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kassy

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Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources

A bunch of methane sources have been discovered lately in surprising places like Cyanobacteria (see next post) and virusses in rivers and lakes.

Also quite a number of articles related to non permafrost methane have ended up in the Arctic Methane release thread.
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,12.0.html

I will be looking through the arctic methane thread and adding articles from there and some other threads later today or tomorrow.

PS: Antarctic methane release has it´s own thread (link not provided because it is easy to find in a search and it has not been active for a while)

There is not really a thread collecting all other methane sources so they end up all over the place.

So this thread is for collecting science on all these non arctic methane sources.




 
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2020, 12:42:36 PM »
Researchers Discover Surprising New Source Of Methane Emissions Lurking In Global Waters

...

"Cyanobacteria in surface water are a previously unknown source of methane and we were able to show for the first time that these bacteria produce the greenhouse gas methane during photosynthesis," said Dr Mina Bižić, from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), in a statement.

To come to their conclusions, researchers at IGB and Heidelberg University investigated 17 species of cyanobacteria that occur in the ocean, freshwater, and soil to see how methane is formed in the cell when light energy is converted to chemical energy. They then compared the amount of methane produced by cyanobacteria with that produced by methanogenic archaea and organisms with cell nuclei, or eukaryotes.

"Cyanobacteria produce less methane than archaea, but more methane than eukaryotes. It is difficult to estimate the global amount of methane produced by Cyanobacteria because there is a severe lack of detailed data on the biomass of these organisms in water and soil," said co-author Frank Keppler, professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences at Heidelberg University.

and more on:
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/researchers-discover-surprising-new-source-of-methane-emissions-lurking-in-global-waters/
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2020, 12:23:26 PM »
US methane releases related to the fossil fuel industry.


First post shows this has been on the radar for a while:

This paper uses geospatial analysis and shows that Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana have the highest concentration of methane emissions in the U.S. due to refinery operations.  They state that the emissions from these regions alone account for 4.1% of the total CO2equivalent global emissions.

This means that emissions inventories is severely understated.

came out last year:

http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~swofsy/PNAS_draft_jan22.pdf

Evidence for a large fossil fuel methane source over the south-central US

A 2019 follow up from the same thread:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/14/fracking-causing-rise-in-methane-emissions-study-finds

Quite a general article but this is the related paper:
https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/

What happens when regulation of a polluting industry becomes a sick joke?

Say hello to The Texas Railroad Commission, not so much a regulator, more the oil & gas industry's bestest friend.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Emissions-Soar-As-Permian-Flaring-Frenzy-Breaks-New-Records.html
Emissions Soar As Permian Flaring Frenzy Breaks New Records
Quote
The flaring and venting of natural gas in the U.S. continues to soar, reaching new record highs in recent months.

The volume of gas that was burned or simply released into the atmosphere by oil and gas drillers reached 1.28 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2018, according to the EIA, up from 0.772 Bcf/d in 2017.

The practice is a disaster on many levels. It is wasteful, it worsens air quality and it exacerbates climate change. Venting gas is much worse than burning it since it releases methane into the atmosphere, a potent greenhouse gas.

The New York Times documented several “super emitters” in the Permian, (see images attached) using infrared cameras to visually capture the epidemic. The NYT even recorded an oil worker walking into an invisible plume of leaking methane. 


I just quoted a small part about the volume of vented gas. See original post for much more info and some pictures of methane.

There is another article with recent satellite real time data hiding somewhere...

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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2020, 01:41:56 PM »
I'm not sure if this has been posted before, I just found this amazing site from NOAA's
Earth System Research Laboratory Global Monitoring Division.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=ALT&program=ccgg&type=lg

In it you can find wonderful resources like the attached methane measurements across latitudes and time.

Found this nice link buried between the arctic methane release.
The link starts for CO2 but that can easily be changed to NH4. 
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2020, 04:02:08 PM »
You mean CH4, not NH4, right kassy?

rboyd

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2020, 11:17:34 PM »
For the arctic tundra decomposition its a simple calculus:
- If the ground stays dry its an oxygen-rich decomposition that produces CO2
- If the ground is water-logged its an oxygen-starved decomposition that produces CH4

With the 20-year impact of CH4 being about 100 times that of CO2, its an important difference. With increased temperatures, and perhaps a loss of sea ice, a lot of decomposition may take place in water-logged areas as snow turns to rain, and the snow that there is melts earlier.

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2020, 09:05:48 AM »
New 3D View of Methane Tracks Sources and Movement around the Globe

NASA’s new 3-dimensional portrait of methane concentrations shows the world’s second largest contributor to greenhouse warming, the diversity of sources on the ground, and the behavior of the gas as it moves through the atmosphere. Combining multiple data sets from emissions inventories, including fossil fuel, agricultural, biomass burning and biofuels, and simulations of wetland sources into a high-resolution computer model, researchers now have an additional tool for understanding this complex gas and its role in Earth’s carbon cycle, atmospheric composition, and climate system.

Since the Industrial Revolution, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled. After carbon dioxide, methane is the second most influential greenhouse gas, responsible for 20 to 30% of Earth’s rising temperatures to date.

“There’s an urgency in understanding where the sources are coming from so that we can be better prepared to mitigate methane emissions where there are opportunities to do so,” said research scientist Ben Poulter at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

...

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/new-3d-view-of-methane-tracks-sources-and-movement-around-the-globe
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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2020, 09:37:11 AM »
^^
video from above link (2m18) "NASA Models Methane Sources, Movement Around Globe"
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2020, 03:00:24 PM »
Methane Emissions Hit a New Record and Scientists Can’t Say Why

(Bloomberg) -- Airborne methane levels rose markedly last year, according to a preliminary estimate published today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The results show a dramatic leap in concentration of the second most-powerful greenhouse gas, which is emitted from both industrial and natural sources.

“Last year’s jump in methane is one of the biggest we’ve seen over the past twenty years,” said Rob Jackson, professor of Earth system science at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project. “It’s too early to say why, but increases from both agriculture and natural gas use are likely. Natural gas consumption surged more than two percent last year.”

Methane levels have accelerated twice in the last 15 years, first in 2007 and again in 2014. Scientists have yet to pinpoint the exact cause (or causes). Virtually every contributor to the global methane problem may play a role, from the oil-and-gas industry to human agriculture to wetlands changing with the climate.

...

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/methane-emissions-hit-a-new-record-and-scientists-can-t-say-why-1.1418181

A general update.

I still have a ton of inhouse links to add to this thread but i will do that at a later time.
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2020, 01:18:38 AM »
Methane Levels Reach an All-Time High

New NOAA analysis highlights an alarming trend; experts call for curbing pollution from oil and gas wells

A preliminary estimate from NOAA finds that levels of atmospheric methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, have hit an all-time high.

...

