From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60203683
The BBC article on methane makes an interesting claim:
An IPCC study last year suggested that 30-50% of the current rise in temperatures is down to methane.
The study referred to is AR6, which estimates that increased levels of methane in the atmosphere have contributed 0.5C to global warming since 1850-1900:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
Given that even IPCC reports have accepted that some of the warming since the 19thC has been naturally caused, that does not leave much which can be due to CO2.
Even without taking those natural factors into account, net of aerosols only about 0.6C of warming is man-made, once methane is excluded from the equation:
It therefore seems that CO2 is a vanishingly small problem.
Methane, which is 84 times as powerful as a GHG per unit than CO2, has an extremely short life span, declining in the atmosphere by half every decade.
Consequently we don’t have to start drastically reducing emissions now. Merely maintaining current emissions will mean that atmospheric concentrations will level off quickly:
Indeed, if the current push to cut methane emissions is successful, we would likely see rapid global cooling, assuming of course the IPCC calculations are right.
Given the reactions of the world’s leaders and scientists in the 1970s following three decades of global cooling, that might not turn out to be such a clever idea at all!
FOOTNOTE
I should point out that some scientists believe that methane is virtually irrelevant as a GHG, because its emissions spectrum is already fully filled by water vapour.
See here.
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BBC should be shut down or at least privitized.
Privatized means sold into private ownership
Privitized is a new word meaning Hung up by ones privites
I subscribe to the latter sanction for their unscientific absurdity,
and will happily sit under the gallows knitting as the Harrabins crown jewels are stretched to their limits
Lol! what an imagination.
Round these here parts, that’d be known as “redneck bungee-jumping”.
That’s hilarious. Alistair, may we call you Mr. DuFarge? Your suggested solution would also go a long way to solve the alleged population crisis, at least as far as it’s most vocal proponents are concerned.
CAGW: Much Ado About Nothing…
“I should point out that REAL scientists believe that methane is virtually irrelevant as a GHG, because its emissions spectrum is already fully filled by water vapour.”
FIFY…
😉
The absorption peaks of methane are indeed tiny, overlap with water vapour, and methane is measured in parts per billion which quickly oxidizes to form CO2 and H20. I keep seeing the claim that it is 84 (or 110, or whatever the number of the day is) times as potent a GHG, what I have not seen is a credible paper that justifies that claim. Is there a REAL scientist out there who can credibly explain this claim?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_window#/media/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.svg
I raised that question on our forum The trite answer is 1 gram of methane has 84 times the absorption of 1 gram of CO2, each taken in dry conditions and in mutual isolation. So considering the relative abundance of CO2to methane =2 ppm and CO2 =400 ppm and the fact that Methane rapidly oxidises to H20 and CO2 then methane is a bit player. And then Methane absorption bands overlap water’s absorption bands. But with a bit of spin you could make it sound like CO2 will raise temperature by 2 degrees and belching cows by 176 degrees Which is exactly what the Carrie Johnson and Kamala Harris brigade ( to indict the true culprits of their countries’ voluntary liquidations want you to believe. Boris thinks with his genitals and Joe doesn’t think
Some quick googling suggests you are correct, that’s how they get that value. The logic however, is totally and completely misleading. How much energy a given molecule can absorb is irrelevant. The question is, when the molecule is at equilibrium temperature with the surrounding atmosphere, how much energy does it absorb that would otherwise have escaped to space, and instead is either re-radiated or given up via collision with other molecules. CO2 is repeatedly cited as 3.7 w/m2 for a doubling of CO2. Three pages of google search results failed to turn up a single reference to the same metric for methane.
Total bullsh*t.
The outright lie can be exposed by referring to the IPCC’s own info. This is from the third report, I do not have time at the moment to search for something more recent, but this is sufficient:
CO2 going from 278 to 365 (=1.31X) = 1.46 w/m2
CH4 going from 700 to 1745 (=2.49X) = 0.48 w/m2
If CH4 was in fact 86 times the effect of CO2, that number would be many times 0.48 w/m2. The fact that 2.5X of CH4 only gives you less than 1/3 of the w/m2 that you get from 1.3X of CO2 tells you what an absurd outright lie it is.
Page 358 of https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/TAR-06.pdf
“by 176 degrees”
I am surprised that they never did this “calculation” in Kelvin. Things would have looked even scarier. ;-p
Burn it all and make stuff using it.
