Twenty years ago, the level of methane in the atmosphere stopped increasing. But the concentration started rising again in 2007 — and it’s been picking up the pace over the last four years, according to new research.
Methane is produced when dead stuff breaks down without much oxygen around. In nature, it seeps out of waterlogged wetlands, peat bogs, and sediments. Forest fires produce some too.
The atmosphere contains far less methane than carbon dioxide. But methane is so good at trapping heat that one ton of the gas causes 32 times as much warming as one ton of CO2 over the course of a century., an atmospheric physicist at the University of Toronto. That growth accelerated in 2014, pushing methane levels up beyond 1,850 ppb. Experts have no idea why.The concentration of methane in the atmosphere, indicated by green circles, is not consistent with a climate scenario that aggressively limits global warming . The other pathways lead to more warming.
Some molecules of methane weigh more than others, because some atoms of carbon and hydrogen are heavier than others. And lately, the average weight of methane in the atmosphere has been getting lighter.That seems to implicate biological sources such as wetlands and livestock, which tend to produce light methane., an atmospheric chemist at Harvard who was not involved in Nisbet’s study, said that explanation squares with his own research.
Finally, reactions that break down methane eliminate more of the lighter molecules than the heavier ones. If that process has slowed down — causing methane to build up in the atmosphere — it would leave more light gas behind, possibly helping explain the overall trend. Nisbet said he fears the rising methane levels could be a sign of a dangerous cycle: Climate change may cause wetlands to expand and allow the environment to support more livestock, leading to even more methane emissions.
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