“Here we are. It’s 2020, and it’s not only not dropping. It’s not level. In fact, it’s one of the fastest growth rates we’ve seen in the last 20 years,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University.

...

 In 2019, the concentration of atmospheric methane reached nearly 1875 parts per billion, the highest level since record-keeping began in 1983.

Even more troubling, 2019 saw the second-largest single-year leap in two decades.

...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-levels-reach-an-all-time-high/
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2020, 04:16:21 PM »
APRIL 17, 2020
Stanford researchers find methane leaks from U.S. water heaters are high, but fixable

Natural gas escapes from water heating systems through leaks and because some is not combusted by the burner. These tiny inefficiencies can add up: The resulting emissions of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – for water heaters across the United States are potentially more than three times higher than expected, according to a new Stanford study. The good news, however, is that simple fixes are available that can be applied across most of the world’s economies.

...

“Wasted natural gas from appliances in homes and commercial buildings is probably the least understood cause of climate change from natural gas use,” said the new study’s lead author, Eric Lebel, a PhD student in Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science.

The researchers focused on water heaters because warming water accounts for a fourth of natural gas consumption in the average U.S. home that uses gas for hot water, cooking and heating. The 58 million U.S. water heaters that use natural gas leak around 91,000 tons of methane per year as uncombusted gas. Over 20 years, given methane’s much greater potency as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, that 91,000 tons warms Earth as much as 7.8 million tons of CO2.

“That’s a very small part of total U.S. emissions, but it’s the equivalent of 1.7 million cars driving on gasoline for a year,” explained Jackson

....

But, for tankless heaters the on/off pulses account for almost 60 percent of emitted methane. Tankless models turn on and off every time a hot water faucet is opened and shut. Stored water is heated or reheated periodically. The researchers suggest that the on/off pulses of tankless water heaters can be lowered significantly to reduce methane leakage without reducing their performance.

“We find other pretty simple design fixes, too,” said Jackson. “For heaters with tanks, most of the release of uncombusted gas is from the pilot light when the heater is idle. Standard pilot lights should be replaced with electronic igniters.”

https://news.stanford.edu/2020/04/17/water-heaters-methane-leaks-high-fixable/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b07189
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2020, 02:40:27 PM »
Offshore oil and gas platforms release more methane than previously estimated

Offshore energy-producing platforms in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico are emitting twice as much methane, a greenhouse gas, than previously thought, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

Researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind pilot-study sampling air over offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Their findings suggest the federal government's calculations are too low.

U-M's research found that, for the full U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas facilities emit approximately one-half a teragram of methane each year, comparable with large emitting oil and gas basins like the Four Corners region in the southwest U.S. The effective loss rate of produced gas is roughly 2.9%, similar to large onshore basins primarily focused on oil, and significantly higher than current inventory estimates.

...

The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, identified three reasons for the discrepancy between EPA estimates and their findings:

Errors in platform counts: Offshore facilities in state waters, of which there are in excess of 1,300, were missing from the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

Persistent emissions from shallow-water facilities, particularly those primarily focused on natural gas, are higher than inventoried.

Large, older facilities situated in shallow waters tended to produce episodic, disproportionally high spikes of methane emissions. These facilities, which have more than seven platforms apiece, contribute to nearly 40% of emissions, yet consist of less than 1% of total platforms. If this emission process were identified, it could provide an optimal mitigation opportunity, the researchers said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200413140507.htm

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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2020, 04:43:16 PM »
While the linked reference presents high-quality scientific findings, it is sad to me to read about how much methane is being emitted from the Permian Basin in Texas.

Yuzhong Zhang et al. (22 Apr 2020), "Quantifying methane emissions from the largest oil-producing basin in the United States from space", Science Advances, Vol. 6, no. 17, eaaz5120, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz5120

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/17/eaaz5120

Abstract
Using new satellite observations and atmospheric inverse modeling, we report methane emissions from the Permian Basin, which is among the world’s most prolific oil-producing regions and accounts for >30% of total U.S. oil production. Based on satellite measurements from May 2018 to March 2019, Permian methane emissions from oil and natural gas production are estimated to be 2.7 ± 0.5 Tg a−1, representing the largest methane flux ever reported from a U.S. oil/gas-producing region and are more than two times higher than bottom-up inventory-based estimates. This magnitude of emissions is 3.7% of the gross gas extracted in the Permian, i.e., ~60% higher than the national average leakage rate. The high methane leakage rate is likely contributed by extensive venting and flaring, resulting from insufficient infrastructure to process and transport natural gas. This work demonstrates a high-resolution satellite data–based atmospheric inversion framework, providing a robust top-down analytical tool for quantifying and evaluating subregional methane emissions.
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bluice

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #13 on: April 25, 2020, 10:25:39 AM »
With the sudden drop in oil demand we should see a drop in oil production also. It will be interesting to see what, if any, effect this has to atmospheric methane levels.

vox_mundi

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2020, 04:27:44 PM »
Mapping Methane Emissions On a Global Scale
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-methane-emissions-global-scale.html

An important new tool to combat climate change is now available. Using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, this new technology makes it possible to track and attribute methane emissions around the world.

Scientists from Kayrros, a European technology start-up, have recently developed a platform to monitor methane emissions on a global scale. Their findings come from a technology that leverages Copernicus Sentinel-5P data along with additional information from a range of other sources—such as ground sensor data, position tracking and social media data.

In addition to these, supplementary data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions was also used, resulting in the ability to pinpoint the location, potency and size of methane leaks around the world.

Their studies show that there are around 100 high volume-emitting methane leaks at any one time around the world. Around 50% of these emissions come from regions with activities in oil and gas, coal mining and other heavy industries.


This image shows a sample of abnormal methane concentrations over 2019. The size and colour of the circles indicate the size and intensity of the plume detected. The redder the colour, the higher the concentration of the methane plume.
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #15 on: June 30, 2020, 02:33:24 PM »
Natural ecosystems worldwide

The linked reference suggests that as the Earth warms natural ecosystems such as freshwaters will release more methane than expected from predictions based on temperature increases alone:

Yizhu Zhu, Kevin J. Purdy, Özge Eyice, Lidong Shen, Sarah F. Harpenslager, Gabriel Yvon-Durocher, Alex J. Dumbrell, Mark Trimmer. Disproportionate increase in freshwater methane emissions induced by experimental warming. Nature Climate Change, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0824-y

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0824-y

Abstract: "Net emissions of the potent GHG methane from ecosystems represent the balance between microbial methane production (methanogenesis) and oxidation (methanotrophy), each with different sensitivities to temperature. How this balance will be altered by long-term global warming, especially in freshwaters that are major methane sources, remains unknown. Here we show that the experimental warming of artificial ponds over 11 years drives a disproportionate increase in methanogenesis over methanotrophy that increases the warming potential of the gases they emit. The increased methane emissions far exceed temperature-based predictions, driven by shifts in the methanogen community under warming, while the methanotroph community was conserved. Our experimentally induced increase in methane emissions from artificial ponds is, in part, reflected globally as a disproportionate increase in the capacity of naturally warmer ecosystems to emit more methane. Our findings indicate that as Earth warms, natural ecosystems will emit disproportionately more methane in a positive feedback warming loop."
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2020, 10:03:41 PM »
Clunky thread title but lo and behold!

