Emissions in an industrialised world - COP28

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COP28 to be held shortly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will open with the acceptance that the current efforts to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are well short of targets to prevent the global temperature increasing beyond 1.5C. The UAE's COP28 president has highlighted that approx 22 gigatons of GHG emissions need to be cut over the next seven years. This means a reduction of 43% in emissions from the 2019 levels that would need to be achieved by 2030. These are staggering numbers and represent the continuing failure globally to make any measurable difference thus far.

COP28 website: COP28 UAE

Climate change - the escalating risk of methane from the melting Arctic permafrost

Permafrost melt lake - Above Arctic Circle, Canada - Shutterstock

While much of the focus on limiting greenhouse gas emissions is rightly focussed on carbon dioxide, increasing attention is being paid to another an equally concerning threat - the increasing levels of methane gas being emitted from the melting permafrost found in the Arctic areas of the planet.

The need for monitoring of this evolving and increasing source of greenhouse gases and its potential impact could not be more stark not the least for the risk of a feedback loop. A feedback loop would occur where the planet commences a phase of unstoppable warming as greenhouse gases continue to increase global warming which in turn increased more greenhouse gas emissions which again increases global warming. This is a nightmare scenario.

The Arctic Circle and its permafrost is one such risk. The permafrost is melting and releasing increasing levels of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas.

In summary -

• Methane is a greenhouse gas with a potency around 20 times the warming power of carbon dioxide.
• Large quantities of methane is locked into the permafrost of the Arctic Circle. Permafrost measures around 23 million square kilometres of land surface comprising 85% of Alaska and near 50% of Canada and Russia.
• Permafrost originates from the Ice Ages when glaciers and ice sheets covered large tracks of the planet's surface. Over tens of thousands of years, rocks were ground into a form of substance called 'glacial flour'  by the ice with plants and animals becoming part of the mix in the permafrost layers. When the glaciers and ice sheets retreated, this semi frozen layer was left behind. Measurements of permafrost have found detected deposits up to 1,500 metres thick aand overall it is estimated that 1.7 trillion tonnes of carbon are trapped in them.
• Permafrost supports vast tracts of forests more than twice the size of the Amazon rainforest. These evergreen forests are effectively a carbon sink capturing more carbon from the atmosphere than is released by ther melting permafrost. This is now changing and some regions of forest are now releasing more carbon than they are absorbing.
• The actual source of greenhouse gases in the permafrost are frozen microbes that are entombed. As the permafrost melts the microbes begin to consume plant and animal remnants around them releasing greenhouse gases. Where the microbes are located in mainly dry territory with access to oxygen, they emit mainly carbon dioxide. However where they are in water with no oxygen, they emit methane. 

The evidence of increasing emissions is already available. In the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin in Siberia, temperatures in 2020 were 11 degrees Fahrenheit about average and limestone rock formations commenced releasing ancient methane deposits. 

The IPCC reports and models do not include permafrost methane emissions due to the uncertainty and difficulty of measuring this source of greenhouse gas. Yet this critical risk may yet upend most climate change projections.

Information for this post has been drawn from: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015; Nature. 

Global warming - the other Greenhouse gases

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Most of the public discussion and policy focus is rightly concentrated on carbon dioxide emissions however sight should not be lost on the other Greenhouse Gases (GHG) that are also being emitted in smaller quantities and which do pack a sizeable environmental punch.

Climate change - Greenhouse Gas emission data is absolute and unambiguous

Figure A

Note to Figure A: Climatic response time series from 1979 to the present [IPCC data] The rates shown in the panels are the decadal change rates for the entire ranges of the time series. These rates are in percentage terms, except for the interval variables (d, f, g, h, i, k), where additive changes are reported instead. For ocean acidity (pH), the percentage rate is based on the change in hydrogen ion activity, aH+ (where lower pH values represent greater acidity). The annual data are shown using gray points. The black lines are local regression smooth trend lines [authors William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R Moomaw et al].

In November 2019, a call to action was issued by 11,258 scientists following the publication of new data (in the professional journal, Bioscience) demonstrating rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, global temperature increases with a range of corresponding impacts on the planet. This is not the first time such an unequivocal message has been delivered with a similar one being issued in 2017 but alas, insufficient action and business-as-usual has continued. Of particular concern -

• despite solar and wind energy consumption increasing by 373% per decade, it is still 28 times smaller than fossil fuel usage
• fossil fuel subsidies continue to energy companies and amount to a staggering US $400 billion in 2018
• the three abundant atmospheric greenhouse gases (CO2, Methane and Nitrous Oxide) continue to increase:  CO2 by 4.98%, Methane by 3.65% and Nitrous Oxide by 2.46% over the previous 10 year period
• global surface temperature has been increasing by 0.183C over the ten year period and faster than had been previously predicted
• ice has been disappearing: Arctic sea ice decreased by -11.7%, Greenland ice mass by -2610 gigatonnes, Antarctic ice mass -1230 gigatonnes
• ocean heat and acidity has increased with acidity by +4.12%

Depite the 1992 Rio Summit, the 1997 Kyoto Agreement, the 2015 Paris Agreement and numerous UN COP meetings, there has been insufficient action and progress with decarbonising or moving to low carbon renewable energy sources.

The articles can be accessed at these links -

Bioscience article 2019 World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency

Bioscience Vol 67 No 12 2017 World Scientists Warning to humanity

Fugitive Methane emissions from mines - US experience

Methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases has increasingly been detected in larger volumes in many countries than would be considered to be the normal background level, based on progressive leaching from the ground and from under the sea floor. From where is it originating and in what quantities and levels ?  Part of the answer lies in research undertaken in Los Angeles and with the recent incident in the Aliso Canyon in California.

Methane is the main component of natural gas and is abundant across the planet hence mining and storage could be the most likely culprits for the increase of this gas. In a study published this year, more than a third of  Los Angeles methane emissions were from an unidentified sources and were classified as fugitive fossil emissions. Identification and tracking of 213 methane hotspots in the Los Angeles Basin revealed that 75% were of fossil origin, 20% were biogenic and 5% of indeterminate source.

The Aliso Canyon incident arose when residents in nearby towns reported smelling gas and Southern California Gas Company launched an investigation discovering a leak coming from a natural gas storage facility that had started its life almost 70 years ago as an oil well. By the time the leak was plugged, 107,000 tons of methane and 8,000 tons of ethane had been released into the atmosphere - the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from half a million cars over 16 weeks.  There are literally hundreds of similar sites including disused or abandoned mines and oil wells across not only the United States but Russia as well.