In fact, methane concentrations have more than doubled over the last 150 years.
Methane is a powerful global warming gas. In the early transitional period of natural methane release the molecules of methane can produce a global warming effect that is more than a hundred times greater than that of carbon dioxide molecules. Methane (or natural gas) is a very powerful global warming gas that has been underreported for political reasons of corruption.
Ambient pre industrial times is 1750 CE. Modern Global Warming Era concentrations of greenhouse gases has increased significantly. Greenhouse gas above natural global warming concentration of carbon dioxide is increased ~39% and methane concentration is increased ~164%. Methane plays a significant part of recent global warming temperature increase -- methane's contribution to enhanced greenhouse effect is almost half of that due to hydrocarbon carbon dioxide increases over the last 150 years.
Thirty six years ago, in 1976, methane in the atmosphere was identified as a significant greenhouse gas. By 2001 CE U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported large parts of multiple chapters are dedicated to examining the sources, sinks, chemistry, history and potential global warming future of methane. After 2001 CE, and with strong covert political encroachment upon the technical reporting of IPCC Assessment Reports (ARs), untoward groups and politicians for reasons of money, power, greed, and corruption have promoted "renewable energy" and carbon trading within the European-U.S. market sectors. There was further destruction of the validity of IPCC reporting; successful blocking of hydrocarbon emission reductions; Euro-U.S. politicians increased nuclear clean energy dismantling; construction of hydrocarbon-use infrastructure increased; multinational coal production is increased; attempted disruption of U.S. domestic oil supplies; while a greater "renewable energy" distraction masks the course of human life destruction 2050-2055 CE.
At issue is the accelerating use-rate of hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) with its release of carbon dioxide and the accelerating temperature-rate release of methane within the Arctic Region. The rate of global warming temperature increase is a result of combination of methane and carbon dioxide gases increases. Mother Nature has issued her last warning: Unless natural and human global warming gases peak this decade and thereafter decline, successful mitigation of global warming is very much in doubt.
The global warming potential (GWP) methane within decomposed methane clathrates is very greatly more than that of carbon dioxide. Some key facts about methane clathrates (aka, methane hydrates) make them particularly interesting to climatologists. First, they may make up a significant portion of total fossil carbon reserves, including coal, oil, and natural gas. Current best guesses suggest that maybe 500 to 2,000 gigatonnes of carbon may be stored as methane clathrates (5-20% of estimated total fossil carbon reserves). Some estimates are as high as 10,000 gigatonnes of methane clathrates fossil carbon reserves. Methane clathrates occur mainly on the Arctic continental shelves where surface to mid water temperature is sufficiently cold, there is increased water pressure, and there exists enough organic carbon material (ie, coal, oil, natural gas leaks) to keep the methane-producing bacteria happy and in suspension for the last 50 million plus years, until now. Now, Arctic Region and global temperatures are rapidly rising and methane is being released.
Most importantly, methane clathrates can be explosively unstable if the temperature increases or the pressure decreases — which can happen as a function of warming temperature increase, tectonic uplift, or undersea landslides. A rapid large release of methane from Arctic methane clathrates is called the "methane clathrate gun effect."
These Arctic Region methane clathrates reservoirs are particularly vulnerable to atmospheric and water current temperature changes as represented by sea-ice changes. As the temperatures warm their result methane greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. In the early period of natural methane release the powerful gas has a global warming potential (GWP) of greater than 100. Increased temperatures release methane into the atmosphere which in turn serves as a positive regenerative feedback loop that continues the increase of global and regional temperatures. The below study proved that methane concentration originate from sea water, not on land or from human sources.