Global methane emissions soar to record high

Global emissions of methane have reached the highest levels on record. Increases are being driven primarily by growth of emissions from coal mining, oil and natural gas production, cattle and sheep ranching, and landfills.

...

In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the atmosphere were relatively stable.

In terms of warming potential, adding this much extra methane to the atmosphere since 2000 is akin to putting 350 million more cars on the world's roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France. "We still haven't turned the corner on methane," said Jackson, a professor of Earth system science in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).

...

Growing sources of methane

Globally, fossil fuel sources and cows are twin engines powering methane's upward climb. "Emissions from cattle and other ruminants are almost as large as those from the fossil fuel industry for methane," Jackson said. "People joke about burping cows without realizing how big the source really is."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200714182228.htm
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2020, 07:27:15 PM »
Methane from north seas boreholes

New study confirms extensive gas leaks in the North Sea

"The positions of the boreholes and the location and extent of the gas pockets indicate that this area of the North Sea alone has the potential to emit 900 to 3700 tonnes of methane every year. 'However, more than 15,000 boreholes have been drilled in the entire North Sea,'

"In the North Sea, about half of the boreholes are at such shallow water depths that part of the emitted methane can escape into the atmosphere."

https://www.geomar.de/en/news/article/neue-studie-bestaetigt-umfangreiche-gasleckagen-in-der-nordsee

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vox_mundi

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #18 on: September 02, 2020, 03:08:43 PM »
Massive Release of Methane Gas from the Seafloor Discovered for the First Time in the Southern Hemisphere
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-massive-methane-gas-seafloor-southern.html

The data was collected during three offshore expeditions in the South Atlantic Ocean in 2011, 2013, and 2014 and have recently been processed and modeled at Linnaeus University, which resulted in the publication of an article in Nature Communications.


Location map and acoustic imagery of gas flares.





Marcelo Ketzer et al. Gas hydrate dissociation linked to contemporary ocean warming in the southern hemisphere, Nature Communications (2020).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17289-z

... Our multi-disciplinary and multi-scale investigation of a bottom simulating reflector (BSR) outcrop on the southern Brazilian margin allows an investigation of gas hydrate dynamics and ocean interactions over long- (millennial) to short- (decadal) scales and provides the first robust evidence from the southern hemisphere of hydrate destabilization related to contemporary climate change.

Geochemical and geophysical data, including the first autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)-borne sub-bottom profiles of a BSR outcrop, allow us to document a massive advective flux of methane through the feather edge of the GHSZ, resulting in the formation of an elongate pockmark field associated with hundreds of water column gas flares.

The pockmarks record long-term degassing, possibly in response to stable post-glacial water temperatures, while the observed BSR outcrop is in thermodynamic disequilibrium with bottom water temperatures and the present-day edge of the GHSZ, consistent with ocean warming over several decades. Our results add to growing evidence that gas hydrate dissociation and sediment degassing related to contemporary ocean warming is a global phenomenon.

The advective flux of methane through the feather edge of the GHSZ is three orders of magnitude greater than background diffusive flux and cannot be entirely consumed by anaerobic oxidation in the sediment, challenging the assumption that the sulfate filter prevents methane from reaching the seafloor. Nonetheless, gas bubbles are inferred to dissolve within 50 m of seafloor, consistent with methane oxidisation in the water column before reaching the atmosphere.

Estimated methane leakage rates at the edge of the GHSZ on the Brazilian margin are lower than those in the northern hemisphere, and indicate that hydrate dissociation may be an important process in the global carbon cycle and the Earth’s climate in a long-term (e.g. 103 years) perspective.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2020, 02:58:34 AM by vox_mundi »
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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2020, 02:53:32 AM »
I did a quick look around to refresh my memory of hydrates off of New Zealand.    Similar depth.  It was tested, written up, and I can't seem to find anymore about it.  So not sure about the Brazilian find being the first in the Southern hemisphere, still seems a good article.   

https://niwa.co.nz/news/joint-new-zealand-german-3d-survey-reveals-massive-seabed-gas-hydrate-and-methane-system

Quote
they discovered was direct evidence of widespread gas in the sediment and ocean, and indications of large areas of methane hydrate, ice-like frozen methane, below the seafloor. The team has identified 99 gas flares in a 50 km2 area, venting from the seabed in columns up to 250 m high. This is believed to be the densest concentration of seafloor gas vents known in New Zealand. 3D seismic data show that landslides and faults allow the gas built up in the sediment to be released into the ocean.

and piece trying to show a possibility of Japan and New Zealand getting nat. gas from hydrates from 2013

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8422140/Ice-gas-holds-huge-potential

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https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,869.msg26345.html#msg26345

vox_mundi

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #20 on: September 03, 2020, 03:18:39 AM »
Is this what you're looking for? ..

Mysterious Giant Crater-like Structures Found near New-Zealand
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geophysics/article00985.html

A multinational team of researchers led by marine geophysicist Dr Bryan Davy from GNS Science has found what may be the world’s biggest pockmarks on the seafloor about 310 miles east of Christchurch, New Zealand

Three giant pockmarks – crater-like structures on the seabed – found by the team are possibly twice the size of the largest pockmarks ever recorded.

Scientists believe they are the ancient remnants of vigorous degassing from under the seafloor into the ocean. The structures (the largest being 6.8 miles by 3.7 miles in diameter and 328 feet deep) are at water depths of about 0.6 miles and there is currently no sign of gas being emitted from them.



The team investigated the larger seafloor structures on the German research ship Sonne. Their aim was to determine the geological origin of the structures, which were first noted in 2007.

The geological processes that led to the formation of the larger structures were still unclear.

“There were clear indications in seismic reflection records of gas pockets and fluid flow structures in the deeper sediments underneath the pockmarks,” explained Dr Joerg Bialas from GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.



“The pockmark features are covered by complex layers of more recent sediment. Gas release from the larger pockmarks may have been sudden and possibly even violent, with a massive volume being expelled into the ocean and atmosphere within hours or days,” he said

Scientists cannot rule out volcanic activity, directly or indirectly, having generated the release of gas. Another possibility is the release of sub-seafloor hydrocarbon gas through a layer of gas hydrate deposits. This would have coincided with drops in sea level of about 328 feet during Ice Ages and subsequent warming of sea temperatures.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL045184/abstract
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longwalks1

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #21 on: September 03, 2020, 06:07:14 PM »
Yup,  that would be it.   Hope you did not mind my jaunt down memory lane, catalyzed via the "first time southern hemisphere" phrase in the Phys.org summation which I do not seem to find "first time" in the NatureCommunications source.  I could go with PhysOrg using "first time southern Atlantic."   This does appear to possibly be the first "in depth" study "at depth" in the Southern hemishphere. 

