When Al Gore delivered “An Inconvenient Truth” he showed us the last
little bit on the right-hand side of the graph below, the most recent 10,000 years. We were shocked to see how
far above normal the carbon-dioxide (CO2) level already is.
But this is NOTHING compared to how far the methane (CH4) already is above 420,000 years of normal, and increasing faster than ever. In the short term, methane is a 120 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2*, collecting far more heat, and when methane breaks down it turns into CO2 anyway. The 400 billion tons of methane clathrates frozen in the Siberian tundra and under the arctic sea are already melting, unstoppably bubbling into Earth's atmosphere. We are far beyond the tipping point.
There is already enough methane in Earth's atmosphere to cause a +16°C global temperature rise, and it is only beginning to come out. We are toast.
* Ref:
1. http://arctic-news.blogspot.ch/p/arctic-methane-alarm.html
2. http://www.carolynbaker.net/2013/08/19/19-ways-climate-change-is-now-feeding-itself-by-guy-mcpherson/
But this is NOTHING compared to how far the methane (CH4) already is above 420,000 years of normal, and increasing faster than ever. In the short term, methane is a 120 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2*, collecting far more heat, and when methane breaks down it turns into CO2 anyway. The 400 billion tons of methane clathrates frozen in the Siberian tundra and under the arctic sea are already melting, unstoppably bubbling into Earth's atmosphere. We are far beyond the tipping point.
There is already enough methane in Earth's atmosphere to cause a +16°C global temperature rise, and it is only beginning to come out. We are toast.
* Ref:
1. http://arctic-news.blogspot.ch/p/arctic-methane-alarm.html
2. http://www.carolynbaker.net/2013/08/19/19-ways-climate-change-is-now-feeding-itself-by-guy-mcpherson/
