Rapid Rise In Methane Emissions In 10 Years Surprises Scientists (theguardian.com) 293
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change. Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb. This is a cause for alarm among global warming scientists because emissions of the gas warm the planet by more than 20 times as much as similar volumes of carbon dioxide. In the meantime, emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main component of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere -- have been leveling off. The new research, published in the peer-review journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the world's attempts to control greenhouse gases have failed to take account of the startling rises in methane. The authors of the 2016 Global Methane Budget report found that in the early years of this century, concentrations of methane rose by only about 0.5ppb each year, compared with 10ppb in 2014 and 2015. The scientists speculate that agriculture may be the main source of the additional methane that has been recorded. However, they cannot be sure of all the sources, owing to a lack of monitoring. At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful. Unlike carbon dioxide emissions, however, which have been tracked in various ways since the 1950s, emissions of methane are poorly understood and could represent a threat that scientists have still not accounted for.
We're so screwed (Score:5, Insightful)
Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions.
Re:We're so screwed (Score:4, Interesting)
Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now when it (apparently) wasn't then?
I write apparently since there was no runaway warming caused by methane.
(Yes, the "up to 9 degrees warmer" is according to peer reviewed climate science)
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Nine kelvins, or are you using the obsolete and unspellable faranheight units?
Re:We're so screwed (Score:4, Informative)
"I" am not using, I'm citing the scientific work.
https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
(C, thus K, not F)
Paper states 6 degrees (Score:2)
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Your link does not support your claim. My original question: Why we would see methane release now when it wasn't (apparently, due to lack of runaway warming) 8000 years ago still stands, supported by peer-reviewed science.
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Why we would see methane release now when it wasn't (apparently, due to lack of runaway warming) 8000 years ago still stands, supported by peer-reviewed science.
I don't know if this is the reason, but I'll offer a possible reason: perhaps the methane was not there 8000 years ago? We are talking about anaerobic bogs; these grow over time. There are lots of them around where I live. In the immediate aftermath of the last glacial maximum there would have been nothing there but stone, boulder clay, gravel and lakes.
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No, as far as I understand the science the methane got there thanks to the glacial stage, i.e, it was already there when our interglacial began. Thus it's strange it would be released now and not during the Holocene Climatic Optimum.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/f... [nsidc.org]
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Your link does not support your claim. My original question: Why we would see methane release now when it wasn't (apparently, due to lack of runaway warming) 8000 years ago still stands
We do see methane release now. [express.co.uk] That is not in question. You have not provided evidence that we did not see methane release 8000 years ago. There were certainly feedbacks in play during the transition from the glacial phase to the current interglacial. This may have been one of them.
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I'm sorry, are you claiming that methane emissions (while cold) caused the transition from glacial to interglacial stage?
Also, I have not provided evidence for something I haven't claimed. Please follow the logic: If methane emissions from a warming arctic cause runaway warming, why did it not happen when the arctic was warmer than now 8000 years ago?
Re:Paper states 6 degrees (Score:5, Insightful)
Please follow the logic: If methane emissions from a warming arctic cause runaway warming,
The flaw in your logic is this. GGGP writes:
"Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions."
To which you respond:
Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now when it (apparently) wasn't then?
This is obviously flawed reasoning since you have not shown that methane was not released ~8000 years ago. You have asked "why would it now?" seemingly doubtful of this well documented fact. You then follow up with a non-sequitor:
I write apparently since there was no runaway warming caused by methane.
This idea of runaway warming was introduced by you. Certainly methane is now escaping from the arctic. Certainly it is now a feedback to the current warming as it may have been then. Nothing you've said addresses the points of the GGGP:
"Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply and that will handily offset any thing we can do in the short term to limit CO2 emissions."
That is very likely true.
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The full sentence was: "Between fracking, livestock & warming tundra, I expect methane emissions to keep rising sharply"
You responded: "Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now"
Well, they weren't doing nearly as much fracking (or livestock for that matter) 8000 years ago. And methane IS being released now. That is not in question. So how does your response address
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"keep rising sharply"
Are you suggestion we're soon going to be overrun by cows? Of course the only claimed worry is that the tundra is suddenly going to create a runaway warming scenario where additional warming will release more methane.