But for the "Gas hydrate dissociation linked to contemporary ocean warming in the southern hemisphere" original article, not only  a nice article but the references cited  are worth a peek also.  I have skimmed a couple.  Sigh that I have to work so many hours overtime  these days.   Some really nice ones to build knowledge on.   

peace out. 

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #22 on: February 03, 2021, 07:21:45 PM »
Huge methane emission rise follows extreme rainfall in East Africa


A 30-year high in East African rainfall during 2018 and 2019 resulted in rising water levels and widespread flooding. The new study shows that emissions of methane - the second most important greenhouse gas - from flooded East African wetlands were substantially larger following these extreme rainfall events.

The study, led by Dr Mark Lunt from the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, used data from two different satellites in combination with an atmospheric model to evaluate methane emissions from East Africa. This included data from the European TROPOMI satellite instrument, launched in 2017, which provides information about atmospheric methane at unprecedented spatial resolution.

"Our study is one of the first times the new TROPOMI satellite data has been used to study regional methane emissions," says Dr Lunt. The satellite observed enhanced methane concentrations over East Africa during the anomalously wet months between October and December 2019.

Using these data, the authors found that, in the final three months of 2019, following a once in 30-year extreme rainfall event, emissions from East Africa were substantially larger than the same period in the previous year.

"The extra emissions were equivalent to the UK's annual total emissions of methane in just a three-month period" says Dr Lunt. Indeed, the authors found the additional emissions in 2019 were large enough to account for over a quarter of the global annual increase in methane emissions. The study shows these increased emissions were most likely to be from natural wetlands as a result of the additional rainfall.

According to the authors, the findings - published in the journal Environmental Research Letters - could be of significance for future methane emissions.

Prof. Paul Palmer, from the University of Edinburgh, who co-authored this work, said: "Climate models suggest that in the future there will be an increased frequency of these extreme rainfall events over East Africa. Our findings show that such a future scenario will have far-reaching consequences for global concentrations of atmospheric methane."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/ip-hme020221.php

Rain-fed pulses of methane from East Africa during 2018–2019 contributed to atmospheric growth rate
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abd8fa
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vox_mundi

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #23 on: March 04, 2021, 03:23:52 PM »
Monitoring Methane Emissions from Gas Pipelines
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-methane-emissions-gas-pipelines.html



For the first time, scientists, using satellite data from the Copernicus Sentinel missions, are now able to detect individual methane plumes leaking from natural gas pipelines around the globe.

In 2020, Kayrros, a European technology start-up, successfully developed a tool to accurately detect individual methane emissions from space. Now, the platform is being used to track regular methane emissions along gas pipelines, for example in Siberia, with emission rates of up to 300 tons per hour recorded.

By combining data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P and Sentinel-2 missions, along with artificial intelligence algorithms, Kayrros scientists detected 13 methane emission events, with rates up to 164 tons per hour in 2019-2020, along the Yamal-Europe pipeline—a 4196 km pipeline running across Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany.

Another 33 emission events, with rates up to 291 tons per hour, were detected over the same period on the shorter, Brotherhood pipeline. When contacted, operators confirmed that these events were related to planned maintenance and have been duly reported to the relevant authorities.

Remarkably, the number of emission events detected by Kayrros increased by 40% over Russia in 2020 from 2019, even though the COVID-19 pandemic helped cut Russian gas exports to Europe by an estimated 14%, according to the IEA.

Over the same period, Kayrros also detected major methane releases in the US, from numerous emissions associated with shale oil production, as well as in other countries such as Kazakhstan.

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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morganism

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #24 on: November 16, 2021, 07:05:25 PM »
The Cow-Shaped Hole in Biden’s Methane Plan

"According to the EPA’s own data, the animal agriculture industry is the No. 1 industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S., contributing an estimated 37 percent of total human-caused emissions. As the chart shows, cows and other ruminant animals (“enteric fermentation” on the pie chart) emit 27 percent of the total methane emissions, and livestock manure (“manure management”) emits another 10 percent. For some reason, the agency has chosen to list those two livestock sources separately, but together they clearly are the largest category. The oil and gas industries are second, responsible for 30 percent of emissions, and landfills are third, responsible for 17 percent. "

It’s an opportunity that the Biden administration is poised to squander. The Clean Air Act gives the EPA the power to regulate methane pollution from animal agriculture operations without congressional approval. Instead of using that power, the White House’s climate plan for animal agriculture consists entirely of subsidizing “voluntary” and “incentive-based” methane-reducing technologies and practices. These industry-promoted measures, such as adding new ingredients to livestock feed that reduce methane production and capturing (and later burning) methane released by factory farm manure lagoons, promise to reduce “emissions intensity” — the emissions produced per pound of meat and dairy products — but they don’t solve the problem.

Subsidizing these quick fixes does nothing to limit the sector’s total emissions, particularly if production by the world’s largest meat and dairy corporations continues to increase as expected."

https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2021/11/16/methane-emissions-cows-agriculture-climate-change-522550

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/global-farm-subsidies-damage-people-planet-un-climate-crisis-nature-inequality

Richard Rathbone

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #25 on: November 17, 2021, 10:11:49 PM »


Another 33 emission events, with rates up to 291 tons per hour, were detected over the same period on the shorter, Brotherhood pipeline. When contacted, operators confirmed that these events were related to planned maintenance and have been duly reported to the relevant authorities.


This is a common tactic to hide the scale of industrial methane emissions. There aren't any leaks (because they are all planned releases).

Stephan

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #26 on: November 23, 2021, 09:23:59 PM »
I am a little bit upset.
As if it would be enough to "report a leak to the relevant authorities". The leak must be closed and the pipeline must be fixed. Otherwise methane gets into our atmosphere, being a greenhouse gas, "duly reported" or not.
It is too late just to be concerned about Climate Change

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #27 on: January 20, 2022, 04:09:20 PM »
Bubbles of methane rising from seafloor in Puget Sound

“There’s methane plumes all over Puget Sound,” said lead author Paul Johnson, a UW professor of oceanography. “Single plumes are all over the place, but the big clusters of plumes are at Kingston and at Alki Point.”

...

Since then, the team analyzed sonar data collected during 18 cruises on the UW’s smaller research vessel, the RV Rachel Carson. Methane plumes were seen from Hood Canal to offshore of Everett to south of the Tacoma Narrows. At Alki, the bubbles rise 200 meters, about the height of the Space Needle, to reach the ocean’s surface.

