Emissions of Some Greenhouse Gases Stabilize!
posted in Amazing Facts, Ozone Updates, Pollution |
The levels of the second most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere has recently been levelled, according to reports of atmospheric chemists.
The scientists say that eventhough this is good news, it does not mean that methane gas levels will not rise and that “carbon dioxide is and continues to be the biggest reason for climate change.
Researchers at the Sherwood Rowland and Donald Blake’s laboratory at the University of California at Irvi ine, US, collected air in canisters at the coastal areas around the Pacific Ocean. They then meure the methane in each canister to obtain a global average.
According to the research, the methane levels between 1978 to 1987, increased by 11%, that shows an average growth rate of more than 1% in a year. Over the next decade, growth rates slowed slowed down to around 0.3% and 0.6% a year and from December 1998 to December 2005, they also dropped down to a zero, ranging from a 0.3% increase to a 0.2% decrease.
Emissions
Much of the methane emissions come from rice paddies, landfills, natural gas and oil systems, and cattle, who give out this gas due to fermentation that takes place in their digestive systems. Eventhough less amounts of it is emitted into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is a much powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide: one tonne of methane has the same warming effect as 21 tonnes of CO2.
For comparing the effects of the two gases on global warming much better, researchers converted the worldwide methane emissions into CO2 equivalents. This calculation shows that methane emissions are actually responsible for around 18% of the warming effect of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Shocking Revelation
This result was unexpected “because there isn’t much in the way of programmes to reduce methane emissions”, says Rowland, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for discovering that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol sprays and coolants were damaging the Earth’s protective ozone layer.
According to him, if efforts continue to be made to stop the methane leak from the oil and gas lines, then the atmospheric methane levels could fall over the next 10 years.
“We will gain some ground on global warming if methane is not as large a contributor in the future as it has been in the past century,” he adds.
The researchers also caution that, just because the reason for the pollution levels getting stabilized is not known, there is no reason to think that they will continue to remain stable. The atmospheric methane has more than doubled since the industrial revolution, going from 700 parts per billion to 1770 parts per billion today.