Methane emissions from fossil fuels vastly underestimated.

[the other mike]

Don't worry. We can just hop on over to Mars when we're done here.

A new Rochester University study raises new grave questions about fossil fuel production and climate change. The author of the first major study on methane and fracking, Cornell University's Bob Howarth, explains its implications.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Hide the decline

 

[ReinyDays]

The natural gas industry would have us believe all their pipelines are tight as could be ... yeah, right ...

The good news is methane is a very short lived species of greenhouse gas ... it will have to be continuously emitted over decades and decades to have any effect on climate ... it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor in our oxygen rich atmosphere ...

Cows do not fart methane, that's an urban myth ... they're ruminants and the methane is belched out of their first stomach ... just to clear up that common misconception ... you're welcome ...

 

[Steve Case]

...The good news is methane is a very short lived species of greenhouse gas ... it will have to be continuously emitted over decades and decades to have any effect on climate ... it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor in our oxygen rich atmosphere ...

Methane IS continuously emitted. It's been monitored since 1984 and has gone up at an average rate of around six or seven parts per billion for over 35 years of measurement. LINK

What we aren't being told is how little methane's effect on global temperatures will be. At current rates, methane is projected to increase about 500 ppb by 2100 which would raise the temperature about 0.05°C. That is so close to zero as to be essentially zero temperature rise. If anyone can find information on the net that says it's more than that please post a link.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

These clowns are free to try to live through a Chicago winter without using CH4 or emitting any CO2.....

I'm sure solar and wind will work just fine for them.

 

[ReinyDays]

Folks in Chicago should cut their meat consumption in half ... all the farm land freed up in the area can be used for growing human-consumption veggies ...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Folks in Chicago should cut their meat consumption in half ... all the farm land freed up in the area can be used for growing human-consumption veggies ...

Are we running out of space for meat animals?

 

[ReinyDays]

Are we running out of space for meat animals?

Try driving out of town on occasion ... all that corn growing is animal food ... almost all the land in Iowa, Indiana and yes Illinois is used for livestock production ...

It is a statistical fact that livestock production is the single largest land use item in the United States {Cite from USDA} ... tricky ... a good part of that land is useless for anything else, c.f. the Intermountain West ... that's statistics for ya ...

Why does Chicagoland ship so much human-consumption food from California? ... the land around Chicago is some of the best in the world ... just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half? ...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Are we running out of space for meat animals?

Try driving out of town on occasion ... all that corn growing is animal food ... almost all the land in Iowa, Indiana and yes Illinois is used for livestock production ...

It is a statistical fact that livestock production is the single largest land use item in the United States {Cite from USDA} ... tricky ... a good part of that land is useless for anything else, c.f. the Intermountain West ... that's statistics for ya ...

Why does Chicagoland ship so much human-consumption food from California? ... the land around Chicago is some of the best in the world ... just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half? ...

Try driving out of town on occasion ... all that corn growing is animal food ... almost all the land in Iowa, Indiana and yes Illinois is used for livestock production ...

So the answer is ……..no.

just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half?

Why don't you cut your consumption to zero.....we'll average out to 50% less.

 

[ding]

Are we running out of space for meat animals?

Try driving out of town on occasion ... all that corn growing is animal food ... almost all the land in Iowa, Indiana and yes Illinois is used for livestock production ...

It is a statistical fact that livestock production is the single largest land use item in the United States {Cite from USDA} ... tricky ... a good part of that land is useless for anything else, c.f. the Intermountain West ... that's statistics for ya ...

Why does Chicagoland ship so much human-consumption food from California? ... the land around Chicago is some of the best in the world ... just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half? ...

Can Responsible Grazing Make Beef Climate-Neutral? | Civil Eats

Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems - ScienceDirect

 

[fncceo]

just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half?

You can cut yours in half, I'll double mine.

 

[ding]

The natural gas industry would have us believe all their pipelines are tight as could be ... yeah, right ...

The good news is methane is a very short lived species of greenhouse gas ... it will have to be continuously emitted over decades and decades to have any effect on climate ... it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor in our oxygen rich atmosphere ...

