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In 2040 methane emitted today will still be 86x more potent than co2. Co2 emissions from natural gas are 50% that of coal. So todays natural gas with a 1% leaka

In 2040 methane emitted today will still be 86x more potent than co2. Co2 emissions from natural gas are 50% that of coal. So todays natural gas with a 1% leakage rate will still have 135% of the warming impact of coal in 2040. By 2120 the methane emitted today will be 34x as potent as co2. So todays natural gas with a 1% leak rate will have 84% of the impact on warming that you would get from coal. So if you can keep leakage to 1% (it hasn't been that low and efforts to regulate it to those levels have been attacked by republicans.) Then by sometime around 2100 it should be coming down to the same impact as coal. This bridge fuel/front loading of the warming strategy would have been great in 1970 and 1980. Today it really doesn't make any sense.

ralfd 7y ago
But this potency will be in the past, as all the methane broke down in 2100. The effect of a warmer day now will surely be negligible a 100 years in a future and climate instead find a new equilibrium?
Retric 7y ago
You’re vastly off. Averaged over 20 years methane is (GWP) 104x as potent as CO2, averaged over 100 years it’s (GWP) 28x. But, to get that average you can calculate ((28 * 100) - (104 * 20)) / 80 = 9. So, from year 20 to year 100 it’s 9x as potent on average. You get this because 1 - (1/(2^(20/7)) = 86% of methane released today has broken down in 20 years. Further, methane goes from CH4 atomic weight 18 to CO2 atomic weight 44. Thus, after breakdown you get (44/18) = 2.75x as much CO2 by weight. So, in 2120 methane produced today will be 99.995% CO2 and provide ~2.75x as much warming vs CO2 emitted today. Edit: Updated with numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
- breakyerself 7y ago
  That makes sense. Do you know if there is a graph that illustrates this so it cements in my mind better? I wonder how much feedbacks are considered with this. The early pulse of warming can cause changes to alebedo, co2 and methane emissions from melting permafrost, etc that carry on after the initial methane has broken down.
  - thatcat 7y ago
    The graph is just a log decay like all chemical degradation curves. https://skepticalscience.com/toward-improved-discussions-methane.html https://skepticalscience.com/toward-improved-discussions-met...
naiveprogrammer 7y ago
The world is not going to end due to climate change in 2100 or 2200. Humans are capable of adapting to developing climates. The Earth is not going to burn to ashes, the most likely scenario are a few degrees higher which will absolutely have an impact but I don't buy the doomsday scenario. Deaths due to catastrophic events have been going down each decade. Population displacement due to flooding is overstated as we are capable of adapting to incremental flooding due to climate change. My point is, let's take gas now as an improvement and work on solutions over time. We can reasonably expect that by 2100 most cars will be electric or some other clean energy fuel. Climate change will not be solved due to international cooperation, this is an intractable cooperation problem. We are beating climate change with human ingenuity but it takes time...
- scarmig 7y ago
  "Humans" can adapt as a general abstraction, but we're all too happy to let individual humans die, particularly if they're poor or in developing countries. Even if you write off those deaths as irrelevant, it still costs money to adapt, as infrastructure has to be built or abandoned and rebuilt, and human capital has to be moved along with it.
  - naiveprogrammer 7y ago
    It is not clear to me that poor countries are to experience human loss due to climate change since there is a trade off in place here. If developed and developing countries curb emissions to near net zero levels the world economy will suffer. For instance, people in developing countries are still dying from malnutrition. Preventing enhanced economic global prosperity may affect human lives more than the counterfactual scenario of current emission levels. I am not saying this is true, but I think this question is valid. Of course, it would be ideal if we could stop CO2 emissions without foregoing economic growth but such scenario is not possible as of today. That's why I think the solution will come via technological advances instead of global cooperation to reduce CO2 emissions. Even though I do live in a developed country, I came from a developing country and many of you with the same background as me knows that climate change is the least of their worries when some don't even know what they are going to eat for dinner. My point is, in the absence of a global governance structure that makes prohibitively costly to implement a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions worldwide, there is no way that people in the developing world will choose less economic development. I know climate change is dear and near to many people's hearts here but as far as the consequences are not dramatic and sudden, people in the developing world will not really care except for the rich and upper middle class in developing countries which includes some of the biggest emitters such as China.

