Methane is one of the more active greenhouse gases. This page gives links to pages discussing the effects of Methane on our climate.
German researchers have identified a previously unknown emitter of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The culprit: ordinary plants.
After taking a rented camper outfitted with special equipment to measure
methane on a cross-continent drive, a UC Santa Barbara scientist has
found that methane emissions across large parts of the U.S. are higher
than currently known, confirming what other more local studies have
found. Their research is published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and researchers don't yet fully understand the magnitude to which seeping methane in the ocean contributes additional carbon to the atmosphere. Moreover, on many continental margins, frozen methane hydrates could represent a future energy source. Along the West Coast, methane seeps are known to exist off Oregon, California (near Eureka, Monterey Bay, Point Conception and Santa Monica), in the Gulf of California and off Costa Rica.
A team of scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has just completed an airborne measurement campaign that allowed for the first time to measure large-scale methane emissions from the extensive Arctic permafrost landscapes. The study area extended from Barrow, the northernmost settlement on the American mainland, across the entire North Slope of Alaska, to the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
Bridget Deemer, a doctoral student at Washington State University-Vancouver, measured dissolved gases in the water column of Lacamas Lake in Clark County and found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn down. A fellow WSU-Vancouver student, Maria Glavin, sampled bubbles rising from the lake mud and measured a 36-fold increase in methane during a drawdown.
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