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Photo by Jeremy Buckingham | CC BY 2.0

It’s January, yet methane hydrates in the Arctic are growling like an incensed monster on a scorching hot mid-summer day. But, it is January; it’s winter, not July!

On January 1st Arctic methane at 2,764 ppb spiked upwards into the atmosphere, which, according to Arctic News: “Was likely caused by methane hydrate destabilization in the sediments on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.” (Source: Unfolding Arctic Catastrophe, Arctic News, January 2, 2017) Once again, with emphasis, it’s January; it’s winter, and there’s little or no sunshine above the Arctic Circle. So, what gives? Why are alarming levels of methane spewing into the atmosphere in the dead of winter?

For starters, record low sea ice volume, which has been dropping like a leaden weight for years because of human-generated (anthropogenic) global warming. That’s a recipe for trouble, big time trouble as methane hydrates (lattices of ice that entrap methane molecules) get exposed to warmer water. In that regard, average sea ice volume throughout 2017 was at record lows.

Making matters worse yet, extraordinarily warm water currents flow into the Arctic from nearby ocean waters that have been absorbing 90% of global warming. Ergo, Arctic water in thin ice does not cool down without a lot of thick ice to melt the warm water currents. So, abnormally warm water remains into winter months and, in time, reaches sediments at the bottom of the ocean, disrupting methane hydrates, which have stored tonnes of methane over millennia. However, in due course, all hell breaks loose with large-scale methane eruptions, one of those “Naw, it can’t be happening” moments.

Here’s the problem: On average, sea surface temps were 23.35°F warmer during the period October 1 to December 30, 2017 compared to the 30-year average temperature. On October 25th, the sea surface was as warm as 63.5°F.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Natural gas has no climate benefit and may make things worse

November 15, 2017

Natural gas has no climate benefit and may make things worse

Methane leaks in New Mexico’s oil and gas industry equal 12 coal-fired power plants.

A gas flare at a gas-processing facility in North Dakota. CREDIT: AP/Matthew Brown — A GAS FLARE AT A GAS-PROCESSING FACILITY IN NORTH DAKOTA. CREDIT: AP/MATTHEW BROWNThe evidence is overwhelming that natural gas has no net climate benefit in any timescale that matters to humanity.

In fact, a shocking new study concludes that just the methane emissions escaping from New Mexico’s gas and oil industry are “equivalent to the climate impact of approximately 12 coal-fired power plants.” If the goal is to avoid catastrophic levels of warming, a recent report by U.K. climate researchers finds “categorically no role” to play for new natural gas production.

Sadly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has just published a “Commentary” on “the environmental case for natural gas,” that ignores or downplays key reasons that greater use of natural gas is bad for the climate.

In the real world, natural gas is not a “bridge” fuel to a carbon-free economy for two key reasons. First, natural gas is mostly methane (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period.

That’s why many, many studies find that even a very small leakage rate of methane from the natural gas supply chain (production to delivery to combustion) can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas for a long, long time.

Second, other studies find — surprise, surprise — natural gas plants don’t replace only high-carbon coal plants. They commonly replace very low carbon power sources like solar, wind, nuclear, and even energy efficiency, which is often overlooked as a major alternative to fossil fuels. That means even a very low leakage rate wipes out the climate benefit of fracking.

The Boiling Pot

June 4, 2016

The Boiling Pot

On the surface, things appear normal. The status quo of life in America circa 2016 isn’t to everyone’s liking, but at least the system is still working after a fashion. The price of oil is going up a bit: that means the cost of driving is also creeping higher, but steeper prices provide a little welcome relief for an oil industry otherwise teetering on the brink of financial ruin. There are tiresomely long lines at airports, but that means people have the wherewithal to pay for plane tickets. Most people are disgusted with the presumptive U.S. presidential candidates, but at least the machine of electoral politics is still marginally functioning. The stock market is up, unemployment is down. We’re muddling through.

Or are we? Beneath the lid, a pot of trends is coming to a boil. If Carl Jung was right about the existence of a collective unconscious, it must be seething with nightmares right about now.

So far, 2016 is the hottest year in history. And not by just a smidgen: every single month so far has set a record. This handy little animation has been making the rounds of environmental websites in the last couple of weeks; it shows a climate system that is shooting off the rails.