Some of the real science:
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MethaneClimate_WijnGaardenHapper.pdf
The lie about methane is growing. I first wrote about it in 2011 (see here https://cementafriend.wordpress.com/2011/10/) when the factor was 21. Then I have seen 25, 31, 35 and now the lie has grown to 84 times CO2 which is all due to water vapor and not CH4 which has no relevance as it does not absorb at longer wavelengths of the Earths peak radiation emission at around 10 micron.
Could someone help me to read this graph on absorption?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_band#/media/File:Atmospheric_Transmission-en.svg
From about 600nm to about 800nm the “absorption and scattering” of water vapor is 100%. What does this mean? Does water absorb all radiation between 600~800nm? If so, how much water vapor is needed?
“Absorption and scattering” just means the number they show is based on what got through, but if they just said “Absorption” nit-pickers would say “yeah, but how much was scattered”….To calculate how much water vapor absorbs how much IR at any given wavelength, you need HiTran or the workstation version of ModTran…
And looking a bit more at the graph, I see the bottom panel is indeed Rayleigh scattering.
Will people ever realize science is for sale. There is almost nothing you cannot order and get.
another greenhouse gas…that’s not our problem
methane is coming from China and Russia
A lot of gas is being generated by the Biden administration itself….
Gas by Biden, hot air by Trump. What chance does the planet have?
The planet is doing just fine on the climate front.
Some humans however get excited about the outcome of measuring atmospheric heat transport, and the increased temperature created by increasing size and density of cities.
“created by increasing size and density of cities.”
Here’s a question for you and I will look forward to your answer. If it is the cities are the problem how come the arctic is the fastest warming place on the planet?
Well that depends on what rag you read. it seems there are claims that somewhere else on the globe is warming faster than everywhere else.
Really, reference please?
The Arctic is the weak pole and as such is prone to warm air ingress.
The opposite applies to Antarctica, where increased equatorial convection causes increased cooling. The differing speeds of the zonal winds is a factor.
That is the simple answer.
Well then if it is a simple answer(not that I don’t accept your answer), let’s have a simple reference? I would so like to see where that is stated?
Less brains than prezzy biden has.
And less hot air than Donnie?
Why the base period of 1850-1900?
Because humans didn’t do squat before 1850 when they sold their soul to the devil and started using coal and oil.
No: only oil. Coal was already in use in the mid 1700s by industries in many Eurpean countries. (… but I suspect that the climate cultists didn’t study enough History to know that…)
Climateers don’t seem aware that in 1850, world pop was only 1.2 billion, most living in pre-industrial poverty. Estimates for NAm + Europe combined was 240 million and they made most of the industrial smoke and CO2, almost all from biomass. Today, there are ~7.9B with an average individual CO2 footprint easily 50 times that of the 1850 folk.
The pop in 1950 was double that of 1850, but only a third of today’s pop and the average individual CO2 footprint in1950 was probably less than 10% of today’s. Here is a chart showing population and energy consumption as carbon in oil equivalent.
You can see that IPCC was correct when it earlier used 1950 as the threshold for measurement of significant human caused CO2 emissions, exclusive of biomass use. It unequivocally reinforces the natural provenance of the 0.6°C from 1850 to 1950 that IPCC purloined in 2015 to add to ‘human caused’ temperature change when their model Temp anomaly forecasts turned out to be 300% too hot!
The war on CO2 is petering out as activists find out that the peons don’t like freezing in the dark, so they need to quickly find a new bad guy to trash.
Yes.
CO2 failed, so now on to methane. As global temps rise, more methane gets released. Soon, it will take us all over like The Blob just crept up on so many people!
Regarding the virus: people are now noting how the virus is failing to put us all under totalitarian control, and are beginning to wonder when the next virus will be unleashed on us? There seems to be no shortage of research funding to play Gain of Function with these viruses.
Yes, even NASA acknowledges that most of the 1.89 PPM methane is natural, which is why the NOAA graph shows seasonal variation not unlike CO2.
That’s no surprise. Most of ALL GHGs are natural.
“The Last Democrat ” your getting my hopes up. Although I’m a conservative I think both political parties need serious work, but I won’t get into that there is just not enough space.
“The war on CO2 is petering out…”
There is too much inertia in money, reputation, and legislation for the war on CO2 to peter out in the immediate future; perhaps in the proverbial 10 years and a few trillion more dollar. Solar and wind farms in the pipeline (no pun intended) as well as pending Democrat “Climate Legislation” aren’t going to go away based on facts and analysis. Other countries, e.g. the UK and European Union, have similar built up inertia. Half a Billion US dollars on “climate change” trumps a pile of studies such is discussed in this post. Ain’t gonna happen!