I suggest debating the actual points made instead. Apparently no sharply rising releases of methane happened during the Holocene Climatic Optimum - because it's still there.
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Apparently no sharply rising releases of methane happened during the Holocene Climatic Optimum - because it's still there.
That does not follow, Methane is currently rising sharply. We're still here. One does not preclude the other. You can have a feedback that does not lead to a runaway effect. This happens when the gain is less than 1. You also need to understand that "keep rising" does not imply a runaway effect. For instance, how would you interpret the following recent headlines:
- Treasury yields poised to keep rising (runaway yields?)
- Hi-Pro Feeds - Weak Prices but Beef Supply to Keep Rising (runaway beef?)
- C
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Well, according to Environmental Change in Siberia: Earth Observation, Field Studies and Modelling [google.ca], parts of Siberia were already seeing temperature increases in the 3 - 10 degree C range in Winter by the year 2000 (page 68, I think), that's higher than the thermal maximum indicated by your link and, of course, global temperature have continued to rise since then.
So, the answer to your question might be that the methane could be released now because the areas where the methane is stored could already be war
Re:We're so screwed (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now when it (apparently) wasn't then?
I write apparently since there was no runaway warming caused by methane.
(Yes, the "up to 9 degrees warmer" is according to peer reviewed climate science)
Did anyone say it wasn't? Even if if had been, there's been 8000 years to build up and sequester a fresh supply. It doesn't take that long to create methane, given the right precursors.
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Thus the conclusion is that methane emissions will not cause runaway warming.
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Thus the conclusion is that methane emissions will not cause runaway warming on its own.
FTFY
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Thus the conclusion is that methane emissions will not cause runaway warming.
I don't think anyone who knows anything is seriously concerned about runaway warming. The concern is about global temperatures rising a few degees and causing large shifts in local climates around the world and raising sea levels. If the planet were prone to runaway warming, it would have happened regularly and scoured life from the planet (all but perhaps some extremophiles). Still, non-runaway but significant warming could have major repercussions on humanity, forcing us to spend tremendous amounts of res
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Have you noticed all that activity with coal seam gas lately? A lot of wells/boreholes have been left open for very long periods of time (almost entire years in some cases) before the infrastructure has been put in place to collect the gas. That wasteful stupidity with mostly methane has got to have added up to something noticable.
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Probably because there wasn't a runaway effect caused by just the release of methane from those regions?
Last time I know of where this planet ended up with runaway from Methane was when the sea floor stocks were released.
However what you're doing here is basically missing the forest for the trees, because ~8000 years ago the CO2 concentrations were also lower than they are right now, so there's more than just one gas and one data point to consider.
We also don't need 'Runaway greenhouse effect' in order to c
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While you're correct about CO2-levels, the Holocene Climatic Optimum was warmer than now* so the added effects of methane then should be comparable to now.
*) Marcott et. al:
"Our results indicate that global mean temperature for the decade 2000–2009 has not yet exceeded the warmest temperatures of the early Holocene (5000 to 10,000 yr B.P.)."
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Don't disagree with that in the slightest.
However we had a mobile hunter/gatherer population. So I'm not really getting why I should care that the temperature was the same 8,000 years ago as compared to today.
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Isn't at least part of the point that there were not huge trillion dollar assets in coastal cities 8000 years ago. And that the lack of 'runaway' warming back then has little bearing on the observed effects today and the science that suggest that lots of those coastal assets could be under water in a few decades.
Presumably you're making some kind of a point about permafrost methane release not being much of an issue - because it won't obliterate all life on Earth. Well, that's encouraging...
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I have no idea what you were just trying to write. I don't think it's related to any of my posts, though.
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Because methane is a biproduct ... (Score:2)
Since it was up to 9 degrees warmer in Siberia (and other tundra-rich locations) earlier during our interglacial, ~8000 years ago, why would the methane suddenly be released now when it (apparently) wasn't then?
Because methane is a biproduct of decaying biomass.
You know, that stuff that has been growing in the tundra since the iceage and didn't decay due to freezin' or near-freezing temperatures.
You're welcome. Glad I could help.
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8000 years of plant growth, perhaps.
