USA Today, Times & Telegraph in UK: Methane + aerosols may boost greenhouse more than we thought
On the eve of Copenhagen talks to put muscle into international global warming response a paper at Science magazine today says greenhouse gases, particularly methane, may be kicking the thermostat higher even faster than the UN’s IPCC has supposed.
The six authors say in particular that methane, ozone, and carbon-rich aerosols interact in some ways that current schemes for which trading carbon credits and caps take no account. The upshot is that methane emissions have a ten percent bigger impact on the retention of heat – or radiative forcing – than current formulas assume they do. Thus, instead of having a ton-for-ton impact that is 25 greater than that of CO2, methane has a 33 times greater impact, the study concludes.
In the UK at the Telegraph, environmental correspondent Louise Gray has the news under a hed saying, in part, that this “could change the way the world tackles global warming.” USA Today‘s Dan Vergano puts it another way: today’s rules “blame carbon dioxide too much, and methane too little.”
This could, The Tracker sumises, be good news for operators of coal fired power plants. Methane emissions can, from many sources, be fairly easily abated. Hence, if this study’s findings make it into the rule book CO2 producers might find it easier finding, in methane abatements, a way to offset own production of CO2.
Other stories:
- Times (UK) Mark Henderson : Methane’s impact on global warming far higher than previously thought ;
- Science News – Sid Perkins: Aerosols Cloud The Climate Picture ;
Grist for the Mill: Goddard Space Flight Ctr/NASA Press Release ;
