From UC Irvine:
UCI studies find different reasons for global methane riddle
One cites less dependency on oil, the other new farming practices
Irvine, Calif. – Two new UC Irvine papers reach markedly different conclusions about why methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, unexpectedly leveled off near the end of the 20th century. They appear today in the journal Nature.
Both note that after decades of increases due to worldwide industry and agriculture, the tapering off of the hazardous hydrocarbon in the atmosphere – which began in the 1980s – was remarkable.
“It was an amazing mystery as to why this occurred,” said earth system science professor Eric Saltzman, a co-author of one paper, which suggests that reduced use of petroleum and increased capture and commercial use of natural gas were the driving factors.
A second UCI paper found that water efficiency and heavier commercial fertilizer use in the booming Asian farming sector provided less fertile ground for soil microbes that create methane, while at the same time increasing nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas.
Associate researcher Murat Aydin, lead author on the first paper, drilled into South Pole and Greenland glaciers to extract trapped air as much as a century old. The samples were analyzed for ethane, a chemical that has some of the same sources as methane but is easier to track.
“Levels rose from early in the century until the 1980s, when the trend reverses, with a period of decline over 20 years,” Aydin wrote. “We find this variability is primarily driven by changes in emissions from fossil fuels.”
The authors posit that replacement of oil with lower-priced natural gas could be key.
The second team measured and analyzed the chemical composition of methane in the atmosphere from the late 1980s to 2005. They found no evidence of fewer methane atoms linked to fossil fuel. Instead, the sharpest trend by far was changes in the Northern Hemisphere linked to new farm practices, mainly the use of inorganic fertilizers instead of traditional manure and drainage of fields mid-season.
“Approximately half of the decrease in methane can be explained by reduced emissions from rice agriculture in Asia over the past three decades, associated with increases in fertilizer application and reductions in water use,” said lead author Fuu Ming Kai, who wrote his UCI doctoral thesis on the work and is now with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology.
Martin Heimann, director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, was asked by Nature editors to write a commentary on both papers.
“It is indeed very remarkably rare that two differing studies about the same subject come out from the same department – I can’t think of a similar case. But I think both analyses are scientifically sound and in themselves consistent,” said Heimann, lead author on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. “At this time I would not favor one over the other.”
Heimann has invited members of both teams to a September symposium at which, he said, “we will discuss the two studies from all angles.”
Identifying methane sources is urgent. Research has shown that the fast-acting greenhouse gas is the second-largest contributor to climate change. Scientists around the world were heartened by the stabilizing levels, but there are now signs the hydrocarbon may be on the upswing again.
“We will need to reconcile the differences,” said earth system science professor James Randerson, a co-author on the second paper. “The important thing is that we must figure out – as scientists and a society – ways to reduce methane emissions.”
“It was an amazing mystery as to why this occurred,”
Hmmm, sounds like settled science to me. /sarc
Mike Jonas says: “…In the late 20thC, atmospheric temperatures increased, thus increasing the oxidation rate and thus reducing the observed level of methane (or its rate of increase). In the last decade, atmospheric temperatures have declined, thus reducing the oxidation rate, and thus increasing the observed level of methane.”
The rise in overall atmospheric temperatures is so minuscule, it’s unlikely to be a factor. I’d look at incident UV radiation levels, or maybe ionosphere temperatures.
Have you noticed that methane is always quoted in parts per billion.
If you use parts per million, the methane content of the atmosphere looks less impressive.
Comparing CO2 is 390ppmv
Methane is 1.7 ppmv
Methane is rising at the not very frightening rate of 0.002 ppmv per year. Which raises the question, How accutate are these numbers for methane? How variable is it around the globe?
If natural methane emissions are highly temperature dependant then the stalling in the growth of methane could be caused by a pause in warming. A period of cooling could bring about a fall in atmospheric methane.
I began my oil and gas industry work in 1979 in Canada. Canada was ahead of the US in restrictions on flaring gas from low gas-oil ratio wells, and I can tell you the difference in the field and in the office was very, very noticeable. Now it is is uncommon to find a grouping of oil wells – and gas-wells with a minor H2S content – that are not connected to pipeline gathering systems or burnt on-site for power generation.
Across the world in the early 1980s it was still common practice to flare (burn) huge amounts of gas associated with the (desireable) oil and natural gas liquids easily separated at the site. There are a lot of photos of huges flares from Indonesian, Saudia Arabian and Russian oilfields; nobody wanted the gas enough to build pipelines and the facilities needed to bring the gas to market in a usable state. In Australia (and China) methane was actively degassed from coal as a safety measure, but not collected as a useable product, long before the CBM business started up in North America. If there wasn’t a huge increase in methane after WWII and then a decline starting about the 1980s, I’d be surprised. The flare, like the smoking stacks of the 19th century, was a visible sign of business, profit and progress.
What arrogance to believe that every trend we see occurring in nature is because of us.