All that inertia in the US could hit a brick wall come November.
a
Exactly. Too much evidence, too many papers, the CO2 hoax is dying. Spin up something new: Fugitive emissions from oil and gas.
I would not believe a word the BBC says about “climate change”. They are DESPERATE for a warmer world to prove them right so not impressed with your “SCIENCE”
BBC has many employees, and many retired employees. BBC has pension obligations.
BBC is signed-on as a “green” institutional investor. As many large governments (and govt-ordained entities such as the BBC) have found out, pension obligations can be very challenging to fund.
So, a growing, guaranteed, steady funding strategy is very desirable.
So, they push CAGW to make the market, and then invest in the market, and reap the financial benefits.
BBC invests with Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, LLC. A green investment management firm for very large investors.
So, BBS is biased toward supporting and pushing man-made global warming.
Yes, global warming was a hoax, climate change is fraud.
I find it all pathetically sad that everyone keeps talking about “climate change” as if something to obviously wrong could exist.There i simply no such thing as a global climate. Cimate is a local phenomenon, caused by local conditions.
A quick MODTRAN exercise at the web page of the University of Chicago: 420 ppm CO2, 1.9 ppm CH4, 1976 US std atm, no clouds or rain, 288.2K ground temperature, gives 267.5 W/m^2 upward, looking down from 70 km. Change only CH4 by doubling to 3.8 ppm and get 266.7 W/m^2. 0.8 W/m^2 difference. I don’t see why CH4 should get much attention, even if you believe these static values matter to the climate outcome.
Another way of illustrating the facts in the footnote. Methane is 84x CO2 when both are measured separately in an otherwise ‘pure’ atmosphere. But NOT when both exist in the presence of water vapor in the real world. Methane effect is almost completely smothered by WV in all absorption bands. CO2 only partly so.
Are there overlaps between CO2 and methane?
If you look at the link mentioned at the end of the article, you’ll see that the absorption bands of CO2 and methane don’t overlap, but both are trace gases anyway compared to water vapor.
Agreed…Ask 97% of Climate scientists how the GWP of 86 for methane is calculated and they will NOT be able to tell you, or at best come up with a gobbledy-gook explanation of IR absorption per tonne but still won’t be able to show you a computer calc based on IR absorption over 70 km. of atmosphere height and the number of available photons .and their energies.
The methane 86 GWP number is actually just playing with numbers. Your Modtran run is much more relevant. When you analyze how GWP is calculated per tonne of added CH4…it boils down to:
ppmCO2/ppmCH4 * MWtCH4/MWtCO2 * molar Specific heat ratio between gases*some Einstein constants*some half life approximations.
Considering only the first 4 terms……(400/1.7) X (16/44) = 81 all on their own. In the extreme of calculating heat absorption of 100% of each, the numbers work out to the well known specific heats of each gas.
So the reason the GWP of CH4 is so high is because there is so little of it in the atmosphere. Add to that CO2 increasing much faster than CH4, and you end up with CH4 being not something that humanity should expend much effort on. Those who are concerned with GHG emissions should look to what could be done with regards to concentrated CO2 emissions sources such as concrete plants, rather than cow pastures.
Can’t it be simple math to see at what level methane equals the potential of CO2 for warming? If it is 84 times more potential, then just to equal potential by volume, 430 ppm divided by 84 gives us 5.12 ppm. Is my math or thinking too simple? With methane at 1.9 ppm (last alarmist value I heard), it still has a long way to go to match the expectation of CO2 contributions.
Too simple. The GHG absorption measured individually in the lab is not what happens in the real world when the gasses are mixed with water vapor. Click the footnote link for the real physics. It goes to an old WUWT physics explanation.
Thanks, the whole argument and discussion on the alarmist side still comes down ALL CHANGE IS BAD.
To bad you can lead the horse to water, but you shouldn’t drown it until it drink.
I say they’re maintaining their anti-fossil fuel agenda (undermining CO2 reduction by using nat gas.)
If methane’s IR frequency bands are extinguished within the atmospheric boundary layer, then it cannot warm the planet. Given the overlap with water vapor, it is very likely methane would have no effect except in very dry environments.
