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Scientists Discover First Methane Leak in Antarctica; Warn of Warming Threat

• ncmncm 6y ago
  > "Methane is the second-most effective gas at warming our atmosphere..." It is hard to know what is meant here. Methane is ~25x more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2 or water vapor. But there are lots worse. A far, far more effective greenhouse gas is HFC. (I know, HFC is a family of formulations. Still.) The number I have seen is 2500x. The amount of HFCs in currently deployed refrigeration systems, if vented, would trap as much heat as all the CO2 already in the atmosphere. Once vented there is no prospect of recovering it, and it lasts much longer in the atmosphere than CO2 because nothing consumes it. We used to think HFCs saved the world from ultimate disaster by displacing from refrigeration systems the CFCs that were destroying the ozone layer. Now we know it's a ticking bomb. How hard will it be to gather in, drain, and replace all the existing A/C and refrigerator equipment currently using HFCs? At least HFCs don't acidify oceans. If we can get the CO2 down, preventing conversion of visible to IR (e.g. roof mirrors) might be enough to save us. Just the latter can't if CO2 remains high, because a collapsed ocean ecosystem is its own mega-disaster.
• matthewdgreen 6y ago
  This is the most important story on HN today, and predictably it’s ranked 56 as I write this.