Feb
Methane: another bad smell
It’s claimed that, as the more pernicious greenhouse gas, the threat from methane is even worse than that from CO2. It’s like knowing that zombies are coming to get you and then seeing a flock of vampires circling above.
But, like much of climate science, what is known is far outweighed by what is unknown, and climate science is largely theoretical, and based on computer models that are little more than experimental test beds.
Having said that I can submit a piece of scientific research that casts doubt on claims that methane gas is responsible for past surges in heat on the planet. It says:
Analysis of Greenland ice led by Scripps researchers could allay fears about methane ‘burp’ accelerating current global warming trend
I note the lack of certainty, but there is not a shred of evidence to prove a contrary view.
An expansion of wetlands and not a large-scale melting of frozen methane deposits is the likely cause of a spike in atmospheric methane gas that took place some 11,600 years ago, according to an international research team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The finding is expected to come as a relief to scientists and climate watchers concerned that huge accelerations of global warming might have been touched off by methane melts in the past and could happen again now as the planet warms.
Note in this section that the methane release comes after a massive temperature change in a short space of time.
The burst of methane took place immediately after an abrupt transition between climatic periods known as the Younger Dryas and Preboreal. During this event, temperatures in Greenland rose 10° C (18° F) in 20 years. Methane levels over 150 years rose about 50 percent, from 500 parts per billion in air to 750 parts per billion.
They haven’t suggested why there was such a dramatic temperature rise, but you can be sure it wasn’t AGW as we weren’t around then. Skeptics don’t have all the answers, but the theory of AGW is so full of holes, we can be sure that they don’t either.
Source: scrippsnews.ucsd.edu