Posted on 08/03/2004 11:22:30 AM PDT by taxcontrol
Acid rain restricts global warming by reducing methane emissions from natural wetland areas, suggests a global climate study.
Acid rain is the result of industrial pollution, which causes rainwater to carry small quantities of acidic compounds such as sulphuric and nitric acid. Contaminated rainwater can upset rivers and lakes, killing fish and other organisms and also damage plants, trees and buildings.
But the new study shows that sulphur in acid rain, may have benefits, limiting global warming by counteracting the natural production of methane gases by microbes in wetland areas.
Methane is thought to account for 22 percent of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. And microbes in wetland areas are its biggest producers. They feed off substrates such as hydrogen and acetate in peat and emit methane into the atmosphere.
Global warming itself will only fuel the production of methane as heating up the microbes causes them to produce even more methane. But the new model suggests that sulphur pollution from industry cancels this out.
This is because sulphur-eating bacteria also found in wetland regions outcompete the methane-emitting microbes for substrates. Experiments have shown that sulphur deposits can reduce methane production in small regions by up to 30 per cent by activating sulphur-eating bacteria.
Complete picture
"The study highlights the importance of representing the full Earth system in your climate model," says Richard Betts, a climate systems expert at the UK's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. "You need to look at the interaction between greenhouse gases and other effects on the biosphere."
Betts told New Scientist that the research provides a more complete picture of this pollution affects the planet. But he notes that acid rain remains a major problem for the environment.
The new study, led by Vincent Gauci of the UK's Open University, sought to determine how real sulphur pollution may affect wetland areas globally. Gauci and colleagues created a computer model at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to simulate this interaction.
The simulation incorporated the latest data on global methane emissions and sulphur pollution along with climate change models and data from wetland field studies. "Basically we looked at where wetlands and acid rain overlap," Gauci told New Scientist.
Feedback effect
The model examined and predicted the interaction between sulphur pollution and natural methane emissions from wetland areas from 1960 to 2080. "Even as early as 1960 we found that methane has been suppressed by sulphur pollution," Gauci says.
Furthermore, the model suggests that sulphur pollution will continue to suppress methane emissions despite the feedback effect that global warming has on the process. While sulphur emissions reduce methane emissions by about eight per cent currently, the figure should rise to 15 per cent by about 2030, predicts the model.
"All our projections show that, if you don't include acid rain methane pollution is going to increase," Gauci adds.
Sulphur pollution is already estimated to have cut methane emissions from wetlands from about 175 to 160 million tonnes per year in 2004. By 2030, this is predicted to fall to 155 million tonnes per year with the help of sulphur-eating bacteria.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0404412101)
Spinspinspinspinspin!
LOL! This should get the enviralist's panties in a bunch.
when did the 'Rats find this out and is this why Rendel was backing coal as an energy source at the convention last week?
My God, they rip Mother Earth apart to mine coal, yaknow. :-o
I remember burning coal as a kid , btw ;-)
I'm ready now to hear theories about natural causes of acid rain.
Its always something.
JUST ANNOUNCED: Global Warming causes Global Cooling. We're all going to die!!!
Mounting proof that enviromentalists actually hate Earth and hate mankind.
"Mounting proof that enviromentalists actually hate Earth and hate mankind."
They definately hate 'mankind'.
The 'Purests' want man to disappear entirely and return the earth to it's 'natural' state.
Problem is. Man IS part of the earth's 'natural state', but the environuts will never admit or believe it.
They think we came from 'outter space'!
I wonder how much these environazis really know about "acid rain." Do you suppose 1% of them ever took a pH reading of rain?
My friend lives downwind of some very large industrial emmitters and he notices that every time it rains, the pH of his swimming pool goes up (toward the basic) rather than down (toward the acidic).
Makes one question a lot of "science" running around these days.
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