28 times more efficient at keeping the heat in.

[Workingman]

That is how much methane is over CO2.

The latest news is that there is twice as much of it in the atmosphere than was previously thought, you know, when climate change deals were being made in Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio and Paris.

This news really pi55es me off because those of us who have followed the climate have known this for ages. Yet the whole focus has been on CO2, CO2 and more CO2. Methane has taken a bit of a back seat ride both with scientists and politicians.

It was thought to be at about 900 parts per billion by volume. That in itself was a disaster in the making, but the true figure is more than twice as much at 1,820 ppb, and growing.

Most of it is released when we extract oil, coal and gas, and the figures is some 20-60% higher then previously thought. The rest comes naturally, or partly naturally, from methane clathrates (release of these is accelerating due to the increase in global temperatures) wild animals, bugs and other creatures. However, the largest 'natural' producer is cattle, and their numbers increase annually to feed us. Talk about a double, double whammy.

We were always going to miss the 'plucked out of thin air' figure from Paris by a long way. This news takes us even further away.

[Suff]

Ah but this also misses the other key thing. The largest easily released methane reservoirs are in the Arctic and the arctic is warming 10 times faster than the rest of the world. Needless to say as the permafrost melts the methane is being released. Also there are trillions of tonnes of methane locked up in the 50m deep arctic ocean sea bed, stored there with all that vegetation frozen in place during the last ice age and then flooded and covered in silt during the start of this interglacial.

That Arctic methane is escaping like mad and, again, methane spikes in the Arctic are 10 times higher than we see elsewhere in the world.

Now comes the fun bit. That 28 times is after the methane has been around for a bit. Methane also tends to break down and release CO2. No the fun bit is that, locally, methane has an impact up to 90 times that of CO2, until it starts to disperse and break down.
Is it any wonder the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else? Ten times the hotspot, 90 times the impact of CO2...

We've been watching this in the Arctic for more than a decade now and there are demonstrable impacts with methane releases.

Then it gets better because that methane is causing the sea to warm, especially near the coast. Yep that 50m water is getting a LOT warmer. Recent outgassing of methane around Svalbard and the Siberian coast can have hotspots as high as 100 times normal levels of release.

End result? We're screwed and the politicians are playing an endless game of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and we're footing the bill..

[Workingman]

Suff, you know it, I know it, but we are amateurs.

Why haven't the experts flagged it up? Is it because overcoming it is so difficult that it is 'safer' to go with the CO2 agenda?

I know that you know what I think.

[Suff]

After the UN AR5 on climate change, where the scientists spent months producing the realistic report and the politicians spent two weeks watering down every statement and every recommendation, many of the key players were turned off.

After Copenhagen, when the same happened again over a two week period, the vast body of the remainder of the people you talk about were so sickened by watching their work turned into a "mild warning" that "could be fixed", they left the scene. Which is why the Paris accord produced virtually nothing of substance, revealed virtually no new evidence of a rapidly destabilising situation and came out with the same old pap that has now been evolving for 2 decades.

Why haven't they flagged it up? They have, over and over and over again. Only to watch it vanish in the light of an "unreasonable doubt". Scientists are not in the business of convincing people who don't want to be convinced. They are in the business of analysing the science and coming out with certainty factors. What the politicians can't understand is that when a scientist says 95% certain, you or I would say that it WILL happen barring a one in a million off chance that something might not quite go the same way as they say. Not that this will change the eventual result to us, humans, just that it won't be EXACTLY as they say...

[Workingman]

Suff, sorry, I did not mean 'flag it up' in the sense of telling the politicians and other wonks at the conventions; I know they do that. I meant it in the sense of telling us, the people.

Maybe they have tried but have been drowned out by all the white noise of the media, that would not be a surprise. However, the fact remains that if 100 random people were asked about climate change they would know nothing further than it being down to CO2, and that CO2 comes exclusively from industry - nothing more, nothing less. They do not realise that there is a much bigger picture because, for some reason, they have never been exposed to it.

I am not usually one for conspiracy theories, but when about 98% of the articles presented to the public concern CO2, and nothing else, I begin to wonder.

[Suff]

Thinking this through, I think that the Scientists are probably doing their usual. CO2 is the falling Nuclear Bomb which is going to obliterate your whole city. Methane is the supersonic bullet, fired at the same time, which will kill you and only you, prior to the main event.

It's something like that. They are looking at the big picture. CO2 will do for all of us and sooner than most think. Methane will do for low lying areas of the world (Westminster anyone?), before CO2 makes the rest of the higher land into desert, swamp or garden of eden. The fun stuff is that where people currently grow food will become arid and unable to support food. Where people currently live will support food but people won't want to move. Where we currently grow trees will have the climate for food but doesn't have the soil to support it...

Every time Methane is mentioned and the scientists are around, the answer is always the same, it's "very little" compared to CO2. Yep but "very little" on a world scale is one whole hell of a lot when applied to, for instance, the Arctic. Where it's impact is magnified and it's reservoirs of methane are self reinforcing due to the warming it causes. The weather events then caused by that warming of the Arctic disrupt the entire climate, potentially even more than linear CO2 expansion.

In a way they are right. In the grand scheme of things it really isn't that big a deal. But on the decade by decade change rollercoaster it matters a hell of a lot because it may force change that we, people, can't get out of the way of fast enough, because it happens too fast for us to respond in a sensible and measured manner.

That, I believe, is where they are falling down and why people, generally, have absolutely no clue as to the real risk of methane and what it may lead to in their lives.

Politicians, of course, just fall on the "no real impact, in comparison" with glee. After all it just means they don't have to do anything for the money they take.