A cheap fix to global warming is finally gaining support
Global support for one of the cheapest and most powerful climate actions is accelerating—and it couldn't come at a more urgent time.
Global support for one of the cheapest and most powerful climate actions is accelerating—and it couldn't come at a more urgent time.
Environment
Jun 19, 2023
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1406
Neptune is fondly known for being a rich blue, and Uranus green—but a new study has revealed that the two ice giants are actually far closer in color than typically thought.
Planetary Sciences
Jan 4, 2024
1
458
Brown dwarfs aren't quite stars and aren't quite planets, and a new study suggests there might be more of them lurking in our galaxy than scientists previously thought.
Astronomy
Aug 31, 2021
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6551
NASA's Cassini mission flew past Titan early Wednesday morning, successfully completing a complex maneuver that will help scientists better understand one of the solar system's most intriguing moons.
Space Exploration
Jun 20, 2014
10
1
Washington State University researchers say the world's reservoirs are an underappreciated source of greenhouse gases, producing the equivalent of roughly 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide a year, or 1.3 percent of all greenhouse ...
Environment
Sep 30, 2016
36
1143
An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Manchester, has developed a fast and economical method of converting methane, or natural gas, into liquid methanol at ambient temperature and pressure. ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jun 30, 2022
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6419
The tunable laser spectrometer in the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument of the Curiosity robot has unequivocally detected an episodic increase in the concentration of methane in Mars' atmosphere after an exhaustive ...
Space Exploration
Feb 27, 2015
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Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into "global systemic collapse," more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday.
Environment
Feb 6, 2020
28
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Earlier this month, President Biden urged other countries to join the U.S. and European Union in a commitment to slashing methane emissions. Two new Stanford-led studies could help pave the way by laying out a blueprint for ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 27, 2021
15
357
A team of engineers and atmospheric scientists at Harvard University, working with a colleague from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has calculated the increased amount of methane being ...
Methane is a chemical compound with the molecular formula CH4. It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees. Burning methane in the presence of oxygen produces carbon dioxide and water. The relative abundance of methane and its clean burning process makes it an attractive fuel. However, because it is a gas at normal temperature and pressure, methane is difficult to transport from its source. In its natural gas form, it is generally transported in bulk by pipeline or LNG carriers; few countries transport it by truck.
Methane was discovered and isolated by Alessandro Volta between 1776 and 1778 when studying marsh gas from Lake Maggiore.
Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential of 72 (averaged over 20 years) or 25 (averaged over 100 years). Methane in the atmosphere is eventually oxidized, producing carbon dioxide and water. As a result, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of seven years.
The abundance of methane in the Earth's atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion, up from 700 ppb in 1750. Methane can trap about 20 times the heat of CO2. In the same time period, CO2 increased from 278 to 365 parts per million. The radiative forcing effect due to this increase in methane abundance is about one-third of that of the CO2 increase. In addition, there is a large, but unknown, amount of methane in methane clathrates in the ocean floors. The Earth's crust contains huge amounts of methane. Large amounts of methane are produced anaerobically by methanogenesis. Other sources include mud volcanoes, which are connected with deep geological faults, and livestock (primarily cows) from enteric fermentation.
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