6 ms·

Methane is a nothing burger. It breaks down so quickly it doesn't affect much.

• sterkekoffie 7y ago
  It breaks down to form water and CO2...which are both greenhouse gases.
  • topmonk 7y ago
    Methane is measured in parts per billion, co2 in parts per million... So, what is your point?
• brilee 7y ago
  Methane breaks down quickly, yes, but it also has a much, much more potent greenhouse effect. Taking both factors into account, releasing 1 ton of methane is estimated to be about equivalent to releasing 25 tons of CO2.
  • topmonk 7y ago
    Yes, but is the amount of methane released anywhere near the same as CO2? Hint: methane is measured in parts per billion, whereas co2 is measured in parts per million.
    • philipkglass 7y ago
      Normalized for atmospheric lifetime and radiative forcing, American methane emissions account for about 12% as much anthropogenic warming as carbon dioxide emissions: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases (Carbon dioxide 82%, methane 10%) Globally, as of 2012, methane contributes about 23% as much as CO2 to anthropogenic warming: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... (Carbon dioxide 35.47 billion tons CO2e, methane 8.01 billion tons CO2e). So methane is certainly a smaller contributor toward warming than CO2 but it's more significant than you have conveyed.
• throwaway5752 7y ago
  Methane has a residence of a decade in the atmosphere. "Methane trigger" is short for the clathrate gun hypothesis, which is the rapid release of methane sequestered in methane hyudrate deposits at the poles. Those are very large deposits of methane hosted in water ice, currently estimated at roughly ten times conventional methane reserves. If ambient temperatures exceed the melting point, the methane is released. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis is a much more detailed summary. It is strongly correlated with mass extinction events. It is also appears to be beginning: https://www.newsweek.com/methane-boiling-sea-discovered-siberia-1463766 https://www.newsweek.com/methane-boiling-sea-discovered-sibe...
  • topmonk 7y ago
    From the very same wikipedia article you referenced, under "Current Outlook": Most deposits of methane clathrate are in sediments too deep to respond rapidly, and modelling by Archer (2007) suggests the methane forcing should remain a minor component of the overall greenhouse effect.[28] Clathrate deposits destabilize from the deepest part of their stability zone, which is typically hundreds of metres below the seabed. A sustained increase in sea temperature will warm its way through the sediment eventually, and cause the shallowest, most marginal clathrate to start to break down; but it will typically take on the order of a thousand years or more for the temperature signal to get through.
    • throwaway5752 7y ago
      I hope so, I don't know what the cause of the Siberian seep is. I hope that it's submerged permafrost. Appreciate your pointing that out.
      • topmonk 7y ago
        Right, and youay ne thinking, let's play the odds. But there is only once chance, so what do odds mean anyway in that scenario? Will you wall away a failure and still take solace in the fact that by the odds you were supposed to be correct? But if there is only one chance, how can you know what the odds of anything? You have the past, and you have the future and you may prescribe a certain significance to that past for what reason you don't really know. How could you, it just feels right, doesn't it? Your memory, regard8this as truth, it just feels right. But consider.. one point in time and space, in however many dimensions there may be, and the only reason you believe in a certain outcome is feeling that your so called memory is representitive of reality..Wnat evidence do.you have it.is.right? I.claime none.at all. None.ag.all.none.sfall