OK Leland Palmer, I told you on several occasions where you tried to steer threads towards Methane that you should wait until WUWT had a thread that was relevant – here you go, have at it. – Anthony
One of the indisputable facts in the field of global climate change is that the atmospheric build-up of methane (CH4) has been, over the past few decades, occurring much more slowly than all predictions as to its behavior (Figure 1). Since methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas (thought to have about 25 times the warming power of CO2), emissions scenarios which fail to track methane will struggle to well-replicate the total climate forcing, likely erring on the high side—and feeding too much forcing into climate models leads to too much global warming coming out of them.
Figure 1. Atmospheric methane concentrations, 1985-2008, with the IPCC methane projections overlaid (adapted from: Dlugokencky et al., 2009)
Figure 2 shows the year-over-year change in the methane concentration of the atmosphere, and indicates not only that the growth rate of methane has been declining, but also that on several occasions during the past decade or so, it has dropped to very near zero (or even below) indicating that no increase in the atmospheric methane concentration (or a even a slight decline) occurred from one year to the next.
Figure 2. Year-to-year change in atmospheric methane concentrations, 1985-2008, (source: Dlugokencky et al., 2009)
This behavior is quite perplexing. And while we are not sure what processes are behind it, we do know one thing for certain—the slow growth of methane concentrations is an extremely cold bucket of water dumped on the overheated claims that global warming is leading to a thawing of the Arctic permafrost and the release of untold mega-quantities of methane (which, of course, will lead to more warming, more thawing, more methane, etc., and, of course, to runaway catastrophe).
To some, the blip upwards in methane growth in 2007 (Figure 2) was a sure sign that the methane beast was awakening from its unexpected slumber. Climate disaster was just around the corner (just ask Joe Romm).
But alas, despite the hue and cry, in 2008 the increase in methane, instead of equaling or exceeding the 2007 rise, turned out to be only about half of the 2007 rise. And together with information on from where it seemed to emanate (the tropics rather than the Arctic), it cannot be taken as a sign that the slow methane growth rate during the past decade was coming to an end as a result of an Arctic meltdown.
Here is how NOAA methane-guru Ed Dlugokencky and colleagues put it in their publication last week describing recent methane behavior:
We emphasize that, although changing climate has the potential to dramatically increase CH4 emissions from huge stores of carbon in permafrost and from Arctic hydrates, our observations are not consistent with sustained changes there yet.
The factual portion of their conclusion remains the same, with or without the inclusion of the final word (but it sure was nice of them to throw it in there as a bone to climate catastrophists the world over).
Reference
Dlugokencky, E. J., et al., 2009. Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L18803, doi:10.1029/2009GL039780.
Opening sentence of the article:
OK Leland Palmer, I told you on several occasions where you tried to steer threads towards Methane that you should wait until WUWT had a thread that was relevant – here you go, have at it. – Anthony
Where is Leland? Is he hiding out in his methane-proof bunker?
Earth to Leland! Come out, come out, wherever you are…
Clearly all those Soviet pipe leaks have been fixed.
Kudos to anyone who figures that out.
@ur momisugly Larry Sheldon (17:35:38) : RE: sulfates. Sulfur (usually in the form of those nasty tree killing kind ) is also necessary for crop production – especially corn. Since we started filtering out sulfates from power plants, sulfur levels in the soil have decreased significantly, resulting in farmers having to add sulfur (at a cost to them and the consumer ) to their farmland in order to maintain and increase yield to feed all those hungry mouths and provide good corn for the ethanol industry. There have been some articles in the farm journals about it. One of those unintended consequences. Funny how things work isn’t it?
Ahem,
Methane spontaneously oxidises to CO2 – takes about 10 years in the atmosphere.
Given we have started to use natural gas as a power source because it’s supposed to be cleaner, then that use would convert methane faster into CO2 than nature itself. Hence a decline in atmospheric methane coupled with an increase in CO2 could be explained by this mechanism but you would need the numbers to see if the hypothesis stacks up.
Also of interest is the timing of the decline – 1998 ore thereabouts – and as higher temperatures stimulate chemical activity.
And then if the methane is plutonic and is initially produced by a deep bhot biosphere, then a drop in global temperature might be likened to lowering the temperature of bacteria in a petri dish – lowering temperatures would in both cases diminish biological activity and hence production of methane.
I am assuming that the Earth’s internal thermal state is powered by the electric currents entering and leaving the polar regions. If they reduce in power density, so will the rest of the system in due time.
dscott (14:39:40) :
Bacteria “farts” are largely responsible; Locally, gas seepage from the sub-surface also contributes a source of methane.
What’s all this talk of converting CO2 to CH4 ???- the other way around is common (any time we burn nat gas) but in reverse??? You are losing me there.
