Posted on 07/29/2009 3:40:27 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
The greater Los Angeles area is emitting more than double the amount of methane than previously estimated, according to a new study.
A greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2), most man-made methane (CH4) emission comes from agriculture -- rice paddies, livestock, and biomass burning are all big contributors. As a result studies have largely ignored the methane coming from urban areas, and regulatory agencies have had to rely on guesswork to fill in the gaps.
Debra Wunch of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a team of researchers measured greenhouse gas emissions in the south coast air basin, a bowl of smoggy air that hangs over Los Angeles, its suburbs, and some 15 million inhabitants.
According to the latest estimate by the California Air Resources Board, human activity in the basin should only emit about 260,000 tons of methane each year. But after taking readings from August 2007 through June 2008, the team found that the annual rate was much higher: some 600,000 tons.
Much of the area's electricity comes from burning natural gas, which is almost entirely made up of methane. Approximately 10.5 million tons of natural gas was shipped into the south coast air basin in 2006; if two to three percent of that is leaking into the atmosphere, it could account for a large part of the discrepancy.
"If it's coming from a few potent leaks, one could hope to put a plug in it," Paul Wennberg also of California Institute of Technology, and a co-author on the study due to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters said. "This stuff is valuable. If you can get enough of it, you want to burn it."
The excess gas could also be trickling out of cars' exhaust pipes, landfills or sewage treatment plants.
Worldwide, the human activity and natural processes like ocean methane seeps and wetlands decomposition combine to emit approximately 582 million tons of methane each year. If cities around the world have similar methane emission patterns as Los Angeles, the team estimates urban areas could account for as much as 10-15 percent of that total.
"The hope is that the processes operating in California may be happening in other cities around the world," Amy Townsend-Small of the University of California, Irvine said. "If so, this model will be applicable in cities around the world."
Determining how much methane cities give off -- and the sources responsible -- are crucial steps toward controlling emissions in the future. Ultimately, getting a handle on methane emissions could go a long way toward limiting the effects of global warming.
LOL. I was FAT when I was married! ;)
I agree. In fact I wrote the same thing.
Unless you have some weird fondness for bad odors, I think you would want him DOWN-wind.
Ahh the classic refrane of those confronted with facts. Make a statment, and then don't back it up.
I will however admit that I should have written the "the fact that electromagnetic radiation applied to CO2 causes an effect by which heat is retained".
The fact that this will warm the planet also remains true only up to the point that the chemistry holds. That other dynamics come into play immediately thereafter is also the case and by no means has it been proven that humnans are causing any of it.
Feel free to put your fingers in your ears and hum. It is because of people like you who can be used as targets of the left that we will get the climate bill we will get rather than a reasonable energy policy.
Sort of like the "real science" of evolutionism compared to creationism which looks at the same fossil record and simply draws different conclusions.
Brings to mind the ending of “The Two Jakes.”
No mystery here, all those illegals eating bean burritos is bound to increase the methane level of LA.
Your problem here is your name calling “flat earther and a creationist” as in post 42.
You stated in post 14 that “Remember, the fact that CO2 warms the planet is clearly established.” I have never seen science that that shows this. I have seen were forces acting on CO2 has warmed it, but not were CO2 did the warming as you state.
When the temperature monitoring equipment has been placed next to air conditioning compressors/heat exchangers and on blacktop parking lots they can't help but read higher.
There are two possibilities here. They were placed there by mistake or intentionally. If intentional, that speaks to global warming fraud. If by mistake, then they are too stupid to conduct valid, trustworthy science.
It's only fun when your the giver!
Add some offshore oil and gas seepage too. This is very big off Santa Barbara where globs of crude was up. My guess is LA has the same thing going on. Lots of gas bubbling up from under
The earth is a complex system. Hell, we can't even get a 3 day forecast correct. Your “chemistry” might be correct under tightly controlled lab systems. But I more likely suspect some statistics were involved because you can't get the tightly controlled conditions.
All evidence I have seen shows co2 is a lagging indicator of warming, not a cause. Matches with with what I learned in chemistry, increasing temp increases respiration and other chemical reactions.
C02 is NOT a pollutant, it is part of a necessary system and is a political misdirection that you have bought into. Study your Botany, For many plants low C02 is a limiting growth factor. In fact, there is a secondary process requiring more plant energy to capture C02 under the current low co2 concentrations. There are many self correcting systems in place and I will trust God before I will trust man or Govt.
To add more to this there is evidence we may be experiencing global coollng rather that warming. So the basic premise of this whole thing is most likely be wrong. You remind me of the grad student who tells me there is NO statistical correction but then goes on to show me charts of cause and effect and give me recommendations of action. Do you really believe the left is about a reasonable energy policy? Are you that foolish? I suggest you are the one being used.
The blind faith with which people follow the left agenda as propagandized by media is scarey.
As usual, "Follow the money(and power)" is the rule.
Al Gore, Pelosi, and other global warming/carbon/alternative fuels investors are laughing all the way to the bank.
I read that Gore is now worth 100 mil; when he left office, that was a couple of mil. Not a bad return for 8 or 9 years--all made touting smaller carbon footprints while he made some of the biggest footprints ever.
vaudine
Could it be...diet?
BEANO!!
Yes, you are correct...
I cannot self-flatulate, so I have others pull my finger...
Someone needs to check the rising sales of frijoles refritos in the LA Basin over the past decades. There may be a correlation.
“If it’s coming from a few potent leaks, one could hope to put a plug in it,”
Find the fat lady before she sings again.
WHAT can be tested and reproduced?
Too too funny! My eye glasses fogged up because of my tears of laughter. I hope you don’t mind, but I have sent that transcript to some friends who will appreciate it (some of whom are, of course Texans!).
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