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A 2C rise by the end of this century is going to create some major problems. The whole "hyper-alarmism" thing is pretty much been manufactured by the pseudo-skeptics to make scientists look bad. No climate researcher I'm aware of thinks we're going to turn into a Venus, but we are going to see significant changes in rain belts, sea levels, oceanic pH levels, desertification, and some of this is already apparent.
Let me ask you. What do you think your grandchildren are going to think when the Midwest grain be
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Especially the warming tundra- a rather nasty feedback loop that dwarfs fracking, livestock, and other agricultural sources by many orders of magnitude. I first heard about this back in 2006, and it's the reason why I had great doubt about the climate change models.
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Also termites and suboceanic methane sinks. The latter I believe will be the runaway chain reaction that will have the biggest impact of all.
If I'm not mistaken, those suboceanic sinks (I assume you mean submerged clathrates?) will convert to CO2 as they warm and rise if they're deep underwater. But the impact to ocean acidification & oxygen depletion in seawater is an unknown of great concern.
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They don't- as proven in the Bermuda Triangle....instead a bubble of methane rises out of the ocean and into the high atmosphere, affecting everything from the surface tension of water to altimeters and other airplane navigation sensors on its way up.
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A runaway chain reaction involving methane is black swan kind of bad.
One of the reports linked in TFS says that "the recent methane surge into the atmosphere" has been caused "an unexpected surge in microbial sources". Why was this "unexpected"? It isn't news that temperature rise favours both the growth of microbes, and the release of various compounds from melting ice.
I've always been under the impression that in vast and complex systems with many causal interdependencies, runaway positive feedback mechanisms are the rule rather than the exception. And it strikes me that f
Re: We're so screwed (Score:3)
Re:We're so screwed (Score:5, Funny)
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And it strikes me that for scientists who think about and investigate this stuff every day, predicting 'bootstrapped' methane emissions as at least a potential problem should have been a no-brainer.
They probably had no data or solid modelling supporting it. Most scientists are wary about publishing alarmist articles, unless they are very sure.
This is also a reason why the sea level rise estimates were known to be way below what was likely to actually happen, for a long time. They are betternow that models have improved.
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I've always been under the impression that in vast and complex systems with many causal interdependencies, runaway positive feedback mechanisms are the rule rather than the exception.
And I've been under the impression that vast, complex systems which have managed to stay stable for several hundred million years probably don't have those. Shifts to new stable points? Sure. Runaway positive feedback? Hasn't happened yet.
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Also, complex systems not only contain some runaway processes (which always have a limit), but also processes that reduce the changes. I feel like we don't hear enough about such processes. The media and everyone else seems to prefer to spread panic to get the attention of their readers.
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So what you're really looking for is someone to tell you "It's okay that we're fucking up the planet, because there's this magic reversing process..."
There's no doubt there will be a new equilibrium, but that hardly means it's going to be a very pleasant point, and so long as we're bound and determined to just keep barfing hundreds of millions of years of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere every few decades, that equilibrium point keeps getting worse.
And really, let's try to imagine that all that trapped m
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"People also like to forget that OXYGEN is considered a greenhouse gas"
No, it's not. You're confusing it with OZONE
Re:We're so screwed (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Neither Nitrogen (N2) nor Oxygen (O2) are greenhouse gases and they compose most of the atmosphere.
Ozone (O3) is a form of oxygen that is considered a greenhouse gas but its concentration is small.
The following pages summarize quite well the situation: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/curr... [ornl.gov]
More generally, the argument "it is only a small percentage of the whole atmosphere" is invalid. What is important is not the percentage of the various gases but their amount and their efficiency for trapping heat.
Also, people tend to underestimate the amounts of matter involved when talking about ppm or ppb. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] we find that "A column of air one square centimeter [cm2] (0.16 sq in) in cross-section ... has a mass of about 1.03 kilograms (2.3 lb)"
So the solar radiation that hits each cm2 of the earth surface has to go through about 1kg of air = 1000g.
The CO2 concentration is 400ppm so the solar radiation passes through 1000g * 400/1000000 = 0.4g of CO2 per cm2
Polycarbonate sheets used in most garden greenhouses has a density of 1.2g/cm3.