Larry Sheldon
Actually you may not be off topic at all. Atmospheric SO4 and methane seemed to be related. (See my prior post and reference to study be Peter Ward: http://www.tetontectonics.org/Climate.html ). In brief, his hypothesis is that SO2 is oxidized to SO4 in the atmosphere by OH, H2O2, and/or O3. (Methane, CO, and other gases are also oxidized by them.) In moderate amounts, the SO4 aerosols block incoming radiation and causes global cooling. This is what happened after Mt. Pinatubo erupted causing global temps to fall. In larger amounts, the SO2 consumes the oxidizing agents in the atmosphere (OH, H2O2, and O3) causing increased methane leading to global warming. The increased SO4 also causes acid rain. It’s a bit more complicated than this, but check out the paper. It’s worth a read.
“Is it acceptable for me to highjack a methane thread??
There’s an “Open Thread”–the 2nd item (at present) on the sidebar. Post it there.
Well, while we are wildly speculating ill put my tuppence worth in… Clearly this is a result of land development through the draining of wetlands(they dont call ch4 swamp gas for no reason)… mostly by us dairy farmers;-) i want carbon credits for the swamps drained on my property dammit!
“Larry Sheldon (17:35:38) :
…….and the SO4 that made the acid rain that was killing the trees and all?”
A skewed comment. As a chemist I am quite sure that the “acid rain” is already a once-upon-a-time story. The culprit of deforestation up to the 70s is now regarded as gaseous SO2 released directly from mining and coal- and oil-burning industries without desulfuration equipment. At higher concentration SO2 is toxic to living organisms, as exempllified by the use, from ancient Roman period and most probably from Greek period, for keeping wine safe from bogus bacteria (the “sulfite” seen on the labels of Caliofornian wines is an aqueous solution of SO2). As you may know the desulfuration in developed countries began in the 70s (from 1971 in Japan), and thereafter essentially no damage on forestry has been observed.
In Japan the Environment Agency began monitoring of the rain pH in 1983 and continued till 2005, and the pH value remains 4.8 +/- 0.2 throughout, which exactly coincides with the value expected from the atmospheric SO2 concentration (4~5 ppb) and the dissolution equilibrium constant and acid dissociation constant of SO2.
So don’t worry and you’d better forget about the once-claimed “acid rain” if you live in a developed country.
Many landfills are now capturing and using huge amounts of methane from landfills that used to seep into the atmosphere. Landfill design these days incorporate specific features for the drawing off of this gas and it is used for energy. A town local to me uses the methane from their landfill to heat their high school.
at last some hope
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
Michael (14:51:41) :
When objects approach the speed of light they crush themselves to death. Can I say this without sounding stupid?
No.
As I see it, there are only two possible explanations for all the hysterical posturing about disappearing permafrost and the catastrophic methane release that is supposed to occur as a result. It’s either abysmal ignorance or willful deception. Permafrost is a phenomenon of subsoils. Even on the North Slope, where the earth is frozen to depths of 800′ to over 2000′ the permafrost is covered by a seasonally active layer which varies from 2′ to 6-8′, which thaws every summer. Even in the unlikely event that permafrost declines were to continue according to the most hyperbolic projections, the soils affected at the margin would be more than 7′ underground and, unless the climate of the Arctic were to come to resemble that of southern Missouri, would be unlikely to see temps much more than a few degrees above freezing. Hardly a condition to create a “bubbling cauldron” of gaseous emissions. In addition, permafrost areas are covered by tundra vegetation and the warming that decreases the permafrost would have an even more profound effect on the growth of the various plants in the area. Indeed, there have been several studies which suggest that warming of permafrost regions will turn them into net sinks for carbon by increasing the CO2 uptake of plants.
The methane scare really took off several years ago with the publication of studies that indicated that carbonaceous material in Arctic soils was much greater than had been thought previously. What all the hysterical pronouncements that accompanied those studies failed to credit was that the presence of all that carbon was an indication that the Arctic region had to have been exposed to numerous episodes of warming over time for the dead plants to be created in the first place.
Loss of permafrost will have some ill affects for infrastructure, although those are probably exaggerated as well, since design measures which allow a structure to survive in a permafrost environment would also serve to protect it from a loss of the permafrost’s support.
The most unpredictable consequences would likely be on the hydrology of the areas affected, since the permafrost layer tends to limit vertical movement of water and create subsurface ponding and horizontal flows and changes in the behavior of water could have significant effects which will be almost impossible to model.
@Yaakoba: Welcome aboard. You are in for the ride of your life if you hang in here and pay attention. This site is populated with a lot of people with a lot of alphabet soup after their names and by people like you and me who just want to know what the hell is going on. Some of the alphabet soup guys are decidedly unfriendly and will cut you to the quick in a New York second. This is the nature of the beast. Do not internalize it, learn from it.
Other alphabet guys are obviously teachers, and their natures are exhibited by quite long posts which demonstrate esoteric points to the level of ad naseum. But, their natures require them to inform. Deal with that, Google their points and move on. In time you will come to understand that the Anthropogenic Global Warming threat, so beloved of political forces which have an agenda not frequently addressed on this web site, is [snip].
Once you understand that, do what guys like us do. Get in peoples’ faces. Demand proof of their claims. Get politically active, demand that your representative and senator provide you proof that the AGW they are voting to tax you about is a fact.
