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The Methane Thread pt. 2

Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 19 Jun 2019, 14:54:15

Before anyone gets too wound up over current methane levels remember to look at this graph. Since high quality monitoring started we have gone from roughly 1.63 ppmv CH4 free in the atmosphere to 1.86 ppmv. Even if you take the worst case scenario with CH4 having 125*CO2 global warming potential that increase of 0.23 ppmv only adds up to 28.75 ppmv CO2 equivalent increase. During the same period actual CO2 levels increased from 338.1 ppmv in January 1980 to 410.83 ppmv CO2 in January 2019. That is a real world increase of 72.73 ppmv CO2 or more that three times the CH4 increase worst case scenario impact. While CH4 emissions continue to grow they are tiny in comparison to the main culprit in man influencing the climate. Also remember that about half of the actual change induced by CO2 is in the continuing increase in atmospheric humidity because warm air holds more water vapor and water vapor is the most powerful GHG. When the CH4 reaches the Ozone Layer it gets converted into CO2+2(H2O) if it doesn't get broken down by OH- radicals before it rises that high. So CH4 is a self limiting problem, as long as the sun keeps emitting so much UV radiation the Ozone layer gets constantly rebuilt. H2O on the other hand tends to saturate dust motes into micro droplets, then keep growing until the droplets are heavy enough to actually precipitate out of the atmosphere. Unlike those two however the CO2 in the upper atmosphere tends to remain in the upper atmosphere for geological timescales of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.
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https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 03 Jul 2019, 17:26:26

Thanks for the perspective, T. Still, I would say the most important phrase in your explanation is 'so far.'

The following study is about both methane and CO2, but such issues seem to usually go in this thread, so here it is (thanks to vox at asif...does he come here anymore?):

Scientists Find Thawing Permafrost Releasing Carbon at Higher Rates than Previously Thought


https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientist ... igher.html

... "This study was novel because we used new methods to directly track the soil carbon losses, and they were much higher than we previously thought," Schuur said. "This suggests that not only is carbon being lost through greenhouse gases directly to the atmosphere but also dissolved in waters that flow through the soil and likely carried carbon into streams, leaves and rivers."

... According to the study, 5 to 15 percent of the soil carbon held in the permafrost could be released into the atmosphere by the end of the century, using the original scenario. The modeling exercise the research team used to compare agreed with the observations but suggests that the loss rate could be twofold or more higher. (I.e. >10-30%)

César Plaza et al. Direct observation of permafrost degradation and rapid soil carbon loss in tundra, Nature Geoscience (2019)
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 10 Jul 2019, 11:35:32

New (to me) link to methane mapping site:


Methane forecasts

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/charts ... h4_surface
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 10 Jul 2019, 16:01:15

dohboi wrote:New (to me) link to methane mapping site:


Methane forecasts

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/charts ... h4_surface


WOW! Thats really interesting. My eye immediately went to the three CH4 hot spots in Arctic Alaska. What in heck is that......

But then I saw the much bigger Methane hot spot over Sweden and Scandinavia. And finally the gigantic CH4 anomalies over Siberia and China.

And all I can saw is : We are screwed. We are truly screwed.

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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 10 Jul 2019, 18:59:28

Yeah, the folks that said that the thawing tundra is a more immediate threat than the subsea clathrates seem to have been right, I am ready to concede. Clathrates are still the sleeping/slowly-awaking giant, though, imho.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 29 Jul 2019, 15:57:01

scientists are not sure as to why recent methane emissions into the atmosphere are surging.

Earth's methane emissions are rising and we don't know why

https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... -know-why/

Levels of a powerful greenhouse gas jumped again last year, continuing a surge in the past few years that researchers still cannot fully explain.

Atmospheric concentrations of methane climbed by 10.77 parts per billion in 2018, the second highest annual increase in the past two decades, according to provisional data released recently by US agency NOAA.