If atmospheric CO2 was compressed to that same density to form a hypothetical sheet of solid CO2 then its thickness would be 0.4/1.2 = 0.33 cm = 3.3mm
This is very comparable to the thickness of typical a polycarbonate sheet (3 to 6mm) so saying that 400ppm of CO2 cannot have any noticeable effects seems as stupid as saying that greenhouses are ineffective.
Re:We're so screwed (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the preindustrial CO2 concentration was 280ppm so my 'hypothetical sheet of solid CO2' was 2.3mm about 150 years ago and we added 1.0mm since then.
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Those are brilliant points! This makes it a lot easierto visualize.
Alas, I've commented, but perhaps someone else can step in and mod up.
Don't wake and Slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Rapid Rise In Methane Emissions In 10 Years Surpasses Scientists"
When you wake up and misread a title like this, you know you need a bit more sleep.
Thought for a minute there we were reporting on quite a flatulent demographic...
Stop farting (Score:5, Funny)
Stop farting
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Well, you may have farts in your brain. The Methane emissions from fracking sites are more likely it - all probably swept under the table.
More idiocies coming soon thanks to great Donald!
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Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Nuclear power (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear power. Nuclear power? Nuclear power!
We can keep burning coal and natural gas, reduce our standard of living, or build more nuclear power plants. Those are our choices as of right now. We can wait for wind, solar, and battery technology to get cheaper but that does nothing for the carbon we'd be producing while we wait.
Reducing energy use, by personal choice or by imposing it on others with taxation, is a reduction of our standard of living. That might seem acceptable by many given the potential benefits for society in the future but you are going to get push back from people that are disbelievers in global warming and those that already take cold showers, ride the bus to work, eat little meat, and so forth because of poverty. Imposing expensive energy sources on people with regulation, like wind and solar, is just as detrimental to the poor as a direct tax on energy. Subsidizing these higher cost energy sources with taxation only means reducing the wealth available to society, causing reductions in wages to those that have jobs, and reducing the chances of getting a job for those that can't find work now. Taxing the fossil fuel industry means nothing to them, they just pass that cost onto the poor people that have to buy their products to heat their homes, cook their food, and travel.
If we are to assume that burning methane is bad because of leakage to the environment and the CO2 contribution it has when burned then we'd want to find an alternative that both reduces these emissions and is just as inexpensive. If it costs more then we are again imposing poverty on people. If it does not reduce these global warming gasses then we're just making things worse. Nuclear power is both inexpensive and has a carbon footprint even lower than wind and solar.
So, if we assume global warming is bad and is caused by people burning methane and other fossil fuels, then we need to turn to nuclear power or make a lot of people very angry over their reduced standard of living. Or rather those that survive will be angry, the people that die of hunger, exposure, or being unable to purchase proper medical care will still be dead. Waiting for solar and wind energy to get cheaper is foolish. We've been giving all kinds of money to the wind and solar industry for decades, through taxation and subsidies, in the hope it would be cheaper than coal someday. How much longer do we have to do this before it meets the definition of insanity?
I think we blew past the line of insanity with ludicrous speed a decade or three ago, so fast that few people even saw it go by. We can argue about when that line was crossed exactly or we can stop the insanity and change course.
Re:Nuclear power (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, nuclear. Although at this point, "climate change" is mostly just competition between various big energy companies and their political links. The people who actually want to see human population reduced, with a reduction in human "greed", are a tiny percentage, and probably always will be, because that view was just a bad philosophy. May as well become a Jain. But for the majority of people, including the, what, is it a billion? without electricity, the only way is forward. But, and here's the rub, because energy and industry and science have become politically tangled up with "ethics" and "saving the planet", in other words, science got mixed with values, it is now near impossible to say anything sensible and factual on the subject. Nevertheless, energy companies will continue to exploit this "moral landscape" as the way to spin everything. If a big oil company can figure out how to make a profit from carbon taxes, they'll support carbon taxes. They just will. And especially if that gives them a competitive edge over the nuclear industry. It amazes me how many people continue to believe that this is all about "doing the right thing to save the planet". It is all politics now. And scientists don't exactly have a great track record of not getting themselves influenced by various industry and political interests. And maybe that's too cynical, but it is a factor. Why else would we have been pursuing non-nuclear "solutions" so hard?
