The concentration of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere rose at a record-breaking rate in 2021, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), jumping by 17 parts per billion (ppb) over the course of the year, beating 2020’s precipitous rise of 15.3 ppb. The estimated 640 million tons ofread more
Large amounts of methane have been observed escaping from the seabed off of the northeastern coast of Siberia, emanating from previously-frozen pockets of the powerful greenhouse gas, a “sleeping giant” that threatens to trigger a global warming feedback loop that exacerbates the climate-warming effects of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions. Thisread more
Despite calls by the scientific community for the world to dramatically cut greenhouse gas production to address the problem of global warming, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions rose by 2.7 percent over the course of 2018, the largest increase seen in seven years. This news follows a series of call-to-arms warnings released by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Government’s National Climate Assessment, warning of the urgent need to cut emissions; additionally, a prediction from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts that El Niño conditions are very likely to form in the Pacific Ocean over the winter — conditions that may push 2019 into being the hottest year on record.
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One of the ways that scientists propose that we tackle the problem of global warming is to actively remove greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere. To be an effective compliment to reducing our CO2 output from transport and industry, carbon sequestration will have to be done on a massive scale, meaning that the materials used in the process will need to be plentiful. One of those materials, magnesite, readily absorbs CO2, but there are both practical and economic limits keeping industry from mining the mineral in quantities large enough to be effective. However, researchers in Canada have discovered a way to quickly produce the mineral artificially.read more