Methane Archives - About Climate Change

Methane

5 December 2023

Natural methane emissions are accelerating and at levels not seen in paleoclimate records

Methane is exponentially more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, and its accelerated accumulation in the atmosphere could trigger unimaginable global heating within a few decades.

Researchers have newly estimated how Earth's global mean surface temperature (GMST) will continue rising, albeit relatively briefly, even if all greenhouse gas emissions suddenly stop. The graph's thick dashed line represents the expected extra 0.2 degrees Celsius rise in GMST, followed by a sharp decline, indicating even more cooling with the cessation of all GHG emissions. Previous research focused only on carbon dioxide emissions (dotted line). The orange line reflects a rising GMST if emissions continue under a moderate business-as-usual scenario.

25 August 2022

More global heating ‘baked in’ than previously thought, but so is more cooling, new research finds

Focusing only on reducing CO2 emissions misses the warming already baked into the system, as well as the extra cooling we’d enjoy if all emissions stop.