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If we are to make sensible decisions as a species over our future, there's no way for science to not get mixed up with ethics. Science is the best and only reliable tool we have for gaining knowledge about the world. If scientists all seclude themselves from any discussion
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OK, they can't be separated in the sense that, we want a better world, a world that works better. In other words, it is ethical to base decisions rationally on science and on trying to help the environment and all the people of the world. But, that's just one kind of ethics! There are other values/ethics, You see, other people have different worldviews. Not everyone feels they are a global citizen in a fragile ecosystem. Most people base their ethics on quite different pictures of the world. To illustrate w
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The only way away from this is to increase the amount of factual information to counter lobbying
So how has increased amount of factual information thwarted subsidies of corn based ethanol? Despite the large volume of knowledge that corn based subsidized ethanol is the worst possible solution to fight climate change, it is going full speed ahead thanks to lobbying by the corn producing states and nobody is doing anything at the grass roots to stop it. This, despite the inevitable destruction of recent model cars when the EPA demands an increase in (corn based) ethanol percentage in gasoline.
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Nuclear power. Nuclear power? Nuclear power!
Who's a pretty bird? Are you a pretty bird? Pretty bird! Fucking parrot.
We can wait for wind, solar, and battery technology to get cheaper
Since they're already vastly cheaper than nuclear, your argument is shit. Get a real one. We're all tired of yours.
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Since they're already vastly cheaper than nuclear, your argument is shit. Get a real one. We're all tired of yours.
No, they're not vastly cheaper then nuclear. At between $0.50kWh and $1.50kWh [powerauthority.on.ca] they are no where near as cheap when [cna.ca] nuclear is $0.07-0.08kWh including refurbishment [cna.ca] costs for the reactor after 25-35 years. Hell it costs between $40m and $150m to build a 1GW natural gas power station in the asshole of Canada which pays for itself in under 10 years, it costs nearly $800m for solar or wind over 50-70 years to pay for it. That's at current rates.
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If nuclear is so cheap, then why does the British government have to guarantee a minimum price
Why don't you ask the UK government? I'm sure we can already guess what the answer is, massive corruption and giant kick-backs. That is the same country that's willing to cover up anything that dares to damage the crown or the leader in power remember.
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Nuclear power is affordable! The costs associated with many of the failure modes however unlikely are simply huge.
You can say for example the typical coal plant over its lifetime might kill more people than Chernobyl, or that the economic loss associated with Fukushima is the same as the cumulative losses of land values around other types of plants. This ignores the fact that total costs don't matter its what the environment and society has the capacity to absorb at a given time that matters. Think o
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Since they're already vastly cheaper than nuclear, your argument is shit. Get a real one. We're all tired of yours.
Then the subsidies can stop then, right? That was the point of subsidizing wind and solar, no? To get wind and solar cheaper than coal and nuclear? Now that we've reached that then we can now spend our money on the next technology that has the possibility of being cheaper, just a plentiful, and with a lower carbon footprint than even wind and solar. That would be nuclear power.
Once we get nuclear power to the point that it is cheaper than wind and solar we can stop subsidizing that. Then we can focus o
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It doesn't work particularly well on Mars. No one has ever done proper nuclear in space.
The only nuclear energy in space has been RTG's. Feel free to build as many RTG's as you want on Earth. They are wonderfully safe devices (unless someone deliberately takes them apart). Just don't expect electricity from RTG's to be cheap or plentiful, because it won't be.
Re:Solar, Wind, Wave, Geothermal (Score:5, Informative)
Every kilowatt generated by wind stops coal from producing almost twice that in thermal power. So yes, it does have an impact on reducing carbon as soon as it is implemented.
Why? Technology has already adapted and it became viable to have LED lighting hit the market. This is an assumption that precludes adaptation by the market to fill a market niche.
This is not a political issue here, it's a question about if you have an open or closed mindset. Innovation happens all the time. Living standards will just change, and the idea of what a higher living standard is will change.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the mining phase to extract the ore using traditional mining methods, if you are not pumping mega litres of sulfuric acid to do in-situ extraction (and destroying water tables in the process). 500tons of ore for 1 kilo of uranium, ~150 tons of uranium for the core of one reactor, 1/3 refuel every 18 months or so IIRC. It's roughly one third of the energy the reactor will produce over its lifetime.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the enrichment process as CFC114 is much more potent than methane as a greenhouse gas. IIRC, thousands of times more potent. You can't *not* enrich the fuel either.
