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Global methane levels move upward again
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 Dani Cooper ABC
rice field Costly crop: The loss of wetlands to agricultural crops has been highlighted as a possible cause behind the increase in methane levels (Source: iStockphoto)
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Methane levels in the atmosphere have started to rise after almost eight years of near-zero growth, an international study says.
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"After seven years [of zero growth] methane has started to rise again to growth rates of the early 1990s," Fraser says.
"If methane concentrations continue to grow at the current rate then it will be once again the second-most important greenhouse gas to control after CO2 over the next few decades," he says.
Fraser says methane accounts for about 20% of all greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution.
It is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and comes from sources such as natural wetlands, rice fields, fires, coal mines and natural gas reticulation.
Emissions have been balanced over the past decade by natural sinks that absorb the gas and through oxidation into the atmosphere.
Fraser says sources of methane have been growing with drainage of tropical wetlands for agricultural use and increased fossil fuel use.
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Global methane levels move upward again (ABC News in Science)
Nice theory, but I am not sure anyone knows
what the hell is going on with methane.