Slow, linear change is giving way to self-reinforcing feedbacks and non-linear lurches. Last December (just 6 months ago), delegates to climate talks in Paris agreed to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade. Extend the temperature trend shown in that animation for just another few months and we may well be beyond that threshold. How long until we get to two degrees? Three?

Arctic sea ice this month is by far at the lowest extent ever recorded and temperatures in Siberia are rising four times faster than in the rest of the world, releasing enormous amounts of methane and carbon stored in permafrost.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

With New Tools, A Focus On Urban Methane Leaks

April 4, 2016

With New Tools, A Focus On Urban Methane Leaks

Until recently, little was known about the extent of methane leaking from urban gas distribution pipes and its impact on global warming. But recent advances in detecting this potent greenhouse gas are pushing U.S. states to begin addressing this long-neglected problem.

Battered by storms and weakened with age, the natural gas distribution pipes of urban New Jersey have long been in need of repair. And for a long time, the state’s largest utility, Public Service and Enterprise Group (PSE&G), has wanted to replace them. The problem is that pipelines cost upwards of $1.3 million per mile, and the utility owns 4,330 miles of it. Replacing it all would cost at least $6 billion, not to mention decades of work.

In December 2014, however, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) approached the utility with a solution. Using new technology that can trace methane emissions back to their sources with great precision,

Jukka Isokoski

Workers install a natural gas pipeline.

researchers could home in on the highest-risk pipes, allowing the utility to prioritize repairs along the worst offending lines. EDF and its collaborators, from Colorado State University and Google Earth Outreach, then spent six months gathering data the utility could use.

The state’s Board of Public Utilities, which determines how much money PSE&G can raise from its customers and how it can spend it, had earlier rejected a request from the utility to raise $1.6 billion for 800 miles of new pipeline. But after the results of the monitoring effort were in, the utility narrowed its request to 510 miles of pipeline replacement, at a cost of $905 million over three years. Work on the project begins this month.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does Methane Threaten Life?

March 15, 2016

Does Methane Threaten Life?

shutterstock_247058206

The question of whether methane (CH4) in the atmosphere is a threat to life is extraordinarily complex and generally not well understood. But, yes it is a serious threat, very serious and horribly real.

Okay, but don’t scientists understand this, and why aren’t they speaking out?

They are speaking out but only a very few.

Here’s the “speaking out” problem: Leading climate scientists are not willing to honestly expose their greatest fears, as discovered by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! whilst at COP21 in Paris this past December, interviewing one of the world’s leading climate scientists, Kevin Anderson (University of Manchester) of Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research who said: “So far we simply have not been prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly… many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research.”

Straightaway, we know from one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change that climate scientists are censoring their own research. But why?

“What we are afraid of doing is putting forward analysis that questions the paradigm, the economic way that we run society today… We fine-tune our analysis so that it fits into the economic reality of our society, the current economic framing. Actually our science now asks fundamental questions about this idea of economic growth in the short term, but we’re very reluctant to say that. In fact, the funding bodies are reluctant to fund research that raises those questions,” Democracy Now! Top Climate Expert: Crisis is Worse Than We Think & Scientists Are Self-Censoring to Downplay Risk, Dec. 8, 2015.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The US: A Nation In Dire Need of Energy and Climate Policy

February 19, 2016

The US: A Nation In Dire Need of Energy and Climate Policy

A new Harvard University study finds that world methane emissions have recently spiked, and that the US appears to be the site of most of the increase. Natural gas fracking is the apparent culprit. This finding should be (though I wouldn’t bet on it) the final nail in the coffin of the “natural gas as bridge fuel to a clean energy future” argument.

The Obama administration has fixated on replacing coal with natural gas for electricity generation as a major pathway to meeting Paris COP 21 commitments for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Its strategy required the EPA to begin regulating CO2 as a pollutant (as the centerpiece of the “Clean Power Plan” or CPP). But industry fought the regulation all the way to the Supreme Court, which did something quite rare. It stepped in to block federal regulations going into effect until a lower court made a ruling, even though the lower court itself had denied a similar request. Now, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia (who sided with the “conservative” majority halting implementation of the regulation), there appears to be the possibility for an eventual reprieve of CPP.