Nuclear is extremely carbon intensive in the decommissioning and demolition phase, an energetic cost yet to be realized by the industry, because traditional methods of demolition cannot be used.
On the other hand the way wind scales is probably the biggest thing it has in it's favour, because existing sites can be retrofitted with upgraded technology, which lowers the energetic cost of maintain wind capacity.
Why not in parity with the Price-Anderson act, which has been extended repeatedly since the dawn of time for the nuclear industry which needs government assistance to cover its insurance liabilities. Or, why don't we just repeal the act and see how long the nuclear industry can remain?
One of Roosevelt's core 'New Deal' Act the PUCHA was repealed to benefit the nuclear industry with little fanfare from the press. Only for it to be subverted by the coal and oil industry who use proposals to build nuclear plants so they can get tax breaks for not building them. This is corporate welfare on a scale that makes social welfare looks like a kids pocket money. PUCHA was put in place to prevent a re-occurrence of the US depression from utilities doing *exactly* what they are doing now to raid the taxpayers wallets.
You can read it here in the 2005 US energy policy act [energy.gov] SEC 600-635, and at the end of the document for the repeal of PUCHA.
me thinks you assume too much.
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"Nuclear power. Nuclear power? Nuclear power!"
But then what about the methane from all those exploding heads? That alone would make California and parts of the East Coast uninhabitable.
Fortunately China exists, and is not only building AP-1000 current best technology reactors, but is doing simultaneous development on several of those advanced designs that we originated back in the American Science Era but never developed.
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
Sorry to interupt your impending doom (Score:2)
But methane has an incredibly short life in the atmosphere
http://chartsbin.com/view/2407 [chartsbin.com]
This concludes the interruption you may now go back to your regularly scheduled doom.
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Sorry to interupt your impending doom
But methane has an incredibly short life in the atmosphere
Are you a fuckhead troll, or a dumbshit fuckhead? Methane has 20X the warming ability of CO2, it stays in the atmosphere for an average of eight years, and when it finally does break down it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Wait, you started a comment in the subject. You must be a dumbshit fuckhead.
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Seeing as you don't know the difference between sea and land ice, one is rather safe to ignore you. Is it too late to get a refund for your science education?
Didn't we see it coming? (Score:2)
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Didn't we have bunch of articles some time ago about melting permafrost, bubbling tundra and the positive feedback loop this creates?
Clathrate gun hypothesis [wikipedia.org]
But here's a better one: Soil bacteria methane [nature.com]. It's not just the trees. As temperatures rise, soil bacteria which produce methane become more active...
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Fracking happened in the last 16 years.
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fracking is extremely leaky.
Green House gas is caused by liberals (Score:3, Funny)
Has anyone noticed the strong correlation between green house gasses and the Social Justice Liberals. In the 1950's we had a cool climate and everyone was racist. Now in 2016 we have catastrophic climatic change and everyone is always worried about micro aggressions.
We have had 8+ years of increased climate change under President Obama. However since we have elected that racist Donald Trump. I have suddenly noticed that we have an unprecedented cold spell. My theory is that racism stabilizes the climate, whereas constantly worrying about social injustice really fucks up the environment. I know it may sound crazy, but it has as much scientific validity as the latest scientific study proving that coffee may increase your risk of toe fungus as reported by the 9 o' clock news.
If we want to save the white polar bears living in the arctic we need to go back to slavery. If we want to have a nice climate where we can finally settle the South Pole and swim in lake Vostok, we need to elect one of those whinney liberals to president.
To me this is the only rational argument for liberalism. I really don't like the cold.
Fracking (Score:5, Informative)
More simple than that (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of the time it isn't measured and they don't even know, which is a lot more simple than a coverup. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to not giving a fuck.
Re:Fracking (Score:5, Informative)
That big methane leak in US (Score:5, Informative)
I vaguely remember something about a huge spill of methane in California US. Said to be 100.000 tons of methane gas, though I can't help but wonder if maybe the real number could be even higher.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947 ("California methane leak 'largest in US history'")
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What comes out of boreholes in coal seams would be a total guess since it's the stuff that gets captured that gets measured.
