Passing Gas

A new study reported here by Andrew C Revkin in the New York Times, provides yet more evidence that our current experiment with the planets climate had entered new and perilous territory.
Shafts of ancient ice pulled from Antarctica's frozen depths show that for at least 650,000 years three important heat-trapping greenhouse gases never reached recent atmospheric levels caused by human activities, scientists are reporting today.

The measured gases were carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Concentrations have risen over the last several centuries at a pace far beyond that seen before humans began intensively clearing forests and burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels.


Methane is a potent greenhouse gas (about 21 times more potent than CO2) and is scary partly because large amounts of it are generated when permafrost melts and because very large amounts exist in methane clathyrates in the deep ocean. The current Acrctic warming is melting a lot of permafrost and it's possible that increasing ocean temperatures could trigger very large methane releases. the good news is that it's lifetime in the atmosphere is short (half-life about 12 years).

It might be time for Exxon's cheerleaders to start clapping louder.

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