“Off Alki, every 3 feet or so there’s a crisp, sharp hole in the seafloor that’s 3-5 inches in diameter,” Johnson said. “There are holes all over the place, but there aren’t bubbles or fluid coming out of all of them. There’s occasionally a burst of bubbles, and then another one 50 feet away that has a new burst of bubbles.”

The study is an early step toward exploring the release of methane from estuaries, or places where saltwater and freshwater meet, a subject more widely studied in Europe. Though only a small amount of natural methane is released compared to human sources, understanding how the greenhouse gas cycles through ecosystems becomes increasingly important with climate change.

“In order to understand methane in the atmosphere and control the human sources, we have to know the natural sources,” Johnson said.

The two persistent fields of bubble plumes occur above geologic faults: for the Alki bubbles, located above a branch of the Seattle Fault, and for the Kingston bubbles, above the South Whidbey Fault. It’s likely that the bubbles are connected to the underlying geology, Johnson said.

...

Instead, a biological source of methane beneath the seafloor seems likely, Johnson said. The source may be in the dense clay sediment deposited after the last Ice Age, when glaciers first carved out the Puget Sound basin. The methane seems to be biological in origin, and the bubbles also support methane-eating bacterial mats in the surrounding water.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940625
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #28 on: January 31, 2022, 02:37:21 PM »
Methane Pollution Just Reached New Heights, And The Sources May Not Be What You Think

Methane recently reached 1,900 parts per billion (ppb) of Earth's atmosphere according to measurements taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US. This compares with about 700 ppb before the industrial revolution.

...

After rising sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, atmospheric methane then stabilized. Growth resumed in 2007 and has accelerated in recent years – the sharpest rise on record happened in 2020.

This was not expected when world leaders signed the 2015 Paris Agreement. Methane is becoming the largest discrepancy from emissions trajectories necessary for meeting the agreement's target.

So what's behind the recent surge – and is there a way to reverse it?

Where methane comes from
About 600 million metric tons of methane are released into the atmosphere each year. Estimates suggest two-fifths of these emissions come from natural sources, mainly rotting vegetation in swamps. The remaining three-fifths of emissions come from sources tied to human activity.

Emissions from the fossil fuel industry are well over 100 million metric tons a year and grew rapidly in the 1980s. Natural gas, which in the UK heats homes and generates roughly half of electricity, is mainly methane.

Gas industry leaks are widespread at wells and pipelines and from distribution pipes under streets and home boilers. The coal industry was responsible for up to one-third of fossil fuel emissions between 2000 and 2017 via ventilation shafts in mines and during the transportation and crushing of coal for power stations.

Agriculture, producing about 150 million metric tons a year, is the largest overall source. As are urban landfills and sewage systems, contributing about 70 million metric tons annually.

Scientists can identify sources of methane by studying the proportion of carbon-12 to carbon-13 in the atmosphere. These different forms of carbon – chemically similar but with different masses – are known as isotopes.

Biogenic methane, made by microbes in rotting vegetation or in cow stomachs, is relatively rich in carbon-12, while methane from fossil fuels and fires has comparatively more carbon-13.

For two centuries, rapidly expanding gas, coal and oil industries steadily drove atmospheric methane richer in carbon-13. Since 2007, that trend has reversed, and the proportion of carbon-13 in atmospheric methane has decreased. Although fossil fuel emissions may still be growing, soaring methane emissions are now primarily the result of faster-growing biogenic sources.
...

From tropical swamps in the Amazon, Nile and Congo basins to tundra in Russia and muskeg bogs in Canada, wetlands emit roughly 200 million metric tons of methane a year. As global temperatures increase, the rate at which wetlands generate and decompose biomass grows and these environments release more methane.

Methane emissions accelerate climate change and climate change causes the release of more methane – a positive feedback of warming feeding more warming.

The microbes in the stomachs of ruminant animals like cattle, sheep, goats and camels are similar to wetland microbes. In effect, cows are walking wetlands. Ruminants produce nearly as much methane as fossil fuel emissions, roughly 115 million metric tons of annually. Globally, about two-thirds of farmland is animal pasture.

...and more including tackling all our emissions we can stop or reduce.

https://www.sciencealert.com/atmospheric-methane-has-reached-new-records-here-s-what-that-means
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be cause

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #29 on: February 01, 2022, 11:27:10 AM »
he(a)rd plans in USA and Japan to put masks on cattle to control methane ..
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #30 on: February 04, 2022, 03:05:49 PM »
Microbes making tree methane in ghost forests are in the soils

A new study from North Carolina State University shows that methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is largely generated in the soils below standing dead trees in so-called ghost forests, or coastal forests that are being killed off by rising sea levels.

This escaping methane gas, known colloquially as ghost forest tree "farts," is actually generated by different tiny microorganisms. Researchers wanted to know if different communities of microbes are making methane gas inside the soils or in the dead trees, which are also known as snags. They found that although the methane gas is generated in the soils, the trees act like filtering straws as the gas rises through the wood. Microbes in the wood further chemically alter and consume the gas as it rises.

"We're tracing where the methane is originally coming from, and what we're finding is that it's coming from the soils, and as it moves through the tree, it's changing as well," said Marcelo Ardón, associate professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. "The methane is being processed as it moves through those snags."

... details ...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220202124322.htm
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Niall Dollard

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #31 on: February 10, 2022, 11:11:23 PM »
Recent Nature article on methane (Not unlike the article in Kassy's reply#28).

Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane
As global methane concentrations soar over 1,900 parts per billion, some researchers fear that global warming itself is behind the rapid rise.

Since 2007, when methane levels began to rise more rapidly again, the proportion of methane containing 13C began to fall (see ‘The rise and fall of methane’). Some researchers believe that this suggests that much of the increase in the past 15 years might be due to microbial sources, rather than the extraction of fossil fuels.

To provide answers, Lan and her team are running atmospheric models to trace methane back to its source.“Is warming feeding the warming? It’s an incredibly important question,” says Nisbet. “As yet, no answer, but it very much looks that way.”

Lan’s team estimates that anthropogenic sources such as livestock, agricultural waste, landfill and fossil-fuel extraction accounted for about 62% of total methane emissions since from 2007 to 2016

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2

Sublime_Rime

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #32 on: February 16, 2022, 10:51:56 PM »
Indeed, this work on carbon isotope ratios has been very concerning for me to read. I had been hoping that the recent uptick in global methane had been primarily from fossil fuels rather than surface sources such as wetlands and permafrost. However the review Niall posted argues strongly against this since ~2007.

I discovered while looking into this that NOAA publishes these isotope ratios for certain sites on their data viewer. I looked at the trend for Mauna Loa to get a more recent update on the last few years of data, since the recent large uptick, and unfortunately it seems to correlate with an increase in the rate of C13/C12 decline suggesting a large contribution from surface sources. This is really some of the most troubling news I've read of late.

