NOAA: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Methane Rise Sharply in 2007
The news from NOAA (here) is that all our dawdling on climate action this decade is having real impact on the atmosphere:
- Concentrations of CO2 jumped 2.4 ppm in 2007, taking us to 385 ppm (preindustrial levels hovered around 280 through 1850).
- That is an increase of 0.6% (or 19 billion tons). If we stay at that growth rate, we’ll be at 465 ppm by 2050 — and that assumes (improbably) that the various carbon sinks don’t keep saturating (see here and here).
- Levels of methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) rose last year for the first time since 1998, perhaps an early indication of thawing permafrost.
Why this recent jump in methane? NOAA says:
Rapidly growing industrialization in Asia and rising wetland emissions in the Arctic and tropics are the most likely causes of the recent methane increase, said scientist Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory.
I have previously noted (here) the especially rapid warming in the same area as most of the Asian tundra.
We’re on the lookout for the first sign of a methane release from thawing Arctic permafrost,” said Dlugokencky. “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, contains vast stores of carbon. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and permafrost thaws, carbon could seep into the atmosphere in the form of methane, possibly fueling a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise.
The time to act is yesterday.
For more info, see “The Permafrost is not so Perma.”
April 24th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I will believe in NOAA’s explanations for CH4 increase this year if they are first able to explain the continuous decrease since 1998.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Nylo:
The earth doesn’t care whether you “believe” NOAA’s data. It is what it is, whether you believe it or not. These are what scientists call facts– observable phenomena that simply is. It was going down (slightly), it’s now going up. See? Facts.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
What continuous decrease since 1998? I’m staring at this graph:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2008.fig2.png
And the rate of change in CH4 decreased and went flat, but I don’t see a “continuous decline” in the curve itself.
That curve is probably what would be expected from switching to cleaner burning fuels and all the environmental concerns of the 1980s.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
It is terribly ominous news, particularly coupled with the recent report to the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna as reported in Spiegel Online:
http://www.spiegel.de/ international/ world/ 0,1518,547976,00.html
and the new report in Nature on beetle devastation:
http://www.nature.com/ news/ 2008/ 080423/ full/ news.2008.771.html
The boreal forest (burning) and permafrost (melting) are starting to make it feel like the top of the world’s on fire…(maybe because it is)…
April 24th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Nylo,
The decrease, or flatness, is well documented/explained:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0640.html
and now largely irrelevant…
April 24th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Ken’s link says, “one reason for the slowdown in the growth of methane concentration may be leak-preventing repairs made to oil and gas pipelines and storage facilities, which can release methane into the atmosphere. Other reasons may include slower growth or actual decrease in methane emissions from coal mining, rice paddies, and natural gas production, they say.”
I am also surprised they left out flaring of natural gas, which has been scaled back dramatically in the past decade, in part because the big oil companies have made climate commitments, and in part because natural gas has become so darn valuable.
Yes, many of us expected these measures to run out of steam at some point — and expected the tundra to kick in. One year does not prove the case, but it is something to keep a very close eye on.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Joe: I suspect a lot of people (rightly or wrongly) assumed that flared gas is 100% burned, so it results in virtually no methane release. I don’t claim to know enough about the petroleum business to take a position on it.
In general, I think a Siberian Express methane release is probably the scariest single “X factor” in our current situation. I don’t think we know nearly enough to assess how close we are to creating a situation that triggers it or even if it’s starting already.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
A one half of one per cent change over five years= DOOM. The question should be why didn’t the change match the Green’s predictions the previous four years, yet a another broken model that used to scare the world.
What up with the chopped off graphs that exaggerate the slope of the graphs? One part in 179 is a slope of ~ 0.6 %. Lying with graphs isn’t any more moral than lying with statistics.
Go to the NOAA site and use the the 250 Km smoothing range to generate some eye opening maps of surface temps to see how little GISS actually measures of the World’s surface to come up with “accurate Global averages” this emperor is butt naked.
It time for the AGW myth makers to put some actual data(clothes) on the scarecrow of carbon based AGW.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Whereever I post this, it’ll be off-topic. But I thiink important enough to mention.
PNNL, a research arm of DoE, and Washington State University are opening a joint bio-energy research lab in Rishland, WA. They hired a Dane to head the facility. Turns out he also owns and is CEO of a Danish biomethane production company.
biomathane. Maybe not so off-topic here as other threads.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I have a feeling that this is big news!!
Reminds me of James Lovelock…
April 24th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Just for the fun of it I pasted the 50 year CO2 history into Excel and ran an exponential extrapolation. It turns out that we will be breathing pure CO2 by the year 3000!
