ritter wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Giant hole in Arctic Ocean Sea ice created by new methane plume?
Prolly just Santa Claus.
Are you suggesting that Santa has gas?
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
ritter wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Giant hole in Arctic Ocean Sea ice created by new methane plume?
Prolly just Santa Claus.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ozcad wrote:Superman will have to relocate his ice palace.
dohboi wrote:T, many good points.
But the flip side of that is, given the relatively short half life of methane, doesn't that mean that, just to sustain the historically very high levels of atmospheric methane we now see (up ~150% versus ~40% for CO2), there must currently be very large and ongoing increases in methane emissions far beyond all previous periods (going back at least hundreds of thousands of years)?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote:T, yes, the entire quantity of atmospheric methane must be replaced every 7 years to just stay stable. We (now with the help of melting permafrost and clathrates) are producing enough more than enough to do that on a continual basis. I don't find that comforting.
But yes, if we could find ourselves a way to stop our emission, our part of that extra methane would fairly quickly go away, and we could only pray that it would not be taken up by the methane feedbacks that already seem to be kicking in. Unfortunately, we have turned heavily toward NG production, and it is proving to be very hard not to let a good portion of that escape directly into the atmosphere (seen most dramatically in CA right now, but it is a chronic issue throughout the industry, afaics. And then there are little things like rice growing, and cattle and sheep raising the latter two of which no one around here seems to want to take very seriously.
But thinking about all of this prompted some questions in my brain that I don't know the answers to right off:
One thing saving us from the full impact of super high atmospheric CO2 concentrations is its absorption into the oceans. Does anyone know how much this is also a factor with methane? Does atmospheric methane dissolve in water easily? What portion (if any) of our emissions of methane are being absorbed by oceans? When (and if) absorbed, does it form an acid, like CO2 does?
I can't recall reading anything about this either way (and I'm too damn lazy right now to look up the chemistry myself ).
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote:Sooo, basically you don't think it is likely that methane will be in touch with water enough to get dissolved in it, but you don't have anything on whether, when it does come in contact, it would dissolve and to what extent.
If free methane rises so easily in the atmosphere, then most of it would end up in the stratosphere and there eventually turn to CO2 and H20, both also ghgs. That is not a good thing either, of course. How much do we know about how fast the chemical make up of the stratosphere is changing?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
... if global methane emissions were to increase by factors of 2.5 and 5.2 above current emissions, the indirect contributions to RF [radiative forcing] would be about 250% and 400%, respectively, of the RF that can be attributed to directly emitted methane alone.
Assuming several hypothetical scenarios of CH4 release associated with permafrost thaw, shallow marine hydrate degassing, and submarine landslides, we find a strong positive feedback on RF through atmospheric chemistry.
In particular, the impact of CH4 is enhanced through increase of its lifetime, and of atmospheric abundances of ozone, stratospheric water vapor, and CO2 as a result of atmospheric chemical processes
Alongside the theory "girls don't poop," mankind once perpetuated a similar myth about the graceful mammals that bounce across Australia's grassy plains:
Kangaroos don't fart.
These beasts were once the mystery of the animal kingdom -- thought to produce low-methane, environmentally friendly toots.
However, new research on kangaroo crop dusting suggests this isn't true.
Methane — which is created naturally by gut bacteria inside animals digesting grasses and leaves — is a greenhouse gas that actively traps heat, contributing to global warming.
In the 1970s and 1980s, research suggested kangaroos don't produce much of the gas due to low-methane-producing bacteria called "Archaea" living in their guts.
At the time, scientists thought there might be a way to introduce these bacteria to cows, which produce high-methane flatulence, and reduce methane emissions on a global scale.
"The idea that kangaroos have unique gut microbes has been floating around for some time and a great deal of research has gone into discovering these apparently unique microbes," Adam Munn from the University of Wollongong in Australia said in a news release.
Alas, new research — studies that involved locking kangaroos in chambers to eat and fart blissfully and uninterrupted — show that kangaroos produce about the same amount of methane as animals similar in size.
They don't, however, fart as much as cows, which are capable of producing up to 200 liters of methane every day.
"Kangaroos are not mysteriously low methane-producing creatures, but herbivores with an active methane-producing microbe community', said Marcus Clauss from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
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