In fact, if the gas is well mixed then it will actually provide a cooling effect.
Dr. Happer, often presenting here at WUWT notes the CH4 effect :
Does anyone notice the difference?
CO2 :
So, moving from today’s CO2 concentration of approximately 400 ppm to 800 ppm (a doubling) results in an additional approximately 3 W/m^2 (277-274). This is, however, less than one percent of the Earth’s energy budget. Look, people, cloud changes, ocean currents & etc. have larger impacts fer Christ’s sake!
And bnbn overlooks the earlier WUWT lesson today, that alarmist CO₂ ppm actually starts in 1950, not mid 19th century! In 1950, NOAA measured CO₂ at 315 ppm.
And that history proves nature is responsible for most of the atmospheric increase, not mankind.
So, your chart is all about mankind maybe causing a few CO₂ ppm. While nature proves 1950s CO₂ 315 ppm rising to 2022’s 417 ppm causes almost 0 degrees warming.
I distinctly remember the CO2 concentration of 280 ppm from my science classes in the late 1950s. I know it’s anecdotal, but some numbers stick with us.
CH4 :
…and we can all stop for the pause. Were the gas fields shut in? So why was that?
CO2 again :
The edit function allows no graphic option….
Anyway even doubling CO2 or CH4 from today would make no measurable difference, in 100 years.
CO2 again :
Just to put Dr. Happer’s graphics together for perspective.
OK, bonbon, according to the graph I should choose to move to either the South Pole or Samoa. Decisions … decisions!
Exactly; doubling CH4 from 1.8 ppm to 3.6 ppm (the black line compared to the red line) leads to immeasurable impacts.
Ridiculous — the ppm is negligible. Just an attack on natural gas (they used to favor it).
some politicians are getting nervous with the current results of their stupidity and suggesting natural gas should be considered “green”. This ‘study’ is likely a threat to keep them on point.
I wonder how they’re defining “green” in this context? Are they admitting it’s not a problem or that it’s a very minor problem? Or is it simply that they’re realizing the damage they’ve done to their economies with simplistic wind and solar utopian visions? If so, it’s one thing to backtrack to save their economies, but they have to rationalize calling gas green, given their previous dislike of it and it once not being green. I should think the fossil fuel hating fanatics won’t approve of this change.
Since the EU’s ideologically-based policy (dogma) is to deny approval, support and funding for electricity production from non-wind and solar sources (wind and solar being officially classified as “green”), instead of changing the dogma they reclassify gas and nuclear as being “green.” Typical socialist bureaucratic thinking: Changing official dogma would require some current politically powerful heads to roll. Can’t have that, can we?
I am opposed to natural gas being redefined as “green” because that preserves greens’ power over the narrative. We should simply recognise the benefits of all kinds of dispatchable power and tell any green opposing them to take a running jump.
The influence of Methane on warming has varied significantly over the years. The EPA uses the factor of 25X more potent than CO2 and others used 35. But what no one talks about is that the major IR absorption band of Methane overlaps with water vapor so methane is only a potent GHG in the laboratory (in vitro) and not in the real world (in vivo). Methane also has a very short lifetime in the atmosphere so its impact is short lived.
The more logical reason for methane to have a large impact on global warming is that there are people (researchers?) that want us to stop using methane. Thus the need to make methane evil. The story must continually get worse so that they can claim that we will all die (in a day, week, month, year, or whatever they think will scare us the most.)
Yes. Much of the methane production is natural, coming from wetlands. It almost certainly was higher in the past before wetlands were drained and converted to farmland.
See where it comes from:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4789
Yes, interesting videos but don’t forget that these are just based on models, estimations and simulations, not actual satellite measurements…
“The visualization was created using output from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, GMAO, GEOS modeling system, developed and maintained by scientists at NASA. Wetland emissions were estimated by the LPJ-wsl model, which simulates the temperature and moisture dependent methane emission processes using a variety of satellite data to determine what parts of the globe are covered by wetlands.”
Actual measurements by ENVISAT satellite were quite different but have not been updated for a long time.
I understand that it is a model and not actual measurements. However, the point is, considering the source, it would not have been a surprise to see attribution to urban areas and ‘fracking’ regions. Instead, most of the source areas are shown to be opposite those.
Yes, good point.
Sir, the reasons for methane to have a large impact on global warming as stated in a PBS documentary last night are 1. The arctic permafrost is melting thus allowing unknown vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere 2. This unknown amount of methane is not accounted for in any climate models.
