 ppmv in 2016 to 1.9135 ppmv in 2022, which is a mere 0.0704 ppmv change (= a 3.82% increase in 16 years). By my calculation, that increase caused a total radiative forcing of about 0.035 W/m². With feedbacks, that's enough to cause only about 0.02 °C of warming.

0.02 °C is about the temperature change you get from a ten foot change in elevation, or a 1.2 mile change in latitude. It's about 1/70-th of the "hysteresis" (a/k/a "dead zone" or "dead band") designed into a typical home thermostat. That's what space.com calls a "termination event."

For comparison, over the same 16-year period, the atmospheric CO2 concentration rose from 404.41 ppmv in 2016 to 418.56 ppmv in 2022, That's a 14.15 ppmv change (= a 3.50% increase in 16 years). That increase caused a total radiative forcing of about 0.15 W/m². With feedbacks, that's enough to cause about 0.1°C of warming.

Even if you don't burn it, methane in the atmosphere oxidizes fairly rapidly, changing ultimately into small amounts of CO2 and water:

CH4 + 2⋅O2 → CO2 + 2⋅H2O (caveat: that's very simplified!)

Various sources give the half-life of CH4 in the atmosphere as 6 to 8 years, which would make the average lifetime 1.4427 times that, yielding an average lifetime for a molecule of CH4 in the atmosphere of 8.7 to 11.5 years. The AMS gives a figure of 9.1 years. (That's from Pranther et al 2012, but Pranther actually reports it as 9.1±0.9 years.) However, Prof. Lyatt Jaeglé has identified a feedback mechanism which she believes effectively increases the atmospheric lifetime of additional CH4 to about 12 years.

So call it 8-12 years. That's pretty short. It means the only reason CH4 levels are as high as they are (about 1.9 ppmv = 5.58 Gt) is that total CH4 emissions (natural + anthropogenic) are already high (between 550 and 710 Mt/yr). There would have to be a very large, sustained increase in CH4 emissions to cause much increase in long-term average atmospheric CH4 levels.

CH4 removal processes (mainly oxidation) dwarf the rate of CH4 accumulation in the atmosphere, and they accelerate with increasing atmospheric methane concentration, making them negative (stabilizing) feedbacks. Assuming the Pranther atmospheric lifetime estimate (9.1±0.9 years), we can calculate that the rate of increase in CH4 level (which averages about 0.0044 ppmv/year) is less than 1/40-th of the rate of the CH4 removal processes, and less than 1/25-th the rate of anthropogenic emissions.

That's very different from CO2. Natural CO2 removal processes are also linearly related to the atmospheric CO2 concentration, but for CO2 the net natural removals are only about 50% of the rate of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, compared to 96% for CH4.

That means the CH4 does not accumulate in the atmosphere. Instead, the CH4 level responds quickly to changes in CH4 emission rate. If the total CH4 emission rate were to cease increasing then the level of CH4 in the atmosphere would rise at most only a few percent before plateauing.

It's a shame to see space.com publishing such misinformation.

The only thing people without a degree understand is FEAR.
Science is hard.
Fear is easy.

 

[Osbert]

So far natural sinks have mostly taken up carbon (but not all) in response to raised CO2 or else global warming would be stronger than it is but carbon feedbacks (sinks becoming sources) in response to warming have been a foreseeable looming problem that can undo the early ocean and vegetation take up. We are reaching the stage where climate impacts are above and beyond ordinary variability.

We need to know what to expect from global warming in order to respond appropriately - the more significant our knowledge about it is the uncomfortable and inconvenient; if it weren't so significant it wouldn't matter so much. Knowledge may be uncomfortable but not nearly as uncomfortable and inconvenient as getting global warming impacts entirely in the form of unwelcome surprises.

Just wait until the TRIGGER POINT is reached and all those little CH4 and CO2 eating bacteria get going. It could go from HOT to FREEZING, in no time.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Methane. Stored solar power.

Stored carbon. Reduced greenhouse effect. A climate better suited to the rise of agriculture and civilisation.

The only thing people without a degree understand is FEAR.
Science is hard.
Fear is easy.

It looks to me it is climate science deniers that are overwhelmed by alarmist (as in false) fears - such an overriding fear of what humanity will have to do that denying it is preferable to facing up to it head on with eyes open. I think we are more than capable of technological solutions and enough international cooperation to make our primary energy zero emissions and regain a measure of climate stability.

My fears about global warming are greatly eased by facing up to them - as is the case for most fears; address them and they lose their power to paralyze and they can become a spur to effective action. My worst climate fears are for denial and mismanagement making a difficult but manageable problem unmanageable - and the extent to which Doubt, Deny, Delay politicking has already made addressing it slower and more difficult just demonstrates the lack of any redeeming features of science denial.

Just wait until the TRIGGER POINT is reached and all those little CH4 and CO2 eating bacteria get going. It could go from HOT to FREEZING, in no time.

Basing reduced efforts to address rising GHG's on your belief this will be the case sounds choosing to ignore the top level science based advice and would be dangerously irresponsible. Methane has risen 185% since pre-industrial and CO2 by 50% with no sign of bacteria eating enough of the extra to slow global warming.

Whether the study this article discusses proves correct or not there is an abundance of evidence that global warming is real and represents a serious threat to our future prosperity, within the lifetimes of people now living and far beyond. People holding positions of high trust and responsibility should base their choices on the best and most comprehensive expert advice, not the opinions of pseudonymous pseudo experts in internet forums.