THE LATEST ON METHANE FROM JAMES HANSON

From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY   USA   WORLD   Brazil     India  South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185       246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518     118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299     465

Jan     14       4142     15512        1151         189     712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107     398

          25       2414    10578         1582        119     144

Mar     2        1989    9490         1726        110     194

          31         1115   12301          3950       458      58

April   6         906   11787           4211         631      37

May    4         853   13667          3025      3786     59 

           5         743    14567          2791       3982     46 

         11          743     13444         2275       4200     71     

         12          841     13880        2545       4126      72

         18          733     13960        2517       4525      80

Summary:

• For the longest time the U.S. had the highest new cases/day.
• Yesterday we still had 27,506.
• India = 267,174.
• Brazil = 74,379
• Yesterday Argentina had 744 new deaths, #3 in the world and more than #4 U.S.

I can't send you to a reference, because these contributions regularly come from James Hanson by e-mail.  First and surprisingly, he and Makiko Sato begin with:  THE WORLD HAS COOLED OFF--WHAT'S THE SIGNIFICANCE?

Note that, compared to the 1880-1920 mean temperature, the years 2016 to 2020 to 2021 have shown a rather dramatic decline in temperature difference.  The reason, they say, is that we are in a moderately strong La Nina, which causes such things.  They go on to say that in time global temperature will ultimately respond to global climate forcings.  In other words, this recent period is an anomaly and the warming will soon return.

However, they they go on to further say that the methane (CH4) growth rate[3]  is shocking (Fig. 4).  A CH4 increase causes tropospheric ozone (O3) and stratospheric water vapor (H2O) to also increase.  Including these indirect effects, the climate forcing by observed CH4 growth is half as large as the climate forcing by CO2.

While carbon dioxide increased by 46%, global methane concentrations rose from 722 parts per billion in pre industrial times to 1866 ppb in 2019.  This factor of 2.5 increase is the highest in 800,000 years.

To better understand the role of methane, first our atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and oxygen:

Note that carbon dioxide is only 0.04338%, while methane (CH4) is a tiny 0.00018% of the atmosphere.  In other words, there are 241 times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than methane.  One more point of interest is that water vapor has a far greater greenhouse effect, but this gas concentration has not changed over time.

Hanson/Sato show this 2019 overview:

Remember that the actual concentration of gases in our atmosphere shows that carbon dioxide is 241 more prevalent than methane.  

• The blue pie chart immediately above shows what is currently being added to the atmosphere.  
• While carbon dioxide emissions are now only eight times that of methane, the effect of methane is half that of carbon dioxide.  
• This is because for the first decade of presence in the atmosphere, one molecule of methane is more than a hundred times more effective in causing global warming than one of carbon dioxide.  
• This factor drops down by a factor of three over time because the methane is neutralized by natural oxidation.  

• Hanson and Sato blame fracking for this increasing role of methane.  

The International Energy Agency has a Methane Tracker site that indicates the two worst emission locations are wetlands and agriculture, followed by energy usage, waste and biomass burning.  They do not even mention natural leakage from the oceans and tundra, but with more and more global warming, more and more methane will escape.  

People don't take methane too seriously because methane is currently only 0.00018% of the atmosphere.  Carbon dioxide is also quite low at 0.04%, and is the only Greenhouse Gas particularly feared by the media.  

• To repeat, first released into the air, molecule to molecule, methane is more than a hundred times worse than carbon dioxide in inducing global warming.  
• For the first 20 years, methane has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide.
• Over a hundred-year period, methane is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
• Then when you crank in the metastability of a warmer ocean melting the methane hydrates (also known as methane clathrates) located at the bottom of the ocean--and there is more energy in these marine deposits than all the fossil fuel energy confirmed on land--you worry, a lot.  
• 
  Now we know that these methane clathrates in the Pacific Ocean are predominantly found in the Rim of Fire responsible for many of those serious earthquakes and tsunamis, so you wonder...what if there is a sudden flurry of these disturbances throughout the entire Pacific?

• 
  While there are various theories on what caused those mass extinctions in our geological past, one cause of the Permian extinction, the greatest challenge to life on Earth, is methane hydrate.
• Both that problem 250 million years ago and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 56 million years ago have possibly been linked to the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis, a rapid warming of the world temperature by hydrate leakage.  Also happened 630 million years in the past and more recently only 12,000 years ago.
• Thus my theory about The Venus Syndrome.

Shifting to a real natural disaster, quoting National Public Radio:

On the same day India confirmed its highest-ever daily death toll from COVID-19, it was also hit by a deadly storm. Cyclone Tauktae barreled into the west coast overnight packing wind gusts of up to 130 miles per hour — some of the strongest on record — before weakening over land later Tuesday.

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