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Another question I had: what does methane become once it breaks down? It becomes CO2 (a relatively minor greenhouse gas per unit weight, but long-lived) and H2O
by Robotbeat 5y ago
Another question I had: what does methane become once it breaks down? It becomes CO2 (a relatively minor greenhouse gas per unit weight, but long-lived) and H2O, right? H2O is no big problem in the lower troposphere. It just rains out. But in the stratosphere… it can stick around for much longer and impact the climate.
How much does this matter for methane? I would imagine methane floats up pretty high into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Does it keep going? What stops it from getting to the thermosphere and (ultimately) exosphere?
- masklinn 5y ago> It becomes CO2 (a relatively minor greenhouse gas per unit weight, but long-lived) Although it should be noted that 1 tonne methane decays into around 2.5 tonnes of CO2 (I don't remember the exact number but it's around that) and GWP is measured by weight. So even after it's decayed, methane has a higher GWP than CO2. Which is why its GWP remains much higher than CO2 even over extremely long periods: methane has a GWP of ~80 over 20 years, ~30 over 100 years, but is still around 7 over 500 years, despite a lifetime of only 12 years.