Posted on 10/31/2008 3:37:15 AM PDT by xcamel
Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions.
Methane - powerful greenhouse gas
The two lead authors of a paper published in this week's Geophysical Review Letters, Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, state that as a result of the increase, several million tons of new methane is present in the atmosphere.
Methane accounts for roughly one-fifth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, though its effect is 25x greater than that of carbon dioxide. Its impact on global warming comes from the reflection of the sun's light back to the Earth (like a greenhouse). Methane is typically broken down in the atmosphere by the free radical hydroxyl (OH), a naturally occuring process. This atmospheric cleanser has been shown to adjust itself up and down periodically, and is believed to account for the lack of increases in methane levels in Earth's atmosphere over the past ten years despite notable simultaneous increases by man.
More study
Prinn has said, "The next step will be to study [these changes] using a very high-resolution atmospheric circulation model and additional measurements from other networks. The key thing is to better determine the relative roles of increased methane emission versus [an increase] in the rate of removal. Apparently we have a mix of the two, but we want to know how much of each [is responsible for the overall increase]."
The primary concern now is that 2007 is long over. While the collected data from that time period reflects a simultaneous world-wide increase in emissions, observing atmospheric trends now is like observing the healthy horse running through the paddock a year after it overcame some mystery illness. Where does one even begin? And how relevant are any of the data findings at this late date? Looking back over 2007 data as it was captured may prove as ineffective if the data does not support the high resolution details such a study requires.
One thing does seem very clear, however; science is only beginning to get a handle on the big picture of global warming. Findings like these tell us it's too early to know for sure if man's impact is affecting things at the political cry of "alarming rates." We may simply be going through another natural cycle of warmer and colder times - one that's been observed through a scientific analysis of the Earth to be naturally occuring for hundreds of thousands of years.
Project funding
Rigby and Prinn carried out this study with help from researchers at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Bristol and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Methane gas measurements came from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), which is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Australian CSIRO network.
If you increased the salt on your fries from 280ppm to 360ppm, would you have a heart attack? Without lab instruments could the change be detected? We shouldn’t go crazy with more CO2 output but man-made output will be decreasing substantially as fossil fuels become more expensive within 50 years or so. The CO2 problem goes away on its own. With man-made clouds in the future we can regulate the climate to be whatever we want, assuming the scientists actually figure out how the climate works. How many of the 70 computer models computed ahead of time the cooling of the last 10 years? They need lots of work.
Yes, Freon had caused a hole in the atmosphere that would take fifty years to repair. They outlawed Freon and three years later the hole was back to normal.
That’s the power these folks have. That’s the logic they use. That’s how valid that logic is. That’s how easy it is for them to job our leaders in Washington, D.C., or the state capitals.
Political Correctness is a VERY insidious dynamic, and the public should be made aware of it. PC is more dangerous than any of the things these nuts are afraid of.
I am not saying that there is never a reason to be concerned with these issues, but I do want level heads to prevail, and wise objective reactions by the public in response.
I hadn’t heard of BPA. I’ll have to check it out.
Thanks for your comments.
D1
Couldn’t agree more! End the public funding NOW!
I agree. It’s been used as a lever on a number of fronts. Vehicles, housing, energy, urban sprawl... it’s effect on children’s braces. It does get comical at some point, but we can’t take it as a joke. This is serious. And you point out one of the serious aspects quite correctly.
LOL, better hurry.
Wanna make a GW bot’s head explode? Remind them that the only scientifically identifiable reason for the dark ages was the last “little ice age”...And man was growing grapes in Greenland during the warm period before that - which also fostered the greatest expansion of human intelligence up until that time... so GW is a “bad thing”???
Really bad question. How about this: if you have a glass of water and you add a drop of food coloring, do you notice a change in the appearance of the water? (Key concept: adding just a small amount of a radiation-absorbing substance changes the radiation-absorbing properties of the medium in which the substance is suspended, dissolved, mixed, etc.)
We shouldn’t go crazy with more CO2 output but man-made output will be decreasing substantially as fossil fuels become more expensive within 50 years or so. The CO2 problem goes away on its own.