Here is the NOAA dataviewer I used to create the attached plot: gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/index.php
« Last Edit: February 16, 2022, 10:57:34 PM by Sublime_Rime »
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morganism

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #33 on: April 14, 2022, 10:19:15 PM »
LNG ships worse for climate: NGO

 A environmental activist group said Wednesday that cargo ships burning liquefied natural gas (LNG) are actually worse for the climate due to methane emissions.

Cargo ships use a particularly dirty type of fuel but the shipping industry has sought to shift to cleaner-burning LNG.

However, Transport & Environment said that an investigation it mounted of LNG-powered ships in service found that they emit methane which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The names of these new LNG-powered ships "contain words like 'eco' and they are often painted green," said Transport & Environment.

"But their green credentials end there."

Using a thermal imaging camera, the group said it filmed the emissions of two LNG-powered ships in the port of Rotterdam last November.

It said a review of the images by an independent optical gas imaging consultancy found that "intense uncombusted hydrocarbon emissions were being released into the atmosphere".

The owner of one of the ships reviewed, French shipping giant CMA CGM, said it had "already identified the issue of uncombusted methane... and is working with its motor manufacturer partners" to reduce the emissions.

A spokesman said reductions in methane emissions had already been achieved.

Shipping companies began shipping to LNG primarily due to reduce high sulphur emissions from marine fuel, he also noted, as the pollution is a source of tensions with authorities in some port cities."

https://www.oilgasdaily.com/reports/LNG_ships_worse_for_climate_NGO_999.html

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #34 on: June 04, 2022, 10:06:48 AM »
Fjords emit as much methane as all the deep oceans globally


During heavy storms, the normally stratified layers of water in ocean fjords get mixed, which leads to oxygenation of the fjord floor. But these storm events also result in a spike in methane emissions from fjords to the atmosphere.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have estimated that the total emissions of this climate-warming gas are as great from fjords as from all the deep ocean areas in the world put together.

The world’s fjords were created when the inland ice receded, and are a relatively rare natural feature, constituting only 0.13 per cent of all the oceans on Earth. However, according to researchers from the University of Gothenburg, emissions of methane from the surface of fjords are comparable to the emissions of this gas from global deep oceans which account for 84 per cent of the global sea surface area. These results were presented in an article in the prestigious science journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters.

“It’s been known for some time that many fjords have anoxic environments closest to the bottom and that methane forms in the bottom sediment. Usually, only a small portion of this gas ever reaches the atmosphere because it gets broken down as it ascends through the more oxygen-rich waters closer to the surface. But in our research, we recorded large emissions of methane when the water in the fjord was mixed during storm events, for example,” says Stefano Bonaglia, researcher in marine geochemistry at the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Gothenburg.

...

1 million tonnes methane

“The methane emissions were high, and American researchers have seen the same types of events in fjords in Canada. We estimate that emissions from all the world’s fjords are of the same magnitude – around 1 Teragram (Tg) or 1 million tonnes per year – as the budgeted emissions from global deep oceans. This is because the distance from the bottom to the surface of a fjord is much shorter than in deep oceans. This results in more organic matter being deposited in the sediment, and not enough time for the methane to be broken down on its way up to the surface,” says Stefano Bonaglia, and adds that if climate change leads to more extreme weather events, methane emissions may rise, but only up to a certain point.

“If we were to see a sharp rise in the number of heavy storm events, methane emissions would be reduced, because the anoxic environments at the bottom of fjords would disappear if the water are mixed frequently.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/954154
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #35 on: June 15, 2022, 09:25:34 PM »
Huge methane emission from Russian coal mine

A Canadian firm that operates orbiting methane sensors says it's detected the biggest emission of the gas from a single facility it's ever seen.

The release was observed to come from the vast Raspadskaya coal mine, in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, on 14 January.

GHGSat says the greenhouse gas was entering the atmosphere at a rate of nearly 90 tonnes per hour.

It's the sort of quantity that in a domestic supply would power hundreds of thousands of homes.

But in this case, the methane (also referred to as CH4) was being lost straight into the air.

Methane's global warming potential is 30 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year time period.

A major scientific report last year indicated that 30-50% of the current rise in global temperatures is down to methane, and that it's imperative emissions are curtailed.

Montreal-based GHGSat operates a fleet of five orbiting satellites. They carry the highest-resolution CH4-detecting sensors in space today.

The company's business is in identifying human-produced CH4 sources and working with those responsible to close off unnecessary releases. Most of its clients are in the fossil fuel industry.

"We did reach out to Raspadskaya about their emissions, but so far we've not had a response," Brody Wight, GHGSat's director of landfills and mines, told BBC News.

Raspadskaya is a major complex with some 350km (220 miles) of underground tunnels. It produces coking coal.

GHGSat says its observations show emissions from the facility have been trending up over time, with other large events in excess of 50 tonnes per hour and 10 tonnes per hour recorded in late January and May respectively.

Ordinarily, a concerning leak at an oil or gas facility might approach 1 tonne per hour.

"The rate of 87,000 kg per hour we detected on 14 January is a huge amount; the biggest we've seen bar none," Mr Wight said.

"The analogy would be emissions coming from about five coal-fired power stations in terms of CO2 equivalent. And that's just from the methane that's coming from extracting coal at Raspadskaya. It doesn't include the actual use of this coal which would produce in the neighbourhood of 20-30% additional emissions."

For context, the biggest single-source ultra-emission event ever recorded in the US occurred in October 2015, when methane escaped from an underground natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, near Porter Ranch, Los Angeles.

Estimates put the rate of release as high as 58 tonnes per hour.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61811481
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vox_mundi

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #36 on: June 17, 2022, 05:50:52 PM »
Biogas and Biomethane Supply Chains Leak Twice As Much Methane As First Thought
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-biogas-biomethane-chains-leak-methane.html

... The new Imperial study, published today in One Earth journal, found that supply chains for biomethane and biogas release more than twice as much methane as the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s previous estimation. It also reveals that 62 percent of these leaks were concentrated in a small number of facilities and pieces of equipment within the chain, which they call "super-emitters," though methane was found to be released at every stage.

The researchers analyzed 51 previously published studies on mobile methane measurements and site data taken from emission sources along the biomethane and biogas supply chain. They analyzed the data and calculated the total methane emissions using a statistical Monte Carlo model. This allowed them to consider all measurements of total supply chain emissions at each stage of the chain, which they then compared with the off-site emissions reported from whole-site measurements in previously published studies.

They found that the supply chains release up to 343 g of CO2-equivalent methane per megajoule higher heating value, which may account for 18.5 megatons of methane per year. IEA estimates had reported emissions as just 9.1 megatons in 2021.

While overall methane emissions from biogas and biomethane are lower than those from oil and natural gas, the amount of methane released from their supply chains relative to total gas production is much higher than for oil and gas.

