Talk:Atmospheric methane

Concerning section on 'Sudden release from methane clathrates'

The statements seem perfectly reasonable with the exception of the word 'sudden'. How quickly must the methane clathrates be release to qualify as sudden? Days, months, years, decades? In the context of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum of 55 million years ago, would one thousand years be sudden? I'm going to edit out sudden and remove the tag "This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)". Please let me know your views on this matter.

--Id447 (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Updated Graphs

Here are the updated NOAA Graphs: 2008 Methane Graph (with Slope/Growth Rate). ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/figures/ch4_tr_global.png

2011 Methane Graph (only Mauna Loa) http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/iadv/graph/mlo/mlo_ch4_ts_obs_03437.png

They don't seem to be providing an updated version of the "Growth Rate" graph. However, both of these graphs clearly show Methane Growth beyond 2005. I'm having troubles updating the image page to reflect new figures without starting a whole new page.Keelec (talk) 12:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Here is a global graph http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2010.fig2.png but it includes graphs for other gasses. Is it acceptable to create a new png from a quarter of that giving credit to ESRL / NOAA or are there copyright issues? NOAA = US Government therefore can be used freely? crandles (talk) 11:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I added an {update} template to the graph because there has been a significant change in methane emissions since 2005, when the current graph ends. The NOAA data is in the public domain. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

File:MethaneSourcePieChart.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:MethaneSourcePieChart.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations

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File:MethaneSourcePieChart.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:MethaneSourcePieChart.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations What should I do?

Speedy deletions at commons tend to take longer than they do on Wikipedia, so there is no rush to respond. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. A further notification will be placed when/if the image is deleted. This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotification (talk) 10:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

obsolete

See section above #Updated Graphs. (this section a template placeholder). Green Cardamom (talk) 04:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, someone should do something about that William M. Connolley (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Al Rodger has given permission for https://sites.google.com/site/marclimategraphs/_/rsrc/1321521600926/collection/G04.jpg to be used and I have inserted it. crandles (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The old one has the rate of change on, too, which would be nice to have William M. Connolley (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Water Vapor

Methane plus oxygen plus ultraviolet light yields water vapor and carbon monoxide and infrared radiation. Carbon monoxide plus ultraviolet light plus oxygen yields carbon dioxide and infrared radiation. Water vapor is far more efficient as an absorbent of infrared than is carbon dioxide. Additionally, all of the biogenic producers of methane also produce carbon dioxide and water vapor as well as infrared radiation which are all released into the atmosphere. My point? Methane is far more important as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is because it leads to such a large increase in atmospheric water vapor. -- Brothernight (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

As with so many other "I figured something out that scientists haven't", there is a flaw in your argumentation. The flaw is that you assume that the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases... it doesn't. The residence time for water vapor is short. See Water vapor#Water vapor in Earth's atmosphere... in very simplistic terms (and thus a Lie to children), the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere only changes if the temperature or pressure changes. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Largely true, but with one wrinkle, which is that (assuming I remember right) above the tropopause methane is a fair source of WV, since little WV makes it through the tropopause. But I think the absolute amounts would still be low William M. Connolley (talk) 23:39, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Added impacts section with Ramanathan quote to back up your memory crandles (talk) 23:29, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Could do with some more on impacts section like effects on ozone ..... crandles (talk) 23:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC)