Climate Letter #1618

Estimates of the sources of growth in atmospheric methane since 1750 have been radically revised (University of Rochester).  “Methane emissions to the atmosphere have increased by approximately 150 percent over the past three centuries, but it has been difficult for researchers to determine exactly where these emissions originate; heat-trapping gases like methane can be emitted naturally, as well as from human activity…..scientists have been vastly underestimating the amount of methane humans are emitting into the atmosphere via fossil fuels.”  A new study has made a convincing case, which also demonstrates that emissions from natural seepage are much less than estimated.  The information has a good side:  “The data has important implications for climate research: if anthropogenic methane emissions make up a larger part of the total, reducing emissions from human activities like fossil fuel extraction and use will have a greater impact on curbing future global warming than scientists previously thought.”

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–The basic study has a paywall, but thanks to Carbon Brief there is a clearly written review explaining the underlying arguments supporting these new claims and the importance of this investigation.
–Extra comment:  As observed, atmospheric methane content has increased a full 150% since 1750 while CO2 content has grown a tiny bit less than 50%.  Since they are both important greenhouse gases, one might ask, how much has each of them added to the global temperature increase over the last 270 years, which now stands at 1.2C degrees?  The available answers tend to be confusing, but maybe a different approach  would be helpful.  Here is an idea.  We know from scientific studies that any doubling of airborne CO2 has the radiative forcing power to add about 1C or a bit more to surface air temperatures all by itself alone, before taking any feedbacks, oceanic inertia or other forcing elements into account.  Every double is thought to have that same power, establishing a logarithm which implies a significant steady weakening of forcing power per molecule of CO2 in the air as its content rises.  I can see why that same reasoning should also be applicable to all the other greenhouse gases, including methane, but no such resulting temperature information is available.  I would assume that the various climate-warming feedbacks attributed to the warming effect of CO2 would at the same time be enabled in the same way by the net warming effect of all the other forcings, not all of which are gases.  (Water vapor and cloud cover are both treated as two of the principal feedbacks, even though water vapor certainly has a forcing effect similar to that of the greenhouse gases.)  Every one of the greenhouse gases has its own peculiar set of photons of energy to intercept and in part remit back to the surface, which further separates their powers.  So each gas has powers depending both on degree of concentration and on relative positioning of photon interception in the radiation band, and both of these will have a real effect on how much warming they can generate from a greenhouse standpoint.
Based on limited information that is available, I have been able to figure out that none of the well-mixed gases (which excludes water vapor) are stronger than CO2 apart from the “advantage” they acquire from being relatively scarce.  On balance, no one of them is strong enough to add as much as 1C to the power of global warming upon doubling in concentration, like CO2 does.  In the case of methane I think the power of doubling on the global temperature is probably around half that of CO2, thus about 0.5C or maybe 0.6.  This is a very rough estimate, but it does give some idea of the relative importance of the activity of the methane increase since 1750, three times as great as the 50% increase in CO2, both being established by well-accepted measurements.  Methane could have done more of the warming during much of that period.
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One more new story about methane, through its connection to the fracking industry, is worthy of consideration (Medium).  The author is an analyst with expertise in the systematic gathering and application of geographic mapping information.  He provides strong refutation aimed at those who claim that natural gas is clean and should be promoted as a proper bridge toward the future of alternative energy.
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Alarm bells are ringing again for coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef (The Guardian).  “The Great Barrier Reef could be heading for a third major coral bleaching outbreak in the space of five years if high ocean temperatures in the region do not drop in the next two weeks…..Sea surface temperatures (SST) are already more than 1.5C above average across large areas of the reef, with a month remaining until temperatures usually peak…..So with about a month to go, the pattern so far is following in the footsteps of 2016-17 and it’s already hotter than it was in the interim years.  If it happens or not will depend on the vagaries of the weather for the next two weeks.”
Carl

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