As, indicated by the last linked article, industry is under reporting their amounts of methane by as much as a factor of 100. Maybe this has something to do with consensus climate scientists uncertainty on anthropogenic emission rates


Industrial methane emissions are 100 times higher than reported, researchers say

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-industria ... igher.html

"Emissions of methane from the industrial sector have been vastly underestimated, researchers from Cornell and Environmental Defense Fund have found."
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 22 Aug 2019, 08:43:40


April 2019: 1865.8 ppb
April 2018: 1856.7 ppb
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Sat 07 Sep 2019, 17:35:04

Thanks again to T for keeping track of both CO2 and CH4 numbers. Ultimately, it's CO2e that we need to be watching, but that can be a bit more complex to calculate.

The majority of consensus climate change authorities (such as the IPCC and US EPA) continue to use old procedures for calculating CO2-e; yet the linked article makes it clear that following the best science available C02-e is currently well above 500ppm:

Why there's more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than you may have realised


https://phys.org/news/2019-06-greenhous ... lised.html
Studies published in 2016 and 2018 led to the estimate of methane's warming potential being revised upwards by 15%, meaning methane is now considered to be 32 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO₂, on a per-molecule basis over a 100-year time span.

Considering this new evidence, we calculate that greenhouse gas concentrations at Cape Grim crossed the 500ppm CO₂-e threshold in July 2018.

This is higher than the official estimate based on the previous formulation for calculating CO₂-e, which remains in widespread use. For instance, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is reporting 2018 CO₂-e as 496ppm


see also (assuming non-conservatively that ECS is about 3C):

NOAA's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/

"The IPCC suggests that a constant concentration of CO2 alone at 550 ppm would lead to an average increase in Earth’s temperature of ~3°C (5.4°F). "
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 10 Sep 2019, 08:49:26


May 2019: 1862.8 ppb
May 2018: 1854.8 ppb
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby clif » Thu 10 Oct 2019, 00:19:24

Where is Cid when .....

Russian scientists find 'most powerful' ever methane seep in Arctic Ocean

Russian scientists in the Arctic Ocean said they have discovered the most powerful methane gas fountain ever recorded, highlighting the danger of this greenhouse gas accelerating climate change or causing an oil or gas spill as it erupts from thawing permafrost.

A research expedition from the Tomsk polytechnic university found the seep, as methane leaks are known, east of Bennett Island in the East Siberian Sea, where its violent bubbles seemed to make the water “boil” over an area of 50 square feet.

The concentration of methane in the air there was up to 16 parts per million, more than nine times higher than the atmospheric average.

“This is the most powerful seep I have ever been able to observe,” lead scientist Igor Semiletov, who has participated in 45 Arctic expeditions, said in a statement this week. “No one has ever recorded anything similar.”


Looks like his predictions are continuing to come true.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 10 Oct 2019, 02:18:40

I had a feeling he was right all along, or that we were at least sitting on a knife's edge.

If this is indeed gonna blow (or in the actual process of blowing now) there will be a global eruption of coulda shoulda wouldas. So many opportunities to step away from the brink but we wouldn't heed a single warning.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 11 Oct 2019, 08:20:22


June 2019: 1860.2 ppb
June 2018: 1852.0 ppb
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.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Whitefang » Sat 12 Oct 2019, 16:38:27

Does Copernicus have a paywall?
Methane tracker site is gone?
Pauly B. should have links to recent data for free as should be, I do have a bias :roll:
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 14 Oct 2019, 11:27:52

Whitefang wrote:Does Copernicus have a paywall?
Methane tracker site is gone?
Pauly B. should have links to recent data for free as should be, I do have a bias :roll:


https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 20 Nov 2019, 11:19:47


July 2019: 1858.6 ppb
July 2018: 1849.0 ppb
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby onlooker » Tue 10 Dec 2019, 10:11:08

"We are mortal beings doomed to die
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 10 Dec 2019, 10:30:00


August 2019: 1863.6 ppb
August 2018: 1851.9 ppb
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Tue 10 Dec 2019, 23:25:10

That's quite a jump. Here are comments on it from Stephan at asif:

The CH4 concentration values for August are available now:

August 2019: 1863.6 ppb
August 2018: 1851.9 ppb
Last updated: December 05, 2019

The annual increase (11.7 ppb) is significantly above from that of the last months. ...