People with alphabets do not engage in direct action on public issues unless they are perpetrating a fraud. The alphabets here are not going to gird their loins, indeed they would require a study to know what loins are, so the salvation of the world as we know it is up to you and to me, as it always was.
Fight the fraud.
P
Roger Sowell (14:09:01) and link to @yaakoba
Okay, so even if you get the arithmetic correct you still need to understand the motions of the solar system. Consider that Sun will not stand still while Earth moves about it; nor Earth for Moon. An analogy: Think of two cars going down a 3 lane freeway. One is in the center lane traveling at a fairly constant speed. The second car is behind the first and traveling forward also. The driver of the second car now speeds up while pulling into the right lane, accelerates, and moves past the first car. Then the driver steers left and in front of the first car but continues into the left-most, or third lane and then decelerates just enough that the first car now moves past and into the lead again. That having occurred, the car in the third lane pulls into the center lane while again accelerating to keep pace. The second car has just ‘circled’ the first car. Repeat.
Draw this on a sheet of paper and show the path of both cars – for the car in the center lane the result is easy—more or less a straight line. I’ll let you two figure out all the other stuff.
Sodium bisulfite (NaHSO3) is used in wine but also it is what is responsible for the strong nose effect of the Dijon mustard.
papertiger (13:52:39) :
> Is it acceptable for me to highjack a methane thread?
No. If you have something worth calling attention to, use the Tips & Note
thread. This weekend you can also use the Open Thread.
Why would anyone want to hijack a thread? It doesn’t gain you
much respect. It’s sort of like tacking a small pork-barrel spending
bill to a larger certain to pass, e.g. to raise the debt ceiling.
Mike Lorrey (17:29:04) :
most UFO sightings are methane swamp gas releases…
…refracting the light from Venus.
Slightly OT – but may interesting to many on this side of the pond.
I tried to post a link to this CH4 story on a UK Guardian CIF thread yesterday – it never appeared, confirming a distinct change in moderation policy there over the past few weeks.
I’ve been posting (polite and accurate) sceptical comments on CIF for around a year now. Increasingly, over that time, climate threads (particularly Monbiot’s) developed into long running, ding-dong battles between believers & sceptics.
It was noticeable during this time that the more forthright sceptic’s posts were post-moderated more frequently than those of the more vocal ” true believers” – showing a , perhaps unsurprising, degree of bias at the Guardian. Still – it was possible to briefly see all posts and observe any moderation bias.
However, starting with the Yamal Tree-ring story a couple of weeks ago – everything has changed at the UK’s most “ethical” newspaper. On all CIF threads dealing with climate, most posts containing obviously sceptical comments or links never make it to publication. “Your comment is awaiting moderation” is as far as it gets.
This is obviously done by pre-screening usernames or IP’s – since the more abusive “believer” posts still appear briefly before being mnoderated.
Basically – CIF debates now mainly consist of warmists agreeing with each other, with the odd mild sceptic input from unscreened newbies.
Sorry to be long winded – but I think that the news should spread that the UK’s premier liberal newspaper is now operating this soviet approach to reader’s opinions.
Maybe CIF noe stands for “Comment Is Futile”.
Re: tokyoboy (19:09:54) :
As a chemist ………….the pH value remains 4.8 +/- 0.2 throughout, which exactly coincides with the value expected from the atmospheric SO2 concentration (4~5 ppb) and the dissolution equilibrium constant and acid dissociation constant of SO2.
_______________________________________
As a chemist, what would you say would be the pH value expected from the atmospheric CO2 concentration (387,000 ppb) and the dissolution equilibrium constant and acid dissociation constant of CO2?
“Neither one of you understand relativity at all.” Paul p
“Thus, unlike the invariant mass, the relativistic mass depends on the observer’s frame of reference from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity
Thanks Paul. My chief point though, is about government schools.
Larry
H²SO4 — Sulfuric acid.
tokyoboy (19:09:54) : As a chemist …….. In Japan the Environment Agency began monitoring of the rain pH in 1983 and continued till 2005, and the pH value remains 4.8 +/- 0.2 throughout, which exactly coincides with the value expected from the atmospheric SO2 concentration (4~5 ppb) and the dissolution equilibrium constant and acid dissociation constant of SO2.
Sorry about this being a bit OT but I want to know. So what would be the pH value expected from the atmospheric CO2 concentration (387,000 pp[b]) and the dissolution equilibrium constant and acid dissociation constant of CO2?
bhalligan (18:54:19)
Thanks for the Ward link. Very interesting.
@ur momisugly vg (19:36:10)
That’s pretty amazing. A report from the BBC on climate change that actually gives a fairly well balanced view? A report that uses the term ‘skeptics’ and not ‘climate change deniers’? A report that gives the views of both AGW believers (e.g. the Met Office) and of skeptics? A report that boldly states that there has been no global warming since 1998? A report that admits that some climate models are now predicting global cooling over the next few decades?
One might say this is ‘unprecedented’…..
Chris