But what’s the point? If natural gas from fracking harms the climate about as much as coal (higher methane emissions on one hand versus higher CO2 emissions on the other), then the entire strategy is revealed as ill-conceived and useless.

What is really needed is a national plan for a systemic energy transition, including policies, goals, and funding. Such a plan would break out the economy sector by sector, exploiting ways of radically reducing energy consumption over all while replacing oil, coal, and natural gas with renewable resources like solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘About Time’: Jerry Brown Declares State of Emergency Over Porter Ranch

January 7, 2016

‘About Time’: Jerry Brown Declares State of Emergency Over Porter Ranch

Organizers say the leak has ‘been a wake-up call for this community…. We’re all on the front lines of climate change.’

Porter Ranch residents protest California Governor Jerry Brown’s months-long refusal to call a state of emergency over the gas leak that has been pumping out methane since October. Brown announced a state of emergency on Wednesday. (Photo: LA Daily News)

Following months of pressure from activists and residents, California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday issued a state of emergency over the Porter Ranch gas leak that has been pouring tens of thousands of kilograms of methane into the air surrounding the community since October.

The order means “all necessary and viable actions” will be taken to stop the leak and ensure that the Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas), which owns the leaking natural gas injection well, is held accountable for the damage.

“It’s about time,” Alexandra Nagy, Southern California organizer at Food and Water Watch, told Common Dreams. “It’s incredible. Now residents can actually get the assistance that they need.”

Brown issued the state of emergency after making a quiet visit to the area earlier this week to tour the facility and meet with the Porter Ranch neighborhood council. Wednesday’s order also directs action to protect public health, according to a press release issued from the governor’s office.

“It is really going to…amplify the urgency of this issue and really expose how bad the problem is,” Nagy said.

The leak, which has been ongoing since October, gained limited media attention after environmental and public health advocate Erin Brockovich declared it “a catastrophe the scale of which has not been seen since the 2010 BP oil spill.” Residents living in proximity to the well, which is situated in Aliso Canyon, roughly 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, reported having symptoms of methane exposure, including headaches, nausea, and in some cases, bleeding eyes and gums.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Arctic methane emissions persist in winter

December 23, 2015

Arctic methane emissions persist in winter

Summer and winter, wet and dry, high and low, the Arctic tundra continues to emit methane.
Image: Bureau of Land Management (Delta WSR) via Wikimedia Commons

Methane, a key greenhouse gas, is released from Arctic soils not only in the short summer period but during the bitterly cold winters too.

LONDON, 22 December, 2015 – The quantity of methane leaking from the frozen soil during the long Arctic winters is probably much greater than climate models estimate, scientists have found.

They say at least half of annual methane emissions occur in the cold months from September to May, and that drier, upland tundra can emit more methane than wetlands.

The multinational team, led by San Diego State University (SDSU) in the US and including colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Sheffield and the Open University in the UK, have published their conclusion, which challenges critical assumptions in current global climate models, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is about 25 times more powerful per molecule than carbon dioxide over a century, but more than 84 times over 20 years. The methane in the Arctic tundra comes primarily from organic matter trapped in soil which thaws seasonally and is decomposed by microbes.

It seeps naturally from the soil over the course of the year, but climate change can warm the soil enough to release more methane from organic matter that is currently stable in the permafrost.

“Virtually all the climate models assume there’s no or very little emission of methane when the ground is frozen. That assumption is incorrect”

Scientists have for some years been accurately measuring Arctic methane emissions and incorporating the results into their climate models. But crucially, the SDSU team says, almost all of these measurements have been obtained during the Arctic’s short summer.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Warming lakes speed up methane emissions

December 21, 2015

Warming lakes speed up methane emissions

A fishing trip on Lake Tanganyika ends: The reduced productivity caused by warming may cut the amount of food available to fish. Image: Worldtraveller via Wikimedia Commons

The world’s lakes are heating up fast, threatening the fish on which millions depend and rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

LONDON, 21 December, 2015 – US scientists report that lakes worldwide are warming by an average of more than 1°C every 30 years, faster than the warming rate of either the ocean or the atmosphere.

The warming is expected to increase algal blooms and to mean global emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century, will increase by 4% over the next decade. Over a 20-year period, methane is 84 times more powerful than CO2.