"Atmospheric observations of Arctic Ocean methane emissions up to 82° north"
Nature Geoscience (2012) doi:10.1038/ngeo 1452
Received 10 November 2011, Accepted 21 March 2012, Published online 22 April 2012
Uncertainty in the future atmospheric burden of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, represents an important challenge to the development of realistic climate projections. The Arctic is home to large reservoirs of methane, in the form of permafrost soils and methane hydrates, which are vulnerable to destabilization in a warming climate. Furthermore, methane is produced in the surface ocean and the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean are supersaturated with respect to methane. However, the fate of this oceanic methane is uncertain. Here, we use airborne observations of methane to assess methane efflux from the remote Arctic Ocean, up to latitudes of 82° north. We report layers of increased methane concentrations near the surface ocean, with little or no enhancement in carbon monoxide levels, indicative of a non-combustion source. We further show that high methane concentrations are restricted to areas over open leads and regions with fractional sea-ice cover. Based on the observed gradients in methane concentration, we estimate that sea–air fluxes amount to around 2 mg d−1 m−2, comparable to emissions seen on the Siberian shelf. We suggest that the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean represent a potentially important source of methane, which could prove sensitive to changes in sea-ice cover.
Fin
Over the last 30 years, methane has gone from being a gas of no importance, to — in some researchers eyes, at least — possibly the most important greenhouse gas for understanding global warming.
"Danger from the deep: New climate threat as methane rises from cracks in Arctic ice"
Scientists shocked to find greenhouse gas 70 times more potent than CO2 bubbling from deep ocean
STEVE CONNOR
The Independent
MONDAY 23 APRIL 2012
A new source of methane – a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide – has been identified by scientists flying over areas in the Arctic where the sea ice has melted.
The researchers found significant amounts of methane being released from the ocean into the atmosphere through cracks in the melting sea ice. They said the quantities could be large enough to affect the global climate. Previous observations have pointed to large methane plumes being released from the seabed in the relatively shallow sea off the northern coast of Siberia but the latest findings were made far away from land in the deep, open ocean where the surface is usually capped by ice.
Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that methane levels rise so dramatically each time the research aircraft flew over cracks in the sea ice.
"When we flew over completely solid sea ice, we didn't see anything in terms of methane. But when we flew over areas where the sea ice had melted, or where there were cracks in the ice, we saw the methane levels increase." "We were surprised to see these enhanced methane levels at these high latitudes. Our observations really point to the ocean surface as the source, which was not what we had expected."
"Other scientists had seen high concentrations of methane in the sea surface but nobody had expected to see it being released into the atmosphere in this way."
Methane is about 70 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat. However, because methane is broken down more quickly in the atmosphere, scientists calculate that it is 20 times more powerful over a 100-year cycle. The latest methane measurements were made from the American HIPPO research programme where a research aircraft loaded with scientific instruments flies for long distances at varying altitudes, measuring and recording gas levels at different heights.
The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, covered several flights into the Arctic at different times of the year. They covered an area about 950 miles north of the coast of Alaska and about 350 miles south of the North Pole. The levels of methane coming off this region were about the same as the quantities measured by other scientists monitoring methane levels above the shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
"We suggest that the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean represent a potentially important source of methane, which could prove sensitive to changes in sea ice cover," the researchers write. "The association with sea ice makes this methane source likely to be sensitive to changing Arctic ice cover and dynamics, providing an unrecognised feedback process in the global atmosphere-climate system," they say.
Climate scientists are concerned that rising temperatures in the Arctic could trigger climate-feedbacks, where melting ice results in the release of methane which in turn results in a further increase in temperatures.
"We should be concerned because there's so many things in the Arctic where the warming feeds further warming. There are many things in the Arctic that do respond to warming," said Euan Nisbet, a methane expert at Royal Holloway University of London.
Fin
Under current accelerating rates of carbon and methane gases release, human life ends 2050-2055 CE. If Arctic Region methane clathrates carbon reserves become explosively unstable by temperature increase, tectonic uplift, or undersea landslides -- global warming temperature quickly rises and there are no more human races. Therefore, estimates for the continuation of human-life range from a minimum of zero-years to a maximum of 40-years. There are no political policies to alter the lifespan of human races.
