More Bad News For Climate: Methane In Atmosphere Growing Fast

Cow farts are only one source of methane, which is a potent
greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Methane
is rising at a fast clip in the atmosphere, and climate change
might be contributing to this increase in a feedback loop.

The amount of methane in the atmosphere is now growing at a faster, alarming rate, and scientist worry this could be sign of a quicker, more dangerous phase of climate change.  

Methane now comprises 1,900 parts per billion in the atmosphere, almost triple the level it was at in the pre-industrial age, notes the journal Nature.  

The more famous greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and there's much more of that in the atmosphere than methane.  However, methane is a good 28 times as potent as CO2 in terms of warming Earth's atmosphere. 

The rate of growth of methane in the atmosphere slowed down a bit around the year 2000. It was still gaining,  but it seemed like pollution controls were slowing the rate down, says Nature.

However, around the year 2007 methane began increasing in the atmosphere much more rapidly and that trend continues to this day. And it might not necessarily be more cows farting or you and I eating bad fast food lunches.  

Actually, the farting cows might be a small but real part of this increase in methane concentrations. It could also be from more oil and natural gas drilling, more emissions from landfills or microbes in wetlands getting more active. Or all of the above.

The truth is, nobody is exactly sure why methane levels are going up. 

One, clue, reports Nature, is something called isotope carbon-13, that you're always going to find in methane. 

Scientists can look at ice cores going back centuries to figure out how much of that isotope was in atmospheric methane at a given time. Methane released via oil and gas drilling has more of that isotope carbon 13 than methane released from microbes getting it on in swamps and other wetlands. Or from livestock farts and poops. 

 One research team concluded that 85 percent of the growth in emissions since 2007 came from microbes, while the rest came from oil and gas drilling.  

Which leads us to the next aspect of the problem. The rising methane growth could be a sign that global warming is causing even more global warming. It's something called a positive feedback loop. 

As phys.org explains, a warmer atmosphere allows wetlands to generate and decompose stuff at a faster rate. That means faster methane emissions. The faster methane emissions contribute to global warming, which revs up the wetlands even more and on and on it goes.  

One piece of potential good news is methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide.  So if we stop methane leaks from oil and gas projects, collect methane and better dispose of methane from landfills and reduce livestock methane emissions, we can really cut the rate of growth pretty fast. Or at least counteract the effects of higher methane production from warmer wetlands. 

We can even play around with the food we give to livestock or find ways to collect the methane from their poop to reduce emissions. 

Since, as noted, methane is so much more potent than CO2, but stays in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time, we can slow the rate of climate change comparatively easily