The researchers note that compared to the oil and gas industry, the biomethane industry suffers from poorly designed and managed production facilities as well as a lack of investment for modernization, operation, and monitoring. Because oil and natural gas supply chains have been primarily operated by large companies with huge resources for decades, they have been able to invest more in leak detection and repair.

Semra Bakkaloglu, Methane emissions along biomethane and biogas supply chains are underestimated, One Earth (2022).
https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(22)00267-6
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #37 on: August 01, 2022, 02:39:16 PM »
A window of opportunity for methane to slip by nature's filters

Warmer oceans can lead to large amounts of methane being released from the seabeds, which may amplify climate warming. A new study develops a method to understand the role of microorganisms in increasing emissions of methane from seabeds.

Vast reservoirs of the potent greenhouse gas methane are stored beneath the sea in a solid ice-like combination with water. This solid is known as methane hydrate. For over three decades, various concerns have been raised that warming the seafloor may cause this methane to be rapidly released, perhaps even reaching the atmosphere where it would cause further climate warming. Happily, this methane hydrate is mostly located beneath the seafloor and under hundreds of meters of seawater. Even if warming melts this methane hydrate and releases methane gas, the natural microbial filters present in the seafloor were expected to destroy most of the methane before it ever reaches the open seawater.

However, there have been some gaps in our knowledge of the relevant seafloor processes. In particular, can seafloor warming be rapid enough that methane hydrate could melt so fast that the released methane would overwhelm and ultimately bypass the natural microbial filters? "The microbial filter layer in the sediment -- we call it the 'sulfate-methane transition', where methane is removed -- is somewhat delicate," explains Assistant Professor Christian Stranne at the Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University. "The filter layer takes many years to form and reach peak methane-consuming efficiency. The filter is a living thing, made of microorganisms that consume methane under anaerobic (no-oxygen) conditions. The filter also moves up and down within the sediment, depending on the rate at which methane is reaching it."

In a new study, just published in Communications Earth and Environment, Stranne and colleagues from Stockholm University and Linnaeus University have combined a new model of the biological behaviour and vertical movements of this microbial filter with existing models of seafloor sediments' physical behaviour. The physical parts of the model include processes such as how cracks form and methane can move up thorough the sediment after methane hydrates melt.

Christian Stranne explains: "Imagine that the amount of methane rising through the sediment suddenly increases, as might happen if methane hydrate begins to melt faster. It can take decades for the filter to adjust itself to consume methane at the new rate. Our new study shows that during the time that the filter is not reestablished, substantial methane can leak past the filter, and into the ocean water."

Despite this "window of opportunity," methane from melting hydrates that reaches the seawater faces further methane-destroying processes. These processes make it nearly impossible for substantial methane from methane hydrate melting to reach the atmosphere. However, methods as demonstrated in this study can be applied to other regions where seafloor-released methane is much shallower and is more likely to reach the atmosphere, such as the Arctic continental shelves, according to Christian Stranne.

"Methane hydrates are a massive storehouse of carbon, so it remains important to understand how they interact with ocean changes, and potentially, the atmosphere, over long and, in the case of our study, rather short timescales. We now know that there is indeed a possible process for melting methane hydrates to temporarily bypass what was previously thought to be a strong filter in the sediment," says Christian Stranne.

The warming rate is, however, of great importance: "Our results suggest that if our oceans warm at a pace significantly lower than 1 °C per 100 years, the filter can keep up with the pace and remain highly efficient. Unfortunately, we see higher warming rates than that in some of our oceans."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220728143017.htm
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phelan

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #38 on: September 03, 2022, 11:31:12 PM »
Exclusive: Scientists detect second 'vast' methane leak at Pemex oil field in Mexico
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-scientists-detect-second-vast-methane-leak-pemex-oil-field-mexico-2022-09-02/

Quote
MEXICO CITY, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Satellites recorded another large methane leak at an offshore platform belonging to Mexico's Pemex in August, according to exclusive data shared with Reuters, even as pressure mounts on the state oil company to reduce these emissions.

Three satellites recorded images of methane plumes at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil field cluster in the Gulf of Mexico during six days between Aug 5 and Aug 29, said Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate, a scientist from the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

During these days, some 44,064 tons of methane were released into the atmosphere from the Zaap oil field in another "ultraemission", Irakulis-Loitxate estimated. This is equivalent to 3.7 million tons of CO2.

Reuters was unable to determine the cause of the leak but experts have expressed concern over ailing infrastructure.

It comes after a peer-reviewed research paper in June, on which Irakulis-Loitxate was the lead author, uncovered a massive methane leak last December at the same oil field cluster, Mexico's largest by production volume.
...
Quote
"In December, the flaring shut down, and they were venting gas almost constantly for 17 days," she said. "This time, however, they have been venting and flaring gas intermittently during the whole month."

Irakulis-Loitxate said the data does not establish whether it has been fixed.

To get a fuller picture of the event, she further evaluated another set of data taken by a fourth satellite that detects fire radiation and provides daily data. It fills in the gaps where there is no information from the other satellites.

During the gas venting periods, the satellite did not detect the radiation that would have been emitted by the flares, she said, confirming the flare was indeed off.

Pemex has not publicly addressed the findings. Two sources familiar with operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to Reuters the platform was having issues.

The share of natural gas that comes to the surface as a byproduct increases as older fields, like the ones in the Gulf of Mexico, are being depleted.

Petroleum reservoir geologists said this poses operational challenges - and more natural gas is wasted as a result.

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #39 on: September 14, 2022, 05:06:14 PM »
Tropical Wetlands Emit More Methane Than Previously Thought

Since 2007, the world’s atmospheric methane concentration has risen at an accelerated rate, but scientists aren’t exactly sure why. This is a problem, because methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas. It has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, and it accounts for about 30% of global warming since preindustrial times.

To better understand methane’s recent climb and how to mitigate it, scientists are trying to collect more accurate measurements of methane’s sources, both human and natural. In a new study, Shaw et al. find that tropical wetlands, which are responsible for about a fifth of the world’s methane emissions, are releasing significantly more methane than previously thought.

Methane emissions from tropical wetlands are poorly studied, especially in Africa. The researchers set out to help fill this data gap with the first-ever airborne surveys of methane released from wetlands in Zambia, focusing on three of the country’s large wetland areas: Bangweulu, Kafue, and Lukanga. They used the United Kingdom’s Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, a British Aerospace 146 aircraft fitted with a scientific measurement laboratory, to sample environmental data. And to estimate methane emissions, they applied three approaches at each wetland site: airborne mass balance, airborne eddy covariance, and atmospheric inversion.

Whereas models have predicted emissions from these wetlands of 0.6–3.9 milligrams per square meter per hour, the researchers’ direct observations told a different story. The observed methane emissions were 5–28 milligrams per square meter per hour, an order of magnitude higher.

