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Methane burns to produce carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. But to burn it you'd have to collect the methane and concentrate it firs
by andyjohnson0 10y ago
Methane burns to produce carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
But to burn it you'd have to collect the methane and concentrate it first, otherwise at low concentrations it is unlikely to ignite. Given that the Siberian arctic is vast and remote, I don't think this is a practical proposition.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoMethane has a greenhouse potential 25 times that of CO2. You're probably right though, it's probably not too diffuse and generally impractical.
- andyjohnson0 10y ago> Methane has a greenhouse potential 25 times that of CO2. True, although it decays to CO2 and water after about twelve years [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Value...
- marvin 10y agoFirst time I've heard that methane decays so fast. Doesn't this dramatically reduce the practical warming effect of methane?
- contravariant 10y agoIt does, but according to the Wikipedia article the '25 times' figure seems to have taken that into account. Methane has a 25 times (or 34 times according to more recent estimates) larger effect than an equivalent mass of CO2 over 100 years. When measured over the first 20 years this rises to 70~80 times.
- zamalek 10y agoAt least there's a ray of hope. The problem is that we don't know how much CH4 is locked away in pockets like this.
- strommen 10y agoThe factor of 25 is over a 100-year time period, and accounts for this decay.
- dozzie 10y ago> Methane has a greenhouse potential 25 times that of CO2. Where does this number come from? Heat capacity is almost the same for CH4 and CO2 (and half of that of H2O).
- phaemon 10y agoWikipedia has an explanation of the calculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Calculating_the_global_warming_potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Calcu...
- dozzie 10y agoAnd where does this calculation come from? How was it determined that this is a valid approximation of a physical process? This "global warming potential" seems to assume that a wave of certain length can be reflected and absorbed at the same time, which idea is somewhat unexpected if you dig through optics handbooks. Not to mention that the formulas are incomplete.
- phaemon 10y agoThe calculation comes from the physicists who came up with it of course. Are you saying they were wrong? Do you have a link to a paper showing this?
- dozzie 10y ago> The calculation comes from the physicists who came up with it of course. This is the part I'm not so sure about. Physicists tend to not bother with climatology.
- phaemon 10y agoWhat gave you that idea? Radiative transfer is physics. That doesn't change because we're talking about planet earth. I would guess that most scientists involved in climatology have a physics background. Edit: for example, Radiative Forcing in the AR5 http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/climdyn2013/IPCC/IPCC_WGI12-RadiativeForcing.pdf http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/climdyn2013/IPCC/IPCC_WGI1... The main author is Drew Shindell, Professor of Climate Studies, PhD in Physics.