Global warming: New study suggests short-term focus on transient greenhouse gases could yield climate benefits

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Bob Berwyn
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Carbon dioxide levels continue to  rise with no solution in sight, but cutting other greenhouse gases might be easier.

Technological solutions at hand; swift action could give coastal communities more time to prepare for sea level rise

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Even without tackling the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, cutting methane, tropospheric ozone, hydrofluorocarbons, and black carbon could help limit sea level rise, seen as one of the most serious impacts of global warming.

Reducing pollutants that cycle through the atmosphere relatively quickly could temporarily forestall the rate of sea level rise by roughly 25 to 50 percent, according to new report from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate Central and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“To avoid potentially dangerous sea level rise, we could cut emissions of short-lived pollutants even if we cannot immediately cut carbon dioxide emissions,” said NCAR’s Aixue Hu, lead author author of the study. “This new research shows that society can significantly reduce the threat to coastal cities if it moves quickly on a handful of pollutants.” (more…)

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Global warming: Organic sediments under Antarctic ice sheets may become a huge source of heat-trapping methane

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Sub-ice environments are biologically active and converting organic material to methane

Antarctica is a potentially vast source of heat-trapping methane. Photo by Bob Berwyn.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Climate researchers have long warned that stores of organic material in the Arctic will release vast amounts of heat-trapping methane as the atmosphere warms.

Now, a new study shows that Antarctica is another potentially huge source of methane. As much as 50 percent of the West Antarctic ice sheet may be covering old organic matter in sedimentary basins — and that organic matter may have been converted to methane by micro-organisms living under oxygen-deprived conditions.

The methane could be released to the atmosphere if the ice sheet shrinks and exposes these old sedimentary basins, the study concludes. (more…)

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Global warming: Reservoir drawdowns a factor in atmospheric methane levels

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Reservoir drawdowns appear to have the potential to increase heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere.

Study measures increased methane emissions as reservoir levels drop

By Summit Voice

Lowering water levels in reservoirs may significantly increase emissions of heat-trapping methane gas, according to Washington State University researchers who measured dissolved gases in the water column of Lacamas Lake.

Graduate student Bridget Deemer found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn down. A fellow WSU-Vancouver student, Maria Glavin, sampled bubbles rising from the lake mud and measured a 36-fold increase in methane during a drawdown.

Methane is 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. And while dams and the water behind them cover only a small portion of the earth’s surface, they harbor biological activity that can produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. There are also some 80,000 dams in the United States alone, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams.

“Reservoirs have typically been looked at as a green energy source,” Deemer said. “But their role in greenhouse gas emissions has been overlooked.” (more…)

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Global warming: Diseased trees may be major methane source

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Diseased trees may be a globally significantly source of heat-trapping methane gas.

Sampling yields highly elevated methane levels in diseases stands

By Summit Voice

Along with the potential risk for increased fire danger, there may be another good reason to remove beetle-infested trees from western forests.

Researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies say some diseased trees release methane at a level that may be a globally significant source of the potent heat-trapping gas, according to the study published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Sixty trees sampled at Yale Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut contained concentrations of methane that were as high as 80,000 times ambient levels. Normal air concentrations are less than 2 parts per million, but the Yale researchers found average levels of 15,000 parts per million inside trees. (more…)

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Global warming: Pinpointing permafrost methane emissions

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

USGS researchers make ground-based permafrost measurements in Alaska.

New study will generate important data on Arctic carbon cycle

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Methane emissions from Arctic landscapes remain one of the big wild cards in the global warming deck, with some dire predictions that methane from melting permafrost could significantly increase warming.

There has been relatively little sampling in the area, but a research mission led by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has recently completed airborne measurements that will help establish a baseline for methane and calculate future increases. (more…)

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Global warming: Arctic Ocean may be venting methane

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

New research measures pinpoints localized sources of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions

Cracks in the Arctic sea ice may be increasing the venting of methane from the Arctic Ocean. PHOTO COURTESY NOAA.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with decreasing the albedo of the Arctic, melting sea ice may also be resulting in more heat-trapping methane being released to the atmosphere, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers said they measured increased levels of methane where the Arctic’s floating sea ice fractures to reveal open water. Although the amount is small compared to emissions from human sources, it was more than previous estimates for methane emissions from marine sources.

The methane may be coming from tiny bacteria and other organisms in the seawater, which release methane as a waste product, but this has not yet been demonstrated definitively. (more…)

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A switch to natural gas may not slow global warming

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

A natural gas drilling rig in Texas, via the Creative Commons.

Methane leaks a wild card in energy and climate change equation

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A new study from a senior researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research challenges the conventional wisdom that shifting from coal to natural gas would help slow the rate of global warming. The findings suggest that a partial worldwide shift to natural gas could actually accelerate climate change through at least 2050, even if without methane leaks from gas production.

Methane is a potent heat-trapping gas and it’s unclear how much methane is released during natural gas production. The picture is further complicated by the fact that coal combustion also releases large amounts of sulfates and other particles that tend to cool temperatures by blocking incoming solar radiation — as bad as those byproducts may be for the environment.

“Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem,” said researcher Tom Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges.” (more…)

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‘Climate-smart’ diet could reduce greenhouse gases

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Pound for pound, beef production accounts for a huge amount of greenhouse gas production. PHOTO USDA.

Swedish researchers propose climate tax on meat and milk; food production contributes 25 percent of global greenhouse gases

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — With methane and nitrogen oxides from food production accounting for 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, there’s room to make some significant reductions. One way to influence the consumption of products that generate the highest amount of those gases could be to impose a climate tax on meat and milk, according to researchers at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.

In a paper published in the journal Climate Change, Kristina Mohlin, Stefan Wirsenius and Fredrik Hedenus concluded that a €60 tax per ton of CO2 equivalent on meat and milk could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 7 percent. If the land were to be used for bioenergy production instead of dairy and meat, emissions could be cut sixfold, they said.

“Today we have taxes on petrol and a trading scheme for industrial plants and power generation, but no policy instruments at all for food-related greenhouse gas emissions. This means that we do not pay for the climate costs of our food,” said Hedenus. (more…)

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Microbes munching large amounts of oil-spill methane

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Bob Berwyn

Although most of the focus has been on the oil that gushed from the failed BP well in the Gulf of Mexico, huge amounts of methane also were released.

Some microbial communities depend on natural oil seeps for nourishment

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A team of Harvard biologists say microbial communities deep in the Gulf of Mexico may be well-equipped to consume much more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster than previously thought. The researchers studied microbes living seafloor brine pools within 100 miles of the failed oil well, where they depend on seeping oil and gas as part of the ecosystem.

“Because of the ample oil and gas reserves under the Gulf of Mexico, slow seepage is a natural part of the ecosystem,” says Peter R. Girguis, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. “Entire communities have arisen on the seafloor that depend on these seeps. Our analysis shows that within these communities, some microbes consume methane 10 to 100 times faster than we’ve previously realized.” (more…)

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