According to US government data in 2021, atmospheric levels of methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gases, rose by a record for the second consecutive year.
The Earth’s atmosphere had a 17-part per billion increase in methane concentrations in 2021, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitoring showed. This is the largest annual increase since 1983, when modern measurements began. The previous record, 15.3ppb, was set by NOAA monitoring in 2020.
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion can remain in the atmosphere for many generations and contribute to global warming, but methane is much more easily emitted.
However, methane is far more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It traps heat 25 times better and acts as a significant short term driver of the climate crisis. Climate activists believe methane is a blow torch that damages the climate, in comparison to CO2’s gradual boil.
Scientists believe that methane reductions could be rapid to stop catastrophic global warming. However the record methane increases suggest that methane is being leaked from oil-and-gas drilling operations and released into agriculture at dangerous rates.
Noaa administrator Rick Spinrad said that our data shows that global emissions continue moving in the wrong direction at an alarming rate. The evidence is consistent, alarming and undeniable.
There are many sources for methane. They can come from decaying organic matter in wetlands or cow burps. Noaa stated that only a third of the emissions can be attributed, however, to the fossil fuel industry. This is because it leaks and burns large amounts of methane while drilling for oil and natural gas.
A powerful UN climate report released this week says that methane emissions must be reduced by a third to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. Scientists agree that this is the case. Global temperature rises as high as 0.3CMethane emissions could be reduced to reduce climate change. Spinrad said that reducing methane emission is an important tool that we can use to reduce climate change’s effects in the short term and slow down the rate at which it occurs.
Climate campaigners stated that the alarming rise in methane emissions should prompt rapid action to plug methane leaks.
Kassie Siegel, director at the Center for Biological Diversity and Climate Law Institute, stated that polluters’ record profits must be used for proper sealing and remediation of every well and fixing every methane leak.
Methane reductions are only one part in a global effort that aims to eliminate all deadly fossil fuels and instead use truly clean renewable energy. Anything less will lead to a world that is not familiar.