Since 2006, the amount of methane that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased rapidly, and unlike the increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂), the recent increase in methane is due to biological emissions rather than fossil fuel combustion. seems to be triggered. This could be just a normal variation resulting from natural climate cycles such as El Niño.or it may signal It means that the earth’s climate is undergoing major changes.
Molecule-wise, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, but has an atmospheric persistence of just under a decade compared to centuries for CO2. Methane emissions threaten humanity’s ability to limit warming to relatively safe levels. Even more troubling is the recent acceleration in the rate of increase of atmospheric methane. Something similar to this has happened before. A sudden surge in methane marked the transition from a cold ice age to a warm interglacial.
Methane is about 0.7 ppm (ppm) of air before humans started burning fossil fuels.now it is 1.9ppm or more and soaring. About three-fifths of emissions come from fossil fuel use, agriculture, landfills and waste. The remainder comes from natural sources, especially rotting vegetation in tropical and northern wetlands.
Methane is both the driver and messenger of climate change. It is not known why it is increasing so rapidly now, but the pattern of increase since the end of 2006 is similar to how methane behaved during major global climate shifts in the distant past.
The Methane Record: 2006 to Present
In late 2006, there was an unexpected increase in atmospheric methane. started to rise. Methane increased rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries, but plateaued by the end of the 1990s. This increase was driven by fossil fuel emissions, especially from gas fields and coal mines.
Imagine accelerating a car with your feet down. The car picks up speed, but eventually air resistance equals engine power and the car reaches top speed. In 1999, methane appeared to reach a similar equilibrium between source and sink.And by the end of 2006, the amount of methane in the air was climbed fast. Even more unexpected was the growth rate after five years. accelerated again. The growth rate in the 2020s will be even faster, faster than at the peak of the gas industry’s leaks in the 1980s.
Today’s growth is believed to be driven by new emissions from marshespecially near the equator, but probably also from Canada (Beaver is a methane factory which one to draw Vast amounts of plant matter to the ponds they built) and Siberia. This is the result of climate change. Increased precipitation will make wetlands wetter and wider, and warmer temperatures will encourage plant growth, supply more decomposition products, and produce more methane. Emissions from giant cattle farms in tropical Africa, India and Brazil also rising and rotten waste landfill The suburbs of big cities like Delhi are also important sources of information.
Outages due to climate change
In the past millions of yearsthe Earth’s climate is flipped repeatedly During a long, cold glacial period when ice sheets cover northern Europe and Canada, and a shorter, warmer interglacial period.
After each ice age, the Earth’s surface warmed up to several degrees Celsius over thousands of years. Rapid rises in methane concentrations recorded in bubbles within ice cores have heralded these major climate warming events. Every time the climate changed from glacial to interglacial, there was a sudden and sharp increase in atmospheric methane. Expanding tropical wetlands.
These large climate changes that ended each Ice Age are known as Termination. Each is labeled with Roman numerals from the apocalypse IX, which occurred about 800,000 years ago, to the apocalypse IA, which caused the modern climate. 12,000 years ago. for example, 131,000 years ago During Termination II, Britain’s climate suddenly changed from the glaciers of the Cotswolds to the hippopotamus climate that now inhabits Trafalgar Square.
It would take thousands of years for the full demise to complete, but many of them would begin to gradually warm, followed by a very abrupt phase of very rapid climate change, within a century, followed by a longer, slower period during which the large ice sheets finally melt. During the sudden phase of the great change that brought about the modern climate, temperatures in Greenland rose by about 10°C in one year. decades. During these sudden phases, methane actually spikes quite a lot.
Is something dramatic going on?
Methane fluctuated greatly before the Industrial Revolution. However, its rapid increase since 2006 rivals early methane records during the rapid phase of past apocalyptic events, such as those that warmed Greenland dramatically. less than 12,000 years ago.
There is already plenty of evidence that the climate is changing. The currents of the Atlantic Ocean are Become slowin tropical climates Expandingfar north and south warming rapidly, ocean heat I’m breaking records and Abnormal weather It’s becoming routine.
At the end of a glacier, the entire climate system is rearranged. In the past, this has brought the Earth out of a stable ice age climate and into a warmer interglacial period. But we are already in a warm interglacial period. What happens next is hard to imagine. Arctic sea ice loss in summer, thinning or partial collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, realignment of Atlantic currents, and the poleward extension of tropical weather circulation patterns. The impact would be very significant both for the biosphere in general and for food production in particular in South and East Asia, especially parts of Africa.
there’s a lot to do in a hurry stop the rise of methane: Plug leaks in the oil and gas industry, cover landfills, and reduce burning of agricultural waste. Shooting methane messengers won’t stop climate change caused primarily by carbon dioxide emissions, but it will help.
Roman numerals IX through I denote large past climate changes. There is no Roman numeral zero, but future end-scale transitions will be different. That is, a temperature step from the present interglacial climate to a new, warmer future. The signal for methane is still unclear, but questions remain. terminating zero Have you started?
Don’t have time to read all you want about climate change?
Get the weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environmental editor writes “Imagine,” a short email that delves a little deeper into just one of her climate issues. Join her 20,000+ readers who have subscribed to date.