Lucky the industrial revolution didn’t start around the battle of Hastings.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:32 am
I don’t know whether or not I need to be concerned about atmospheric methane. True, it is a more potent greenhouse gas but the half-life in the atmosphere is 7-10 years. So I’d expect that the effects of increased CH4 would be transient. CO2 has a half-life though of 100 years and so has a more lasting and compounding impact.
I haven’t seen any discussion on this issue on websites and would like to learn more.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Jeff, here is a methane concern you might want to look into.
The hydroxyl radical ( OH ). It is a very important compound for us humans.
The hydroxyl radical (OH) is the major oxidizing agent in the atmosphere. Chemical reactions with OH initialize the removal of carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), and volatile organic compounds (VOC).
Start with this link:
http://tinyurl.com/3jtfpl
Any changes in the atmospheric concentration of OH will affect the chemical lifetimes of many chloroflourocarbon (CFC) replacement compounds, because OH is the primary compound involved in the breakdown of the alternative hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). Knowledge of OH concentration is important in analyzing the global warming potential and ozone depletion potential of HCFCs.
John McCormick
April 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Jeff B — Strictly speaking, excess atmospheric CO2 does not have a half-life. The distribution has a very long tail, much longer than a decaying expotential.
As an approximation, use 300-400 years with about 25% ‘forever’.
April 26th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
David B.Benson, What you said about CO2 half-life is true, how does it decline (PPM) every spring?
The carbon AGW clan reminds me of a second grader (10 year-old child) who has been given a tape measure, they run around a couple of days measuring objects, then abandon it for the next diversion. The selective filtering of reality is leading to ever greater cognitive disonance.
Deadwood, South Dakota= pre carbon beetles. Old growth forests with natural brush clearing fires prevented= hugh areas of mono culture and mono generational forests for insect attacks, evolution continoues even during the alleged carbon forced AGW. Errors in tree-hugging forrest management are not effects of a 0.5 degree natural or unnatural temp. change.
John McCormick, Sounds like a little methene flush will actually lower greenhouse effects. Geo-engingneering any one?
April 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Peter Foley — There is a yearly cycle in atmospheric CO2 because most of the land is in the northern hemisphere. But the oceans keep (on net) uptaking an approximately constant fraction of the excess.
Do note the yearly variation is very small compared to the total excess of about 85 ppm.
April 27th, 2008 at 5:20 am
John, please learn to read. I didn’t say I don’t believe the CH4 increase. That’s data. What I don’t believe is NOAA’s explanation for the increase. They have no idea at all. So they do what they always do: blame mankind.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
David B. Benson, If your Half-life number for CO2 was even close, the negative slope of CO2 PPM could just barely go negative on the chopped Y - axis graphs used- the seasonal swings negative slope would be be ~ minus 0.2 %,– imperceptible on the low resolution graphs posted.
The negative swing is about 2/3rds the positive. In it lies a possible geoengineering solution if needed( most likely not if negative global climate change continues).
April 27th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“if negative global climate change continues”???
Where is this occurring? The Arctic? Australia? India? SW U.S.?
April 27th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
David is correct. Half-life is an inappropriate way to measure CO2 in the atmosphere. The IPCC uses the Bern Carbon Cycle Model. See Chapter 10 of the WG I report (Physical Basis) or http://www.climate.unibe.ch/ ~joos/ OUTGOING/ publications/ hooss01cd.pdf
April 28th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Joe, its isn’t warming up any where but FSU, how does your carbon forced model explain that? Where did all the energy go the last 9 years when the air and sea didn’t warm? Time to tune up the models to match more closely reality. The map (carbon forced -AGW models) aren’t the world as it is.
Seriously I’m interested in the freakish heat have in Siberia. Is it real or is it tweaked data? or just natural variation?
All Arctic ice levels are above the 1951-1981 average.
You could be the prophet who lead the pack of AGWers back to reality instead of one of thousands that went over the science cliff to irrational belief systems forever damaging their reputations for scientific integrity.
It is never to late to return to the bosom of reason.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Peter — not sure how you can keep asserting things that aren’t true. The entire globe has been achieving record temperatures, as I have been reporting over and over again.
That said, the stunning loss of the Arctic ice does mean that the top of the northern hemisphere is going to warm the most. The data trackers who best account for the Arctic (NASA GISS) not surprisingly show the greatest warming recently.
Joe
April 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Joe, 1998 = record, since then not records. What you report and what the data say atre Not equal. Cryosphere data refutes your statement regarding Arctic ice.