Methane, A Layman’s Explanation
Ruminant Methane – A Layman’s Explanation.
We are warmed by the sun. Its energy enters our atmosphere and much of it bounces back upward into space. The greenhouses gases of water vapour, plus trace gases, CO2, methane nitrous oxide and ozone interact with the outgoing energy. Their molecules vibrate, absorb the outgoing energy and then lose it in collisions with other gases, and re-emitting it in all directions. It is the countless billions of interactions every second that keeps our planet warmer than it would be without these gases. Otherwise, it would be very cold.
The earth’s outgoing energy can only interact with each greenhouse gas in certain, defined bands/frequencies. It’s like tuning your radio – you can only pick up a radio station at a particular frequency. Water vapour operates across a very wide spectrum of frequencies – imagine picking up the same radio station across almost the whole bandwidth.
However, CO2 can only interact in much narrower bands and methane’s two small bands are weak and operate in only two very confined frequencies. At these two points, water vapour is much more dominant masking the effectiveness of methane to do much absorbing and re-emitting.
Over New Zealand our atmosphere carries a tiny amount of greenhouse gas – about 1% of all the atmosphere. Water vapour hogs this 1% with approximately 16,000 ppm (parts per million). CO2 is a poor second at around 400 ppm and methane a measly 2 ppm.
So, water vapour does the heavy lifting at 85% of the absorbing and re-emittng, CO2 does around 15% leaving only minor action by methane. It’s simply too insignificant to measure.
Ruminant methane is only 14% of all global methane emissions and New Zealand has barely 1% of the world’s ruminants. It is simply not possible to measure ruminant methane’s trivial impact on temperature, let alone New Zealand’s.
So, how does the IPCC and the dozens of scientists who claim climate change is ruinous get it so wrong. Firstly, the work on measuring CO2 and methane is done in models that completely ignore water vapour. They only refer to water vapour to use it as a multiplier. They did this because the atmospheric concentration of water vapour is highly variable between locations and times, from 10ppm at the poles to 5% (50 000 ppm) in humid tropical air.
Secondly, their models which have proven to be running far too hot ignore real atmosphere and are only calculated in unrealistic dry, air in a laboratory. This radically over-emphasises methane. The amount of basic research that focuses on methane, particularly ruminant methane is surprisingly minor with policy makers having litle robust science to follow. That is now changed.
In recent years scientists have been working to improve the accuracy of their findings about methane. In 2016 scientists Etminan, Myhre, Highwood and Shine found methane’s warming ability was overstated by at least 14%. Then came another group at Oxford University led by Professor Miles Allen who discovered the IPCC had exaggerated ruminant methane’s warming ability by a massive 300% to 400%. The IPCC then corrected its earlier stand in its latest report – AR6.
Now, even more scientists like Wijngaarden and Happer, Allison and Sheahen, Coe, Wiegleb and others have been able to use real air for their experiments and then check them against reality. They have pulled methane’s warming ability right down to an absurdly low level where it is impossible to measure accurately. Their data marries up with actual satellite results very precisely, proving their findings to be correct.
That is what happens in science. It evolves. New findings add to, change, or refine older science.
The focus must always be on “current science”. It becomes the status quo until it is refuted or modified further.
Farmers, the community, the government, departmental officials should be shouting this information from the rooftops. The nation will be saved from farming being taxed heavily, reduced exports and driving the economy into ruin. The continuing silence can only mean something else besides sound science is involved.
What happens in the atmosphere could all be likened to a game of ‘bullrush’ or ‘sally over’ we used to play as kids. The players in the middle are the greenhouse gases – 8,000 of them are water vapour, 200 are CO2 and only one (yes just 1 is methane). A photon of energy tries to cross the field. Who is likely to absorb it?? Its blindingly obvious. But it is worse than that. The one lonely methane molecule can only catch photons in two very narrow sections and only half the field whereas water vapour can roam over most of it.
Note: There are other valid arguments opposing the taxing of ruminant methane. They include reference to Article 2 of the Paris Accord stating that no restrictive action on methane should be taken if it affects food production. Any taxing of New Zealand’s methane would inevitably lead to leakage – some other country with a much worse carbon footprint, worse environmental record and high costs of production filling the short all in a hungry world.
Sources:
“The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures’ – Coe, Fabinski, Wiegleb (2021).
“Radiative Forcing of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide: A Significant Revision of the Methane Radiative Forcing”, M. Etminan, G. Myhre, E. J. Highwood and K. P. Shine (2016).
“Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases”. W. A. van Wijngaarden & W. Happer.
htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqWv26PXqz0 Sheahen.
Allison-Sheahen FINAL The Journal SEPT 2018 V6. October 16, 2018