The rapid warming of the lakes threatens freshwater supplies and ecosystems, the scientists report in their study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. They say their study is the largest of its kind and the first to combine satellite temperature data and long-term ground measurements.

They monitored 235 lakes, representing more than half the world’s freshwater supply, for at least 25 years and found that they are warming by an average of 0.34°C each decade. Among the profound effects they say may follow is an increase in algal blooms.

“These results suggest that large changes in our lakes are not only unavoidable, but are probably already happening”

The blooms, which can ultimately rob water of oxygen, are projected to increase by 20% in lakes over the next century as warming rates increase. Blooms which are toxic to fish and animals would increase by 5%. If these rates continue, the authors say, emissions of methane from the lakes will increase by 4% by 2025.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Key Greenhouse Gas Study May Have “Systematically Understated” Methane Leaks, New Research Shows

August 5, 2015

Key Greenhouse Gas Study May Have “Systematically Understated” Methane Leaks, New Research Shows

A widely cited study on the amount of methane leaking from oil and gas sites, including fracked wells, shows signs of a major flaw, a newly published peer-reviewed paper concludes.

“The University of Texas reported on a campaign to measure methane emissions from United States natural gas production sites as part of an improved national inventory,” researcher Touché Howard wrote in a paperpublished today in the journal Energy Science & Engineering. “Unfortunately, their study appears to have systematically underestimated emissions.”

The University of Texas study, the first in a 16-part research series backed by the oil and gas industry and the Environmental Defense Fund , had been hailed as “unprecedented” when it was published in October 2013. The drilling industry and its supporters cited it as clear-cut evidence that methane leaks were lower than previously believed and falling further due to new technology.

The study’s key contribution to the science on methane leaks was that researchers were allowed to access to oil and gas wells, including 27 wells where fracking was underway, and test individual pieces of equipment. “This is actual data, and it’s the first time we’ve had the opportunity to get actual data from unconventional natural gas development,” Mark Brownstein, an Environmental Defense Fund associate vice president, told FuelFix when the UT study was published.

But the problem stems from the tool that the University of Texas study used to collect its data – which can malfunction when leaks are spewing at high rates. The “University of Texas study underestimates national methane emissions at natural gas production sites due to instrument sensor failure,” Mr. Howard, who invented the basic technology used by that instrument, wrote.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Makes Fracking a Cornerstone of Climate Policy … But Fracking Does Much More Harm than Good

August 5, 2015

Obama Makes Fracking a Cornerstone of Climate Policy … But Fracking Does Much More Harm than Good

A Fracked Up Policy

“Clean natural gas” from fracking has been touted for years as a cure for global warming. It’s a cornerstone of Obama’s climate plan.

But scientists say that fracking pumps out a lot of methane … into both our drinking water and the environment.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas: 72 times more potent as a warming source than CO2. As such, fracking actually increases – rather than decreases – global warming.

Cornell University researchers found in 2011 that – when measured in its entire life cycle – fracked gas emits much MORE greenhouse gas than coal. And see this.

Last year, a study published by Purdue scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that fracking puts between 100 and 1,000 times more methane into the atmosphere than the EPA assumed.

And a new scientific paper published at Energy & Science Engineering by expert and gas industry consultant Touché Howard shows that previous studies cited by the EPA and the fracking industry low-balled actual fracking emission rates “by factors of three to five.”

A 2014 study by scientists from Colorado and Brown University found that fracking increases severe birth defects – including congenital heart defects – for families living within 10 miles of fracking sites.

A team of Yale scientists published a study last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectiveswhich found that people who live near fracking sites have more health problems than those who don’t.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Perfectly Nasty Ocean Storm

August 3, 2015

The Perfectly Nasty Ocean Storm

The oceans of the world are currently experiencing a “perfect storm” that is nasty, real nasty with too much warming, too much acidification, too much CO2, too much fishing, too many chemicals, too much Ag runoff, too much radiation (Fukushima), and too little ice (Arctic Ocean) bringing on too much methane (CH4). Whew!

How much can the oceans handle?

The answer to that question may be coming to surface. According to ABC News, May 19, 2014, Mysterious Mass Animal Deaths All Over the World: “Millions of birds, fish, crabs and other small marine life have been turning up dead in massive numbers from the United States, through Europe and down to South America.”