ralfd 7y ago

But this potency will be in the past, as all the methane broke down in 2100. The effect of a warmer day now will surely be negligible a 100 years in a future and climate instead find a new equilibrium?

Retric 7y ago

You’re vastly off. Averaged over 20 years methane is (GWP) 104x as potent as CO2, averaged over 100 years it’s (GWP) 28x. But, to get that average you can calculate ((28 * 100) - (104 * 20)) / 80 = 9. So, from year 20 to year 100 it’s 9x as potent on average. You get this because 1 - (1/(2^(20/7)) = 86% of methane released today has broken down in 20 years. Further, methane goes from CH4 atomic weight 18 to CO2 atomic weight 44. Thus, after breakdown you get (44/18) = 2.75x as much CO2 by weight. So, in 2120 methane produced today will be 99.995% CO2 and provide ~2.75x as much warming vs CO2 emitted today. Edit: Updated with numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

breakyerself 7y ago
That makes sense. Do you know if there is a graph that illustrates this so it cements in my mind better? I wonder how much feedbacks are considered with this. The early pulse of warming can cause changes to alebedo, co2 and methane emissions from melting permafrost, etc that carry on after the initial methane has broken down.
- thatcat 7y ago
  The graph is just a log decay like all chemical degradation curves. https://skepticalscience.com/toward-improved-discussions-methane.html https://skepticalscience.com/toward-improved-discussions-met...

naiveprogrammer 7y ago

The world is not going to end due to climate change in 2100 or 2200. Humans are capable of adapting to developing climates. The Earth is not going to burn to ashes, the most likely scenario are a few degrees higher which will absolutely have an impact but I don't buy the doomsday scenario. Deaths due to catastrophic events have been going down each decade. Population displacement due to flooding is overstated as we are capable of adapting to incremental flooding due to climate change. My point is, let's take gas now as an improvement and work on solutions over time. We can reasonably expect that by 2100 most cars will be electric or some other clean energy fuel. Climate change will not be solved due to international cooperation, this is an intractable cooperation problem. We are beating climate change with human ingenuity but it takes time...

scarmig 7y ago
"Humans" can adapt as a general abstraction, but we're all too happy to let individual humans die, particularly if they're poor or in developing countries. Even if you write off those deaths as irrelevant, it still costs money to adapt, as infrastructure has to be built or abandoned and rebuilt, and human capital has to be moved along with it.
- naiveprogrammer 7y ago
  It is not clear to me that poor countries are to experience human loss due to climate change since there is a trade off in place here. If developed and developing countries curb emissions to near net zero levels the world economy will suffer. For instance, people in developing countries are still dying from malnutrition. Preventing enhanced economic global prosperity may affect human lives more than the counterfactual scenario of current emission levels. I am not saying this is true, but I think this question is valid. Of course, it would be ideal if we could stop CO2 emissions without foregoing economic growth but such scenario is not possible as of today. That's why I think the solution will come via technological advances instead of global cooperation to reduce CO2 emissions. Even though I do live in a developed country, I came from a developing country and many of you with the same background as me knows that climate change is the least of their worries when some don't even know what they are going to eat for dinner. My point is, in the absence of a global governance structure that makes prohibitively costly to implement a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions worldwide, there is no way that people in the developing world will choose less economic development. I know climate change is dear and near to many people's hearts here but as far as the consequences are not dramatic and sudden, people in the developing world will not really care except for the rich and upper middle class in developing countries which includes some of the biggest emitters such as China.