Cows do not fart methane, that's an urban myth ... they're ruminants and the methane is belched out of their first stomach ... just to clear up that common misconception ... you're welcome ...

No. I’m pretty sure the level of methane affects the earth’s climate at all times.

now if you are arguing that methane can’t build up, I’m not so sure about that.

Current and Historical Methane Levels Graph

At some point people are going to have to start realizing the correlation between GHG and population.

 

[ReinyDays]

just how hard is it to cut consumption of meat in half?

You can cut yours in half, I'll double mine.

We're blessed with a commercial elk burger producer here locally ... to die for ...

 

[Old Rocks]

The natural gas industry would have us believe all their pipelines are tight as could be ... yeah, right ...

The good news is methane is a very short lived species of greenhouse gas ... it will have to be continuously emitted over decades and decades to have any effect on climate ... it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor in our oxygen rich atmosphere ...

Cows do not fart methane, that's an urban myth ... they're ruminants and the methane is belched out of their first stomach ... just to clear up that common misconception ... you're welcome ...

Why yes, it does break down to CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere, both green house gases. Also, as you stated, it has to continuously emitted at a rate that equals or exceeds the breakdown rate to maintain or increase the level in the atmosphere. So, is that happening? Here is the graph of the levels of CH4 atmosphere over time;

 

[ReinyDays]

Why yes, it does break down to CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere, both green house gases. Also, as you stated, it has to continuously emitted at a rate that equals or exceeds the breakdown rate to maintain or increase the level in the atmosphere. So, is that happening? Here is the graph of the levels of CH4 atmosphere over time;

Looks like 1.4 ppm in 1970 ... 1.8 ppm in 2020 ... an increase of 0.4 ppm ... if CH4 is 25 times the GHG as CO2 {Cite}, this is the same as 10 ppm CO2 ... at this rate, CO2 is still the dominate species among the two as it has increase almost 100 ppm in the same time interval ... I'm ignoring water vapor here mainly because we have different physics going on with that which is completely out of our control ... CO2 and CH4 are controllable ...

CH4's contribution isn't trivial ... but it is small compared to CO2's contribution ... I agree the crap is best left in the ground ...

We still haven't been able to connect these concentrations to temperature in a numerical fashion ... if you can't produce the math, then it's conjecture ...

 

[the other mike]

https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-going-up-and-no-one-knows-why/

 

[ReinyDays]

Thank you for posting THE EXACT SAME GRAPH from two posts up ... damn, I would have forgotten if you weren't so helpful ... I am indeed grateful ... [stifles a sob] ... just like my dearly departed mother did for me all those years and decades ago ...

 

[the other mike]

Thank you for posting THE EXACT SAME GRAPH from two posts up ... damn, I would have forgotten if you weren't so helpful ... I am indeed grateful ... [stifles a sob] ... just like my dearly departed mother did for me all those years and decades ago ...

You're a weird guy Ace.

 

[ReinyDays]

Oh ... there's a link ... talk about a click-bait headline ...

Over a 20-year time frame, methane traps 86 times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

NOAA gives this as 25 times in the cite a few posts above ... which do we believe? ... well, the folks that say 86 times haven't a clue where the methane's coming from ...

You posted the link ... did you read it with a critical eye? ... you kinda own this claim now, care to defend why the atmospheric scientists at NOAA are so crazy batshit wrong? ... and the floor is open, I have no idea what the true value is ... convince me it's 86 times ... if the math works, I'll believe you ...

 

[the other mike]

https://www.wired.com/story/atmospheric-methane-levels-are-going-up-and-no-one-knows-why/

Another new study, however, offers some measure of hope, citing modeling that shows that reducing anthropogenic methane emissions can still offset the “natural” leakage that the thawing Arctic will produce under warmer temperatures. If true, it would suggest that a disastrous feedback loop—in which human-driven greenhouse gas emissions melt the planet’s permafrost, turning it from a vast carbon storage unit into a huge new source of planet-warming methane, driving further warming—might yet be averted. But scientists also say the time available for avoiding that runaway-train scenario is quickly disappearing.