Climate Letter #2045

Re the methane study, there was in fact a press release sent out, on August 19, in German.  My daughter just found it, in English, on the search engine she uses.  I found the same release for the first time today on Google, also translated, noting the peculiarity that this identical release was issued from a different department of the Max Planck Institute.  There are still no references of any kind on these two search engines tied to reports in the media about this study, perhaps in part because there is no regular following in the media of publishings from IOPscience.  On all counts, what a shabby way to treat one of the most important research works of our time, from a group of experienced persons who certainly must rank among the best for doing this kind of special study.  Anyway, the press release is well-written and offers a worthy perspective on the information in the report.  You should read it here (in English), https://www.mpic.de/5016436/kuenftige-methankonzentration-in-klimawandel-szenarien-unterschaetzt and then I will provide some quotes and commentary, with boldfacing of key words and phrases.

From pp1:  “showed that the changes in methane concentration under future warmer climate conditions have been severely underestimated.”  Most contemporary estimates show methane and its powers in a state of decline before long.as necessary replacements for its short molecular life cycle are expected to be dropping away.

From pp2:  “How long this growth will continue, and if there is a risk of overheating our planet therefore are important questions for future climate changes.”  How indeed can any question be more important than the one in boldface?

From pp3:  “….they found that high natural methane emissions will continue for as long as the climate stays warmer than at present.”  The natural components of methane emissions are quite unlike the anthropogenic components, which are on balance likely to decline.  The stated temperature qualification for continuing these high emissions from a leading natural component, wetlands, is said to be unequivocal, applicable to all of the different trend scenarios evaluated by the researchers.

From pp4 plus Dr. Kleinen:  “In a previous study, Kleinen and Brovkin applied the same modelling system to climate states of the past, such as the last glacial maximum and the early Holocene, and found good agreement with evidence from ice core data…...which gives us confidence in our results for the future.”  The “hindcasting” test for climate models requires high quality historical data to use as testing yard-markers.  Ice core data reveal trends of methane concentrations, plus CO2 numbers and temperature swings, with great accuracy over the past 800,000 years.  You couldn’t ask for a better way to test the model.

From Prof Brovkin:  ““Methane concentrations always grew in concert with warming in the past, providing a positive feedback to climate change.”   In yesterday’s letter I described this feedback in terms overlooked by the press release. I can see how it has much in common with the well-studied water vapor feedback, giving it extraordinary strength. They both have a characteristic that is very special, and very unusual, which makes them complementary participants in highly effective mutually-reinforcing feedback processes.  As with all GHGs, they supply energy that causes surfaces that causes surfaces to warm.  The surface warming has a direct impact on natural sources of emission leading to higher concentrations of both gases, enabling immediate increases in energy output.  The feedback process then continues to add decreasing amounts of energy output in a “reverse compounding” type of succession.  All other GHGs, and a large amount of methane, do not have feedbacks of this type, because they arise from sources lacking the peculiar relationship with surface temperatures that makes it possible.

From Dr. Steil:  “Until now it has always been assumed that the anthropogenic methane emissions are much more important for future methane concentrations than the natural ones. Our results show that this assumption is wrong because wetland emissions are so strongly determined by warming.” That kind of language could not be more forceful, or more challenging.  The entire body of mainstream climate science will need to find persons willing to accept the challenge, and respond in some way. It should not procrastinate over something this important.  Their problem is, if the research holds up, all of today’s temperature projections will have to be corrected by employing considerably higher future methane levels, yielding numbers that could possibly be large enough to be disturbing.

I continue to wonder why a study of this magnitude was published in a journal like IOPscience.  Is it possible that no one could be found who had the level of competence required to perform a realistic peer review, as preferred by most journals?  If that is the case, what alternative measures are currently available that can be taken with the objective of coming to a proper conclusion?  If this is in fact the best science that can be had on the subject, why settle for anything less?  Either the mainstream majority holds a view that is more accurate or it does not, and unfortunately there is not much room (that I can see) for simply reaching a compromise in this situation.  Being held by a traditional majority is not necessarily the best reason for holding that a certain viewpoint is right.  Who will be the first person to insist on doing something meaningful to resolve this dilemma?

Carl