Wait wait wait. I thought our love of a balanced diet that included meat was killing mother earth because cows produce so much methane.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/19/quantifying-the-moo/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/01/methane-the-other-worrisome-ghg-coming-to-a-dairy-farm-near-you/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/climate-craziness-of-the-week-eat-bugs-not-meat-to-save-the-planet/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/07/penn-states-greenhouse-gas-solution-cow-beano/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/07/methane-the-panic-du-jour/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/27/climate-craziness-of-the-week-2-steak-watch/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/07/pachauris-at-it-again-shun-meat-he-says-but-what-about-the-buffalo/
We were told, repeatedly, that all that extra methane cause by our way of living was hurting the earth. Now I find out that methane has not increased in the atmosphere in some time! That tells me all you need to know about the global warming movement. That tells me it is all political, targeting the modern lifestyle.
Isn’t The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Climate Change Faith supposed to iron these things out behind closed doors? Too much of this stuff and people are going to start thinking that the science isn’t settled.
Dave Wendt says:
August 10, 2011 at 3:19 pm
“…That is complete BS….” plus a link.
Now THAT was a useful link. Odd that H2O shows three times the downward forcing in winter than CO2… and that in summer it’s about TWENTY FOUR times that of CO2.
Where is the regulation to get this abhorrent hazardous gas under control? It has a far worse effect than CO2.
We were told that methane would continue to rise if we did not change our filthy habits. We haven’t and it’s flattening, just like the rate of sea level rise. These are just some of the reasons why I pay very little attention to alarmist crap.
Methane on its own is not a greenhouse see here http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/07/natural-gas-more-polluting-than-coal-only-according-to-the-ipcc-a-note-from-cementafriend/
There is more methane coming out of the front of a cow by bleching than out of the back of a cow although the dung from cows and pigs etc is a source of mehane from bacterial breakdown.
However, the major point is that methane on its own is a) not a greenhouse gas b) does not burn in the air to CO2 c) is slightly soluble in water d) can be oxidised by ozone to methanol (-OH radical) which is highly soluble in water.
The other main point is that methane or natural gas when burn in a furance gives more so called greenhouse gases than coal and if one is concerned about “greenhouse” gases (no scientific evidence that one should be concerned) than natural gas is not the clean energy promoted by the oil and gas companies.
These two papers and the research on natural methane emissions are a waste of money.
Seems to me they don’t know what the cause or combination of causes is. They are just speculating. Probably going to tell us they need more research money. I’m not going to worry about the amounts of trace gases in the atmosphere. This planet can survive far worse situations than trace gases. These researchers would perform more beneficial services if they would try to improve farm prodution and contol of pests and bacteria.
“Fast-acting greenhouse gas” … Maybe even the fastest acting greenhouse gas? Or is there a faster one? Can a card-carrying warmist please educate me about how fast each of the greenhouse gases act? You learned that in university, i didn’t. Does one send out LWIR photons with light speed and the other one with warp 2?
Perhaps Dr. Salby will look at the sources of methane from satellite data. These two studies seem to be simply guessing at the sources and quantitative data.
Most of the reduced methane emission is due to Beano added to bovine silage. Farm practice changes to reduce water usage, improved fertilization, increased use of natural gas for energy, all played roles, but it’s the Beano that done most of the work. 🙂
Maybe, just maybe, the production of methane released into the atmosphere actually follows the real movement(s) in global temperatures?
“Research has shown that the fast-acting greenhouse gas is the second-largest contributor to climate change”
A fast-acting gas? What in heck is that? It has a short-half-life, ~7 years, and does not act any differently from CO2 or water vapor. Ir absorbs IR and re-emits it almost instantaneously. If it happens to bump into another molecule while energized, the energy may be come heat. Of course, it’s a two-way street as other molecules can transfer heat energy to methane and reult in IR emission.
AND how can it possibly be the 2nd-largest contributor to climate change when water vapor is responsible for 95% and CO2 about 3%? Even though methane is considered a 20X better heat-trapping gas than CO2, it is measured in ppb and not ppm. It is 1/200th as abundant as CO2, so it’s effect is (1/200)*20 = 1/10th that of CO2.
The idea that it is 20X better at heat-trapping is also suspect as its two peaks in the IR absorption spectrum are not only narrower than the tow peaks of CO2 but they also overlap more with water vapor’s broad peaks than does CO2.
**** Someone should check this piece of science as methane may be being given a bum wrap not because it is really a better IR absorber then CO2 (which it does not appear to be) but because it is another way the AGW bedwetters can criticize human activities and blame warming on humans.
It has been shown, however, that CO2 and water vapor do not complement each other. rather, CO2 appears to detract from water vapor’s effectiveness in heat-trapping.The same is most likely true for methane.
The huge methane plume released during the BP oil spill into the Gulf waters disappears in about 6-12 weeks as hordes of bacteria had a huge feast.
Whenever a “scientist” starts out by ignoring water vapor, you pretty much know that you are reading the work of either an idiot, a non-scientist, or a political serf.
I suspect you already know the answer, Smith, natural gas per reservoir varies in methane content, but generally methane is the largest fraction–typically 70%. There is some odd natural gas in Wyoming that I know about which is less than half methane and the remainder is CO2.