I think it will. The question is how fast and how much.
How many of the 70 computer models computed ahead of time the cooling of the last 10 years?
It hasn't cooled appreciably over the past 10 years. That's a skeptical myth. This is a cool year. The decade we're in is still substantially warmer than the 1990s.
From the company that is now bringing you the “all global warming channel”
Same data, massaged by the same alarmists, all fighting for the same government science grants, towing the same old line, finding a pretty new package and bow for the same bucket of sh*t every week.
LOL, I think you’re on to something there.
Here in Los Angeles we had what I consider a rather mild summer. That was pretty much ignored. Then they announced this was the hottest October in decades.
You know, how many tens of thousands of professional baseball games has there been? As many as there has been, it really quite amazing that not all that infrequently you’ll see someone set a record, or do something that hasn’t been done before. Some person could use those special instances to make the case that something was changing, and we needed to be aware of it.
That’s something like what is taking place with regard to the environment. There’s always going to be an anomaly somewhere. That’s life. It isn’t proof positive that something is amiss.
Climate change, one of a number of constants in life.
See, you should have been a scientist. You have an affinity for this type of thing! ;-)
I share your outlook. I like that mention of the records. Isn’t it strange that you could notice that, but none of the enviro whack-jobs could.
This seems to be like the story the author(s) Stott had published in January concerning old vs new ice in the Arctic; you do know that he and his colleagues are fulltime contributors to the IPCC, don’t you.
In this latest case he has taken some sparse data from the southern polar area and more available northern polar area and run them through several of his models designed to show human influence more than to rule it out.
With no referenced study here I would reserve judgment as a juror before the evidence was corroborated by less-biased peer review.
He is still guessing that calving is increased by general warming events rather than as yet discovered natural forces.
Simple correlation is encouraging but not conclusive, IMO.
Selling a climate tax globally is going to be mighty tough for a while.
Oh, c'mon. Attacking the messenger is just ridiculous. Do a Google News search with "Antarctica" and "warming" and you'll get (by last count) 143 news articles with this topic. Is the "Ottawa Citizen" the "all global warming" Canadian newspaper? What about Reuters, the BBC, station KARK in Arkansas, the UNIAN news agency of the Ukraine, the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates -- all global warming mouthpieces, I guess. (I mean, seriously...)
Same data, massaged by the same alarmists, all fighting for the same government science grants, towing the same old line, finding a pretty new package and bow for the same bucket of sh*t every week.
According to reports, its not the same data. This is from AFP:
"Using new data on land surface temperatures and state-of-the-art computer models to simulate different climate scenarios, a team of scientists led by East Anglia's Nathan Gillet were able to tease apart the internal and external drivers of observed changes at both poles.
Rather than covering the entire Arctic and Antarctic regions, as previous studies have done, they focused only on the grid points where precise measurements have been taken.
This made their climate models more accurate, and showed that observed changes in temperatures over the 20th century could only have occurred if the impact of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and upper atmosphere ozone depletion, are taken into account."
Somebody has to read the paper to find out what "new data" is used.
Hadn't known that but it certainly doesn't surprise me.
and run them through several of his models designed to show human influence more than to rule it out.
I detect a hint of bias in that statement. The models either include human factors or don't. The results either show similarity to the observational data, or don't. That's how human influence is assessed.
With no referenced study here I would reserve judgment as a juror before the evidence was corroborated by less-biased peer review.
That's how science is supposed to work, at least.
Selling a climate tax globally is going to be mighty tough for a while.
Just checked: I still possess a nasal organ on my visage.
Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory is extremely robust with respect to data. All observations confirm it at the 100% percent confidence level.
There have been numerous studies of the effects of changing technology and measurement methods -- even such simple things as when the daily temperature readings were taken. Just last May a previously-unexplained short term drop in temperatures in the 1940s was explained by a switch in sea surface temperature measurement techniques occurring after WWII.
Such things generate a lot of traffic.
Yeah, same old same old... all the data that fits the answer that gets the grants. Go figure.
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