Albeit, headlines about mysterious animal deaths must be tempered by evidence of similar events in the past, as for example, “Wildlife die-offs are an ancient phenomenon. One fossil site in Chile revealed recurring mass marine-mammal deaths, most likely from toxic algae blooms, dating back at least nine million years. Aristotle, in his ‘Historia Animalium,’ in the fourth century B.C., remarked on mass dolphin strandings as simply something that the animals were known to do ‘at times’,” J.B. Mackinnon, On Animal Deaths and Human Anxieties, The New Yorker, April 21, 2015.

That is not to downplay the seriousness of the foreboding signaled by the ABC headline about mass deaths. That needs to be taken seriously and studied. Indubitably, it is extremely important to be absolutely sure of correct analyses, connecting the dots is important. Otherwise, news reports and science are constantly on a wild goose chase, not knowing from where, or where to turn next.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We May Have Already Committed Ourselves to 6-Meter Sea-Level Rise

July 24, 2015

We May Have Already Committed Ourselves to 6-Meter Sea-Level Rise

Even if humanity were to stop throwing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere today, a catastrophic rise in sea levels of six meters may be inevitable. Two previous prehistoric interglacial periods, in which the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was believed to be about what it is today, resulted in dramatic rising of the oceans.

High-latitude ice sheets are melting, and given that global warming is most pronounced in the Arctic, it may already be too late stop a rise in sea levels that would flood out hundreds of millions around the world. Two new papers, the latest in a series of scientific studies, paint a picture considerably less rosy than conventional ideas that major damage can still be avoided.

One of these papers, a nine-scientist report led by geologist Andrea Dutton at the University of Florida published in the journal Science, found that modest rises in global temperatures in the past led to sea levels rising at least six meters. She summarized the findings this way to Climate Central:

“Even if we meet that 2°C target, in the past with those types of temperatures, we may be committing ourselves to this level of sea level rise in the long term. The decisions we make now about where we want to be in 2100 commit us on a pathway where we can’t go back. Once these ice sheets start to melt, the changes become irreversible.”

Professor Dutton was referencing the widely held belief that catastrophic damage can be avoided if global warming is held to no more than 2 degrees C. from pre-industrial levels. The “permissible” level may be less than that, however. More sophisticated “sea-level reconstructions” through interdisciplinary studies of geological evidence and better understanding of the behavior of ice sheets enabled the paper’s authors to infer that temperatures only slightly higher than what we are experiencing today upset the climatic balance. A summary of the paper concludes:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Widely-Used Tool Can Lowball Methane Pollution Rates, Scientists Report, With Huge Implications for Climate Policy

May 11, 2015

Widely-Used Tool Can Lowball Methane Pollution Rates, Scientists Report, With Huge Implications for Climate Policy

An EPA-approved methane sampler widely used to measure gas leaks from oil and gas operations nationwide can dramatically under-report how much methane is leaking into the atmosphere, a team of researchers reported in a peer-reviewed paper published in March.

The researchers, one of whom first designed the underlying technology used by the sampler, warn that results from improperly calibrated machines could severely understate the amount of methane leaking from the country’s oil and gas wells, pipelines, and other infrastructure.

“It could be a big deal,” study co-author Amy Townsend-Small, a geology professor at the University of Cincinnati,told Inside Climate News, adding that it’s not yet clear how often the machine returned bad results, in part because figuring out whether there’s an error would have required using a different kind of device to independently test gas concentrations at the time levels were originally recorded.

Because of their climate-changing implications, methane leak rates are perhaps the single most consequential issue surrounding the shale gas rush and the push by the Obama administration for a shift from burning coal to burning natural gas for the nation’s electricity supply. Because natural gas is primarily made of methane, an unusually powerful greenhouse gas, if enough methane escapes into the atmosphere, these leaks could potentially make natural gas a worse fuel for the climate than burning coal.

And methane leaks are at their most powerful – 86 times stronger than the same amount of carbon dioxide – in the first two decades or so after they hit the atmosphere. Climate scientists warn that methane leaks risk pushing the climate over an irreversible tipping point where melting permafrost and other self-reinforcing cycles can cause global warming to spiral out of control.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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