I took the time and checked the average August annual methane increase. Apart from 1998 (the super El Niño year) there has never been such an increase since 1990.
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby EdwinSm » Wed 11 Dec 2019, 13:08:53

Methane pulse from Sudan

Scientists think they can now explain at least part of the recent growth in methane (CH4) levels in the atmosphere.

Researchers, led from Edinburgh University, UK, say their studies point to a big jump in emissions coming from just the wetlands of South Sudan.

Satellite data indicates the region received a large surge of water from East African lakes, including Victoria.

This would have boosted CH4 from the wetlands, accounting for a significant part of the rise in global methane.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50708544
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Re: The Methane Thread pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 12 Dec 2019, 17:13:08

Good catch, Ed. Further here:

an observed increase in methane from East African wetlands may account for up to one third of the increase in observed atmospheric methane concentrations in the period from 2010 to 2016:

Lunt, M. F., Palmer, P. I., Feng, L., Taylor, C. M., Boesch, H., and Parker, R. J.:

An increase in methane emissions from tropical Africa between 2010 and 2016 inferred from satellite data

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 14721–14740, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14721-2019, 2019.

https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/19/14721/2019/

Abstract:

Emissions of methane (CH4) from tropical ecosystems, and how they respond to changes in climate, represent one of the biggest uncertainties associated with the global CH4 budget. Historically, this has been due to the dearth of pan-tropical in situ measurements, which is particularly acute in Africa. By virtue of their superior spatial coverage, satellite observations of atmospheric CH4 columns can help to narrow down some of the uncertainties in the tropical CH4 emission budget. We use proxy column retrievals of atmospheric CH4 (XCH4) from the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) and the nested version of the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry and transport model (0.5 ∘ ×0.625 ∘ 0.5∘×0.625∘) to infer emissions from tropical Africa between 2010 and 2016. Proxy retrievals of XCH4 are less sensitive to scattering due to clouds and aerosol than full physics retrievals, but the method assumes that the global distribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) is known. We explore the sensitivity of inferred a posteriori emissions to this source of systematic error by using two different XCH4 data products that are determined using different model CO2 fields. We infer monthly emissions from GOSAT XCH4 data using a hierarchical Bayesian framework, allowing us to report seasonal cycles and trends in annual mean values. We find mean tropical African emissions between 2010 and 2016 range from 76 (74–78) to 80 (78–82) Tg yr−1, depending on the proxy XCH4 data used, with larger differences in Northern Hemisphere Africa than Southern Hemisphere Africa. We find a robust positive linear trend in tropical African CH4 emissions for our 7-year study period, with values of 1.5 (1.1–1.9) Tg yr−1 or 2.1 (1.7–2.5) Tg yr−1, depending on the CO2 data product used in the proxy retrieval. This linear emissions trend accounts for around a third of the global emissions growth rate during this period. A substantial portion of this increase is due to a short-term increase in emissions of 3 Tg yr−1 between 2011 and 2015 from the Sudd in South Sudan.

Using satellite land surface temperature anomalies and altimetry data, we find this increase in CH4 emissions is consistent with an increase in wetland extent due to increased inflow from the White Nile, although the data indicate that the Sudd was anomalously dry at the start of our inversion period. We find a strong seasonality in emissions across Northern Hemisphere Africa, with the timing of the seasonal emissions peak coincident with the seasonal peak in ground water storage.

In contrast, we find that a posteriori CH4 emissions from the wetland area of the Congo Basin are approximately constant throughout the year, consistent with less temporal variability in wetland extent, and significantly smaller than a priori estimates.
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