What about residence time. And apparently I was wrong about its effectiveness as a greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide – I suggested (as memory didn’t serve 
) 20x. This says 28x:
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Deadly to what? It’s deadly in mines and houses and pumping stations and the like I know, when it builds up and there’s a spark, but how else?
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Not as much as environmentalists.
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The rapid increase in CO2 is accompanied by an increase in 12C which is the fingerprint of burning fossil fuels. Photosynthesis prefers 12C, so fossil fuels are enriched for the isotope compared to abiotic processes such as volcanic eruptions. Not only that, we know approximately how much carbon we are releasing each year, and it is more than enough to account for the observed increases.
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True. It decomposes to carbon dioxide.
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Methane is a greenhouse gas.
Correct. How is that deadly?
Greenhouse gases are very bad for us.
In what way? How do they kill us?
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The biggest producer of methane are wetlands and these have been in rapid decline (by 35% in the last 45 years). However that accounts for only 22% of the methane production. The next highest is oil and gas mining at 19%. Then animal digestion at 16% and rice cultivation at 12%. In general we replace the natural sources with manmade sources, but there has been a net increase in atmospheric concentrations. But I seriously doubt that this is just a matter of producing more but rather damage to the means by which methane is eliminated from the atmosphere… same as carbon dioxide. Both of these have always been produced in vast quantities by nature, so is the buildup because we are producing more or because we are no longer getting rid of it as fast as before? We are producing more but I think the fact that we no longer get rid of the stuff so fast is the real problem. It is chemistry 101 that the speed of chemical reactions depend on the concentrations of the reactants, so increased production SHOULD also increase the rate at which they are eliminated. But that is not happening because we have damaged the systems which do this with the production of more dangerous chemicals which have never been produced by the biosphere.
It’s because we are producing more. The amount of carbon dioxide production and removal was at equilibrium before humans started dumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Any increase of CO2 above pre-industrial levels will increase atmospheric CO2 levels because production had already maxed out removal before we did anything.
You are forgetting about the accumulation of products.
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You are unaware of the danger of greenhouse gases?
I don’t see any evidence for that. The atmosphere is 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen (all of it produced by the biosphere), and carbon dioxide has gone from .02% at its lowest to .041% in 1981. This is certainly a big increase from the lowest point. But low numbers for CO2 tells us that in the past at least the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen has been quite efficient. Part of that may be that plankton works better at lower temperatures and thus working well during the last period of glaciation. But another big factor is that exposure to increased radiation due to the holes in the ozone layer reduce the effectiveness of the plankton by as much as 70%.
More importantly there are a number of reasons why attempts to reduce emissions simply will not work. One of which is that developing countries have little reason to cooperate, and another is that there are too many accelerating factors like the release of gases from melting glaciers. I mean, I am all for doing whatever is possible to slow down the consumption of our irreplaceable fossil fuels – is this just a game of politics for that end? Regardless, if we are really going to stop the accumulation of greenhouse gases I think we have to take a closer look at the means by which these gases are eliminated and the possibility of repairing or boosting them.
What deadly danger? Especially from bovine flatus.
Here’s a link: Climate and Health Concerns
Note that our armed forces consider climate change to be a threat multiplier.
About cattle: cattle are ruminants. (so are sheep, goats, etc.) They have a multi-chambered stomach. The first chamber, the rumen, ferments what the cow eats to break it down and make it digestible. And this produces the methane gas, which the cow burps out.
MOOO!
Ah I see… We had the smallest ozone hole on record for 2019. That means a connection with the holes in the ozone will lose a lot of capital for the politics of the issue. The truth is that while the general trend is a gradual restoration of the ozone layer, this record low is likely to a temporary thing and there is still a possibility that this isn’t fast enough to stop the accelerating accumulation of green house gasses. So, it is certainly not my intention to dismiss the problem by pointing out the connection to the ozone layer.
Mitchell if you want to learn the real science about the sun a good place to start is suspiciousobservers.org. They detail the developing science of understanding solar activity and its effects referencing scientific research in this area. Solar electromagnetic effects on earths geologic activity has been detailed by many researchers. The Suns activity is very complicated to say the least. Most predictions are for a normal Solar cycle 25 and then many believe a significant reduction in activity in solar cycle 26 and a start of a grand solar minimum. Grand solar minimums as solar minimums don’t differ the TSI UV energy by much but significantly have different type of high energy radiation such as x rays and gamma rays that occur during solar flare events due to the Suns magnetic activity. The new ipcc CMIP6 climate model includes solar forcing and cloud effects in its model which may significantly improve its predictive accuracy over
the cmip5. All of this is going on while the earths magnetic field is weakening and the South Atlantic Anamoly is spreading possibly splitting while the poles are moving faster toward each other indicating the beginnings of an magnetic excursion or flip. This weakening magnetic field makes the earth more susceptible to solar flare and electromagnetic activity and disrupting earths power grids as well as effecting climate and geologic activity that I have posted previously.
Riiiiggghhht. Please show a link quantifying, correlating actual deaths from the methane contribution to global warming.
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Did all your much celebrated “common sense” suddenly fly away?! Greater stores of heat provide more fuel for hurricanes and more intense weather phenomena - but nobody will ever be able to prove that “this particular storm” would not have happened but for our contribution to the extra heat in the system. And to demand they do so is disingenuous. If a rising lake flooded your lake-side property, it is obvious that all the swollen creeks and rain directly entering the lake were all contributors toward that event. Trying hide behind a claim that nobody can prove the waters from one particular river entrance were not the same waters that actually flooded your property is just silly when said contribution can actually be quantified and identified as a significant causal influence.
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It’s very simple. How many people have died because of anthropogenic climate change and what has methane contributed to that? How deadly is methane in that regard? To be offset against the phenomenal increase in human life availed by the scientific and industrial revolutions. Of course one of the greatest drivers of global warming is the new anti-scientific religion of environmentalism: it’s destroyed the nuclear power industry.