CO2 did not level off (Score:5, Informative)
The damn rate of increase leveled off. That means we have a constant linear increase instead of over linear. It is still increasing. This is what , the third or fourth time I see this error here ?
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Statistics used to be called political arithmetic for a reason.
Those science deniers seem to have hired a bright young thing who can do better than high school mathematics to do a few tricks with graphs.
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A .000002% incrase in something we didn't track? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not going to worry about it until the numbers have meaning.
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Won't be anything anybody can do about it when the numbers have meaning. So just make sure you get a good 'bug out' bag ready and you'll be good.
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Re:A .000002% incrase in something we didn't track (Score:4, Insightful)
20 bpb represents around a 1.1% increase not a .000002% increase. It went from 1810 to 1830 bpb.
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A few ppb makes a large difference when the optical pathlength through the atmosphere is so long. You don't need much CH4 to make a big difference in light absorption. In this case it went up 10 ppb in two years, out of 1800, so it's a 0.5% increase. Much more than 0.000002%.
To be clear, methane has been monitored for more than a few years. See here [epa.gov]
It is also been indirectly measured via ice cores back hundreds of thousands of years.
In addition the the current surge, what should be alarming is the following
Reason for caution: mechanisms not understood (Score:4, Insightful)
The models used to predict and support climate change theories are only as good as the assumptions that go in to them. Here is more proof that the assumptions are based on an incomplete knowledge of the processes at work. So the science behind climate change is flawed and we are being fed half-truths BUT BUT BUT
Climate change is likely happening for reasons we don't fully understand however why does fear of it have to be the reason we do things? Why does it take fear to motivate us to use resources more efficiently, harvest resources less destructively, and consume more prudently? Why can't we do those things simply because it is the only rational and reasonable way to proceed?
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... use resources more efficiently ...
A wise person to whom I'm distantly related argued for in front of a small european parliment for that government to put its effort into efficiency thus: energy conservation provides temporary relief that disappears once economic conditions improve, whereas advances in energy efficiency have indefinite payoff.
Surprising Research results (Score:2)
cow farts (Score:2)
I thought we discussed this recently. Here's an excerpt from:
http://www.sciencealert.com/ad... [sciencealert.com]
"Adding seaweed to cattle feed could reduce methane production by 70%
That's equivalent to taking India's CO2 emissions off the map.
If we add dried seaweed to 2 percent of sheep and cattle feed, we could cut methane emissions by more than 70 percent, scientists have found.
With livestock responsible for 44 percent of all human-caused methane - a gas that has 36 times the global warming potential of CO2 - this could c
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I am sure we can find a correlation between number of vegetarians and Methane gasses
You are correct. The fewer people who eat cows, the fewer cows are farmed and the less methane is released into the atmosphere.
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We have already unlocked runaway processes.
Holy shit dude, kill -9 it before it does some real damage.
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I was listening to the opening speech of the Nobel price ceremony, and this part springs to mind.
Leading politicians - both in Europe and the United States - are winning votes by denying knowledge and scientific truths. Populism is widespread and is reaping major political successes.
The grim truth is that we can no longer take it for granted that people believe in science, facts and knowledge.
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The grim truth is that we can no longer take it for granted that people believe in science, facts and knowledge.
Part of the blame for that goes to people who talk about 'believing in' science. So much science teaching preaches facts, without emphasising the importance of the scientific method in the pursuit of knowledge. It's hard to blame people who grow up thinking that science is just a rival religion.
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Seeing as it's perfectly logical to believe in science, as it is something which can (and does) exist, I'd probably have a larger problem with people who see the word "believe" and think "I believe in my religion, therefore anything anyone else believes in must be a religion". Also you are confusing the teaching of science with the endeavour itself. Please don't.
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Since the carbon dioxide bit is turning out to be wrong
[citation needed]
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Look, you can't criticize Bush II for adding $5.8 trillion to the deficit and then give Obama a free ride for adding $7.9 trillion. The hypocrisy of the alt-left has now easily matched the stupidity of the alt-right. The problem is, the alt-left is now far more mainstream than the alt-right ever was.
You're all idiots.
Last night I spent a while looking at comments on slashdot from 2005, and the change pretty much explains why the site is dying. In 2005, posters were complaining about how some people were t