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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Prove it with real world measurements.
In the military we used grid coordinates, a convenient predefined sections of the world. Pick several with comparable features. Use NASA satellites that measure atmospheric composition, another for temperatures. Surface temperature readings at same time as satellite readings. The atmospheric composition with greenhouse gases should create a local greenhouse conditions that should be measurable.
If not the theory should be assumed false. Or, come up with some better test.
Try not to be confused by the intentional shift in UNITS when speaking of CH4 — — current methane atmospheric concentrations amount to LESS THAN 1.9 ppm… yes, that is one point nine parts per million.
After forty years of victimisation, CO2 must be becoming rather exhausted and so it is time for the IPCC and the BBC to move on to a new less known sacrificial climate lamb like methane.
The ruling elite will find a reason to ban any source of energy because they want to send us back to the stone age and reduce the population. When we used coal the complaint was; particulates, sulfur, and mercury. But then people developed scrubbers that could greatly reduce those problems. And people started using natural gas. But the complaint then was that we were running out of gas and laws were proposed to reduce the use of it. Then new ways of getting it were found like fracking. So a new boogy man had to be found. Carbon dioxide fit the ticket. All fossil fuels produce it and it cannot be eliminated because it is a natural product of combustion. Among all fossil fuels natural gas produces less CO2 per unit of energy than any other. Also in terms of real pollutants it is very clean. Further it can be used in combined cycle plants to achieve very high efficiencies of up to 60%. Intelligent people realized that we need fossil fuels to survive. They began to think that natural gas was the best option. So a means had to found to demonize that too. Voila ; methane leaks.
The elite will find a reason to condemn any source of power because it doesn’t fit with their agenda.
From the article: “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.”
I don’t assume the IPCC is right because there is no evidence to back up these claims.
Alarmist climate science is made up of unsubstantiated assumptions, assertions, and claims, and this methane meme is just another one of them.
They keep changing their story, and moving the goal posts. Just as long as it fits the narrative; that we nasty humans through our behavior are causing a “climate crisis” which will destroy the planet, unless we “go green”.
The climate drones don’t know they are shooting themselves in the foot with a machine gun.
What does this do? It smacks the 97% consensus on CO2 and temperature “change” down that was 99% certain! It makes the 100s of thousands of temperature adjustments to match CO2 rises wrong for them as well as freddy science.
When I first saw info on methane in the atmosphere a decade and a half ago it was little different from what it is now. NASA said it’s nearly all natural. Having jiggered climate data feverishly for over 30 years, I’m 100% certain, that, if climateers switch horses to methane, we will soon see 2021’s 1.9ppm ‘grow’ to 2.5 and greater.
I recall Mark Steyn’s statement at the Senate hearing on data tampering, that the consensus is certain with 95% confidence on what the weather will be like in 2100, but have no idea what 1950’s temperatures WILL be.
Linden had this to say to an Irish conference on climate last year.
“Our task is to show the relevant people the overall stupidity of this issue rather than punching away at details.”
I’ve argued for some time now, that for sceptics there is no point in arguing the science to deaf ears. A great job was done by sceptics on the science, but there is no chance for debate on it now. Ridicule is the way forward. They have shot themselves in the foot everyday for at least 15yrs and wow! Methane is their new ‘sauve quiet peut!’
https://www.yourdictionary.com/sauve-qui-peut
It is broadcast to the losers by their gov on the final hours of a war.
The CO2 hoax has already crashed, this pandemic is over; both have failed to give Globalists world control. Still they raise another boogeyman aimed directly at natural gas and oil producers. They’re simply moving the goal posts it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with power and control. Tyrants always use force to drive their people where they want them to go. Whereas leaders tread a reasonable path and lead their people to the destination. Today we’re being driven like never before………
The footnote is more important than anything in the article.
I would like to see the scientific basis of their assumption that, in the absence of changes in atmospheric CO2 and methane (or any other gas-de-jour), earth’s climate would have remained entirely static over the last century or so.
If anyone knows of such evidence please provide a link.
It would be extremely interesting to see a demonstration of how in a dissipative nonequilibrium rotating climate frame, with chaotically circulating oceans, climate stasis is even possible. For a single day – let alone a century.
Look up the IR absorption band for methane. There is no way that methane can be responsible for ANY warming. Once again we have a situation where people are just taking someone’s word for it.
The entire problem with the climate is the same as the problem with covid information, scientists have all been clouded over with politics. And politics controls the spending, which further politicizes science.
if
and human industrial processes emit less than 75% of CO2
and most of atmospheric methane is released due to natural processes
and temperatures are increasing at less than the rate of the most optimistic modeling
then humans are off the hook, and warming is a natural process unlikely to be affected by human actions.
I feel so much better, somehow.
The lying and total dishonesty about this is far over the top. The reason why these fraudsters continue their hype about methane is that they are losing the battle about CO2. Ed Berry’s carbon model is now backed up with independent research where the physicists in this paper confirm the results of Berry’s work with their own calculations arriving at the same conclusion that human emissions of CO2 account for only roughly 25% of the atmospheric increase since the start of the industrial revolution and not 100% as the IPCC claims.
The IPCC’s carbon equations are obviously wrong, which means even if atmospheric CO2 were causing the warming the IPCC claims, they would have to decrease the attribution significantly if not entirely from their claims.
The founding principles from atmospheric science treat CO2 as a GHG of only secondary significance in the troposphere that is not controlling on earth temperatures because the water vapor/ cloud feedbacks are anticipated negative, contrary to failed climate model assertions.
Further, methane’s absorption spectrum at 3.3 and near 8 microns is totally dominated by water vapor, neutering the effects nearly completely.
These nut jobs need to stop this dishonesty and come clean. The political class that funds this junk science is ruining the economic engine of this country for reasons that will make no difference to the climate or atmospheric CO2 levels.
That latest paper backing up Berry can be found in Health Physics here:
World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil… : Health Physics (lww.com)
No it doesnt.
1) Its absorption frequency is saturated by water vapour
2) The earth produces little energy at that frequency, Wiens law
3) Methane is highly reactive and oxidises rapidly
The amount of methane that has come from bogs and swamps over the millennia vastly exceeds whatever we can add, and probably does each year today, there is that much rotting vegetation around the world.
This is clearly a Vegan move to outlaw meat.
Per the IPCC:
CO2 forcing versus mean 1800-1850 = 2.0 W/m2
Methane forcing versus mean 1800-1850 = 0.2 W/m2
ONE-TENTH of the CO2 forcing.
That’s a long ways from half.
w.