Since 2006, the amount of heat-trapping methane in Earth’s atmosphere has been rising fast and, unlike the rise in carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane’s recent increase seems to be driven by biological emissions, not the burning of fossil fuels. This might just be ordinary variability – a result of natural climate cycles such as El Niño. Or it may signal that a great transition in Earth’s climate has begun.
Molecule for molecule, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂ but it lasts slightly less than a decade in the atmosphere compared with centuries for CO₂. Methane emissions threaten humanity’s ability to limit warming to relatively safe levels. Even more troubling, the rate at which methane is increasing in the atmosphere has accelerated recently. Something like this has happened before: sudden surges in methane marked the transitions from cold ice ages to warm interglacial climates.
Methane was about 0.7 parts per million (ppm) of the air before humans began burning fossil fuels. Now it is over 1.9 ppm and rising fast. Roughly three-fifths of emissions come from fossil fuel use, farming, landfills and waste. The remainder is from natural sources, especially vegetation rotting in tropical and northern wetlands.
Worth a read but no mention of heat from the earth’s core being a factor in planetary warming. ABN
“Worth a read but no mention of heat from the earth’s core being a factor in planetary warming.” Also no mention of water vapor being the greenhouse gas that dwarfs the other greenhouse gases. Something like 98% of all greenhouse gases is water vapor. Why is the never mentioned in articles about “greenhouse gases”?