As a couple of other people have noted, changes in oil and gas development have resulted in the capture of more methane and its diversion into fuels. When it is burned it ends up as CO2 and H2O rather than as methane. The IR spectrum for methane shows it has strong absorption in the region around 8 um where water vapor is moderately transparent. As someone pointed out, its half life in the atmosphere is fairly short, seven years was the value I recall being quoted.
“Research has shown that the fast-acting greenhouse gas is the second-largest contributor to climate change.”
Research has shown that black is white, white is black, true is false and false is true. My broken clock has been shown to have the right time twice a day. 23 times a day it has the right time for other time zones.
Provide a test for falsification of climate change and test against that. That would be real science. Something that to this point climate science has not done.
Instead we have so called scientists arguing that climate science is somehow special, that in the case of climate science we need reverse falsification. As though climate science was somehow “special”, that the rules of science don’t apply when saving the planet and lining your pockets at the same time.
They don’t know. No one knows enough about Climate.
No such luck. Methane has many sources, some of which release more methane with increasing temperature, so that the rate of production is a function of temperature.
“The important thing is that we must figure out – as scientists and a society – ways to reduce methane emissions.”
Really?? Then why did you tell us at the start of your article that “..the tapering off of the hazardous hydrocarbon in the atmosphere – which began in the 1980s – was remarkable. It was an amazing mystery as to why this occurred,” said earth system science professor Eric Saltzman, ” Your own statements indicate that the ‘hazardous emissions’ are no longer rising. Didn’t you believe your own analysis?
Perhaps this drop in methane emissions correlates with increased use of Beano? Or reduced consumption of cabbage, sauerkraut, and kimchi?
Inspired by Robert Burns ‘Tae a mouse’, I give you the methane powered parody
‘Ode Tae A Fart’
Oh what a sleekit horrible beastie
Lurks in your belly, efter the feastie!
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin
There sterts to stir an enormous wind…..
The neeps and tatties and mashy peas
Stert workin like a gentle breeze,
But soon the puddin wi the sauncie face
Will have ye blawin all ower the place!
Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A’body’s gonnae hiv tae pay.
Even if ye try tae stifle,
It’s like a bullet oot a rifle!
Hawd yer bum tight tae the chair
Tae try an stop the leakin air!
Shift yersel fae cheek tae cheek
an Prae tae God it doesnae reek!
But aw yer efforts go assunder,
Oot it comes like a clap o thunder!
Ricochets aroon the room,
Michty Me! A sonic boom!
God almighty it fairly reeks!
Hope I huvnae shit my breeks!!
Tae the bog I better scurry..
Aw, whit the hell, it’s no ma worry!
A’body roon aboot me chokin,
Wan or two are nearly bokin!
I’ll feel better for a while
an Cannae help but raise a smile.
“Wiz him!” I shout, with accusin glower!
Alas too late, he’s just keeled ower…
“Ye dirty bugger!” they shout and stare.
A dinnae feel welcome any mair!
Where e’ere ye go, let yer wind gang free.
Sounds like just the job fur you ‘n me!
Whit a fuss at Rabbie’s party,
Ower the sake o one wee farty….
Two conflicting conclusions……. peer reviewed…… both accepted as proper science. One of them thinks we’ve decreased our oil consumption compared to the 80s. The other believes the amount of manure in this world is predicated upon the farmers desire to use it as fertilizer, when obviously the amount of manure in this world is predicated upon the amount of insipidly stupid papers which are accepted through the peer reviewed process.
How long do we have to endure this death spiral of science before someone slaps sense into the community. While we all enjoy a poke at sophistry produced by academics, this has gone on for far too long!!! Every fu[self snip]ing person that signed and helped write either paper is a complete imbecile and should have their degrees rescinded! This includes, but isn’t confined to, earth system science professor Eric Saltzman, Associate researcher Murat Aydin, lead author Fuu Ming Kai, and earth system science professor James Randerson, a co-author
But those are just booby awards. The complete and total embarrassment to the scientific community award…the only “human rebuttal of Darwin” award evuh must go to Martin Heimann, director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. He not only endorses both works of sophistry, he fails to understand they both can’t be correct at the same time! My 3rd grade granddaughter can do better science than this. Worse, we may have paid for the science or paid for their education and likely did both. And we’re going broke……….small wonder.
Darn, I forgot why I came here in the first place…There was an observation around Seneca Lake in New York of the occasional sound of heavy guns or maybe Lake Champlain, and I heard it referred to it as “The Guns of Lake Champlain”. There is some dispute whether these silent in the 1930s, after the development of natural gas wells in the area. One proposed explanation was that gas was seeping into the lake and then to the atmosphere were it could ignite and make a booming sound. Maybe. The same sort of thing was said to happen in the Bay of Mandalay where the sound is called the “Barisal Guns”. In this case the source of methane was allegedly the anaerobic decay of material in the Ganges delta. And similar things in the English channel and so on and so forth.
It seems improbable that methane seeps, which are known to exist in many places, could ignite and make a booming sound without causing other observations, such as impacts people and structures. However, gas production probably has put many a methane seep to death.
Mac the Knife,
Excellent☺
Creative! But you are a sick fellow just the same.