Recent record-breaking increases in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gas methane can be explained by year-on-year changes in the climate. Climate change has been shown to cause the Earth to heat up more quickly than anticipated.
The study addressed the large uncertainty about the impact of climate change on atmospheric methane. According to the study, the impact could be four times greater than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimates.
The amount of methane in the atmosphere continues to reach historic highs despite a decrease in human-made methane emissions in 2020.
Methane emissions are the second biggest greenhouse gas contributor to Earth's warming and one that is 25 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
Cheng Chin-Hsien is the first author of the study and a researcher at the NTU Asian School of the Environment. Nature's interaction with methane emissions delayed this. Climate change could be the reason for the recent surge in methane emissions. In the decades to come, the full effect of rising temperatures on the atmospheric methane concentration could be seen.
The results of the study show that the link between methane and climate change has been underestimated. We still don't know a lot about the interactions that lead to climate change. The message from this study is that we need to reduce methane and carbon emissions in order to fight climate change.
Methane climate feedback is being improved.
The amount of methane in the atmosphere reached historic highs in 2020 and 2021.
A warmer environment leads to more methane being generated by microbes. There is more heat trapped in the atmosphere. When atmospheric methane oxidizes, it forms atmospheric carbon dioxide and water.
There are other things that could affect the net effect of increased temperatures on methane concentrations. A hotter climate may cause an increase in fires.
Using data from the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases, the NTU team analysed changes in the climate to identify the effects of temperature and rain on methane concentrations in the atmosphere.
A cooler year with slower methane removal can be followed by a hotter one. Even though lower temperatures will result in lower methane supply from microbes, the reduction in removal will result in a net increase in methane concentration in the atmosphere. This could happen after a hot year that saw a lot of fires.
The NTU scientists estimate that for every degree increase in global mean surface air temperature, the Earth will absorb an additional 0.08 watt of energy per square metres of surface.
Four times the estimate given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the Earth could be on course to warm up more quickly than thought.
The findings show that there are many more contributing factors and consequences that come from our activities that affect the global climate system. The need for humans to step up their efforts to address climate change is underscored by them.
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