However, I think you are probably closer to the truth than they are.
The math on this is pretty entertaining in some areas – comparing the GHG emissions of coal vs gas.
If your power system is in an area with coal that emits little methane during mining and where the available gas is from leaky systems, the lifecycle GHG emissions of the coal plant is lower than the gas plant.
We compared Wyoming Powder River Basin vs Texas notoriously leaky gas and found that coal vs gas was a wash – no statistically significant difference.
I’d bet anything that there is some European coal that has lower lifecycle GHG emissions than imported gas from Russia and the US. Maybe a lot of it.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-gas/
It is not the gh gasses doing any warming.
Click on my name.
In that article I see “any radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O”.
I’m no scientist, so let me ask a stupid question. So, won’t some or most of the radiation absorbed by water also be released? In that case, can’t some of it be absorbed by CH4?
“So, won’t some or most of the radiation absorbed by water also be released? In that case, can’t some of it be absorbed by CH4?”.
Some of the radiation being released by water vapour is already being absorbed by water vapour. The charts show the end effect after all of the absorption-radiation-reabsorption-reradiation cycles. So CH4 makes little difference at the frequencies with high absorption by water vapour.
still waiting for the dreaded permafrost methane apocalypse that’s always lurking
Yes u should have watched the PBS documentary last night. Your fear factor knob could have gone to 11.
So we really are responsible for AGW by mandating the restoration of the #1 source of methane, wetlands. Drain the swamps again and everything will be ok.
If by “swamp” you mean the U.S. government Foggy Bottom yeah, that would work.
The most foul reeky swamp, ever!
Now methane is 84 time more potent. It used to be 54 times more potent, and before that 47 times more potent. I don’t think everyone is looking at the same data to get their answers.
If you take a molecule that makes up only 1.7 ppm of the atmosphere, multiply it by 84 (or whatever), you don’t even get to the present ppm of CO2. So how can CH4 be more potent than CO2 when CO2 has a broader spectrum range?
Pound for pound, in other words by mass, methane is 84 times more powerful than CO2. So if methane increases by 500 ppb by 2100, a similar increase in CO2 would be about 0.18 ppm. So it’s a matter of figuring out how much warming an extra 0.18 ppm of CO2 would produce, and multiply that by 84. It comes out to less than a tenth of a degree.
I think I’ve also read that methane is 84 times more IR absorbent than CO2 measured by weight. Atmospheric concentrations of gases are normally measured by volume (“ppmv”). Since the molecular weight of CH4 is 0.36 times that of CO2 (16÷44 = 0.36), it will be 0.36×84 = 30.5 times more potent than CO2 at “warming”, not 84 times – when measured the normal way, by volume.
I have the impression that methane alarmists deliberately used the lightness of CH4 to inflate its alleged warming potential. Who cares about consistency in measurement units when you’re out to terrify the peasants and save the planet?
I should use the term “mass” but when I was at school it was still called atomic (or molecular) weight. Old dog
new tricksI think you are 100 percent correct on the by mass assessment as being deliberate.
Methane can only and solely absorb energy in Earth’s atmosphere in two very specific short radiation bands @ur momisugly 3.3 & 7.5 microns of the much broader electromagnetic spectrum. A curious effect in a laboratory but irrelevant in the chaotic atmosphere where it competes with other substances. Water vapor, 5000 to 10,000 times more prevalent than methane in the air, has already absorbed virtually all that energy. Methane cannot absorb what has already been absorbed. Increased methane in Earth’s atmosphere is zero, none, nada threat to climate. Good for hack politicians and eco-nuts to work up fear, votes & donations through scientific ignorance though.
I thought the half life for methane was more like 3 or 4 years.
Even less probably
Too reactive to hang around for years.
Methane’s two absorption bands fall under those of water vapor, and since water vapor is much more abundant than methane and that the IR absorption of water is already close to saturated, methane hardly plays a role at all. But go tell that to people like Cook and al. who say the consensus thinks otherwise, THE science…
I should have guessed that Big Green would whip up the climate alarmists to dream up attacks on methane, i.e. natural gas, since most reasonable people see it as more viable option than wind and solar.
Even Kerry sees it as a “transition” source of energy.
So all we have to do is stop using natural gas and switch to coal?
No
Extract the methane and burn it to save the world
Same as the massive Enviromental cleanup we are doing in AB with oilsands, the biggest natural oil spill in history