An intensified study of high-altitude water vapor should provide new information that would deepen our understanding of how the planetary weather system works, and climate too. Could this be of any help in a practical sense, for purposes of mitigation? It may only be indirect, but the knowledge gained could have one unexpected benefit, by revealing the true importance of gaining control over sources of methane emissions! Currently, nearly all of the emphasis is on our need to control CO2 emissions, which is fine except that it isn’t going anywhere. The political action that is necessary is simply not responding. For reasons I won’t get into today, it might be easier to gain the political traction needed for dealing effectively with methane than CO2, at lower economic cost and with better chances for gathering broad public support.
Cutting methane emissions has one great built-in advantage because of how quickly the result would be reflected in atmospheric content. Methane in the air decomposes naturally in a relatively short time. About one-twelfth of what is now in the air will be gone in one year, continuing on at the same rate of decline. Since airborne content hardly changes over each year this means nearly all of the gas newly emitted in that year simply goes toward replacement of those losses. Theoretically, if there were no new emissions at all of methane, anywhere, for twelve years (which of course is not possible) the air would soon be fully depleted. Realistically, we could set a truly ambitious goal of a 20-30% reduction in the airborne level over a couple of decades with some hope for accomplishment, which would be far beyond the wildest dreams for carbon dioxide, and nature would pick up much of the disposal cost.
But isn’t the CO2 level in the atmosphere much more important than that of methane in terms of its greenhouse-type of warming impact? That’s what everyone has been led to believe, is it not? Yes, but for all the wrong reasons, and the numbers make no sense. I would argue—and have done so before in these letters—that CO2 and CH4 have roughly equal responsibility for the global warming that has occurred since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Water vapor has still done most of the actual work, but it couldn’t have done so without first being pushed along by other sources of warming, in the form of a feedback. Those sources included a whole host of things, mostly positive but some negative, almost all due to extraordinary human activity. CO2 and CH4 are both a big part of this group and both stand out as positives. Why do I think their effects up to this date are about equal? It is only an estimate, but there is a simple way to get a more accurate answer, which will take a little help to acquire. In fact science as we know it has the ability to provide that help, if it is willing to make the effort.
Scientists have already used multiple experiments and related findings to show that a doubling of the CO2 level will, entirely on its own accord with no feedbacks included, create enough energy to raise global air temperatures by 1.2C. (That is the most up-to-date figure. Older estimates have been as low as 1.0C.) Why not do the very same thing with methane, and all other greenhouse gases, and any other stuff that may be subject to the principle of logarithmic effectivity, before dealing separately with certain key feedback phenomena? Why should those feedbacks, including the strong water vapor effect, all be attributed to CO2 alone, when their actual cause arises in response to warmer temperatures in general, not just to CO2 inputs?
These shellfish are filter feeders and can accumulate high levels of toxics including domoic acid, produced by microscopic thought about this vardenafil canadian pharmacy algae. Inattention to Results When team members buy levitra viagra are not holding one another accountable, they increase the likelihood that individual ego and recognition will become more important than collective team results. That is except if you are selling shovels rather than gold. 4. “All I need to do is join an affiliate program, buy a million email addresses, do one e-mail blast and I’m rich!” – This really is a treatments that’s generally use for that reason of treating erectile dysfunction is staying away from counterfeits and adulterated cheapest cialis in australia. It is very natural viagra uk experiencing erectile problem sooner or later in life.The principle of logarithmic effectivity is a matter of separate interest. Will it always hold true, up and down the scale, for all greenhouse gases, over long stretches of values? According to my observations from reading the Weather Maps, as demonstrated many times, it certainly does work for water vapor. Starting with about 15 grams, all the way up to about thirty kilograms, every double provides enough energy to temporarily create an extra 10C in the surface air temperature reading of the area exposed, net of any other factor that may have an associated effect. New evidence is made available every day, and any person willing to make a proper effort can easily see how true this is.
On the same basis I think methane would pull about 0.5 to 0.6C per double, well below the CO2 figure of 1.2C, but I don’t have the best data to work with. On the other hand there is very good data showing how much each of these gases has actually increased over the years since 1750, and methane is far ahead on that score, perhaps enough to roughly equalize the two in terms of temperature results. Currently they are both increasing at about the same rate, near 1/2 of 1% oer year, which will give CO2 an advantage over time, but will not change the past history one bit. To conclude, methane really does offer great opportunities for temperature abatement and should get much more attention.
Carl