Rapid growth from 2008–2017 built upon the rise in the atmospheric concentration of the gas that has been happening for more than a century.
The amount of methane in Earth’s atmosphere continues to rise. That is the conclusion of two new studies from the Global Carbon Project.
Researchers synthesized all known data about methane from emissions inventories, atmospheric measurements, and models to assemble a global “methane budget” that details which processes add the gas to the atmosphere and which remove it. They found that global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas totaled 576 million metric tons per year for the 2008 to 2017 decade—a 9 percent increase compared to the previous decade.
The rapid growth builds upon the rise in the atmospheric concentration of the gas that has been happening for more than a century. (Emissions briefly stabilized between 2000 and 2006.) Concentrations of methane now exceed 1875 parts per billion, about 2.5 times as much as was in the atmosphere in the 1850s. Climate scientists estimate that the gas is responsible for about one quarter of the global warming that has happened since then.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