If these findings hold true for other understudied tropical wetlands, they indicate that Global Carbon Project models significantly underestimate wetlands’ contributions to the world’s atmospheric methane. This is especially concerning, because climate change could create a feedback cycle in which increasing rainfall and rising temperatures drive wetlands to release even more of the gas. In that scenario, then to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming to under 2°C relative to preindustrial times, countries will need to reduce human-caused greenhouse gas emissions by far greater quantities than current estimates suggest. (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GB007261, 2022)

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/tropical-wetlands-emit-more-methane-than-previously-thought
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #40 on: September 30, 2022, 07:41:50 PM »
Will Nord Stream methane leaks make climate change worse?

...

Climate alert
The events have also put the climate community on alert. When Andrew Baxter, once an engineer in the oil and gas industry, now the director of energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund, based in New York City, heard about the leak in Nord Stream 2, he “switched back into engineering mode” to try to quantify the resulting methane release. “I came up with a very rough estimate, there are so many variables and unknowns here, it’s very difficult to definitively say how much methane has made it into the atmosphere,” he says.

Baxter estimated that 115,000 tonnes of methane had probably been released during the initial sudden pressure drop in Nord Stream 2, on the basis of the pipe’s dimensions and the water temperature. Per unit mass, methane has a much more potent greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide — particularly in the short term. Baxter says the overall impact of this leak is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions from two million cars.

“If these numbers end up being confirmed, it would be the one of the largest single leaks of natural gas in history in a single location,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a data-analysis non-profit organization in California. But he adds that this doesn’t fundamentally change the magnitude of global emissions.

The event, although huge, accounts for around 0.14% of the global methane budget, says Mark Davis, chief executive of Capterio, a company in London that tracks gas flares from the oil and gas industry, but which didn’t detect the vented gas because it isn’t burning. He argues that, once the leak was discovered, setting it alight could have mitigated much of the damage, by converting the methane to carbon dioxide.

.. and more:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03111-x

I wonder how you would set it alight below the water...
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nadir

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #41 on: October 01, 2022, 04:58:35 PM »
Probably he meant to set it alight at the surface.
In any case, those numbers seem less alarming than what the scientist implies. A single commercial jet flight on average produces the CO2 that 20 cars produce in a year. So his estimate is the equivalent to 100,000 commercial jet flights. That’s the number of worldwide commercial flights in a single day. In other words, a fart. This is 1/365 aviation emissions equivalent.

And take into account that air transport accounts for 2 to 3% of emissions.

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #42 on: October 01, 2022, 05:25:21 PM »
Yes but that would be problematic too although there are only a dew locations. You would need to be there pretty early.
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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #43 on: October 21, 2022, 12:42:56 PM »
Ancient ocean methane not an immediate climate change threat

Deep below the ocean’s surface, the seafloor contains large quantities of naturally occurring, ice-like deposits made up of water and concentrated methane gas. For decades, climate scientists have wondered if this methane hydrate reservoir might “melt” and release massive amounts of methane to the ocean and the atmosphere as ocean temperatures warm.

New research from scientists at the University of Rochester, the US Geological Survey, and the University of California Irvine is the first to directly show that methane released from decomposing hydrates is not reaching the atmosphere.

...

Ocean sediments are massive storehouses for ancient reservoirs of natural methane in the form of methane hydrates.

“The amount of methane locked up in gas hydrates globally is staggering,” Joung says.

Scientists have hypothesized that the release of even part of this reservoir could significantly exacerbate climate change.

Says Kessler: “Imagine a bubble in your fish tank going from the bottom of the tank to the top and exploding and releasing whatever was in that bubble to the air above it—that was the way many people viewed how hydrate decomposition might contribute to our warming world.”

Gas hydrates form where both methane and water meet at high-pressure and low-temperature conditions. In the parts of the ocean located in the temperate and subtropical mid-latitudes, hydrates can remain stable only at depths below about 500 meters (approximately 1640 feet) beneath the sea surface. Generally, hydrates become more stable the deeper they are beneath the sea surface.

That means the upper stability boundary for methane hydrates—500 meters—is a “sweet spot.” It is the most susceptible to melting under warming seawater temperatures, and it is the shortest distance a bubble of “previously-hydrated” methane would have to travel before reaching the atmosphere.

But even in this sweet spot, the researchers did not observe evidence of hydrate methane being emitted to the atmosphere.

...

As the researchers documented, ancient methane is being released from the seafloor. However, they found negligible amounts of this ancient methane in the surface waters. They concluded, based on earlier studies, that this methane gas first dissolves in the deeper waters and then oceanic microbes biodegrade the methane, turning it into carbon dioxide before it leaves the water.

Previous work by Kessler’s group and others found that these processes are active in the mid-latitude regions and that similar processes helped to mitigate the effects of methane released during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Carbon dioxide, while also a greenhouse gas, “can be incorporated into other carbon reservoirs in seawater,” says Kessler. While some of the carbon dioxide could also be emitted into the atmosphere, it would happen over much longer time scales—thousands of years—and the warming wouldn’t be as acute.

...

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968382
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gerontocrat

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #44 on: October 21, 2022, 05:50:37 PM »
Paper after paper showing that methane hydrates buried under oceans AT GREAT DEPTH does not reach the ocean surface when released. We all know that.

However that does not apply to those hydrates buried under shallow seas - e.g. the ESAS which has large areas of less than 50 metres and even less than 10 metres.

This irritates me.

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kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #45 on: October 21, 2022, 06:10:36 PM »
Me not so much. They are just different things. They had to work out some interesting things to make this measurement possible so it is new data even if it only proves what we know.

The ESAS is a different problem. Shallow, melted for thousands of years. See the Shakova paper for details. Also this is a thread which collects all the other non Arctic stuff so there is that bias.  ;)



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Sublime_Rime

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #46 on: October 24, 2022, 01:46:35 AM »

However that does not apply to those hydrates buried under shallow seas - e.g. the ESAS which has large areas of less than 50 metres and even less than 10 metres.

This irritates me.

The article cites that methane hydrates do not form at depths of less than 500m due to the lack of sufficient pressure. Is this incorrect? Am I missing something here? Like MH forming deeper beneath the ocean floor?
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oren

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #47 on: October 24, 2022, 08:14:47 AM »
Quote
In the parts of the ocean located in the temperate and subtropical mid-latitudes, hydrates can remain stable only at depths below about 500 meters (approximately 1640 feet) beneath the sea surface.
The article states this, which while no doubt correct seems to somewhat hide the fact that hydrates exist in other places as well. I was irritatetd similar to Gero.

kassy

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #48 on: October 24, 2022, 02:59:57 PM »
It does not hide anything it merely discusses some constraints on the research performed.

The hydrates need some mix of high pressure and low temperatures to form. This research just looks at the risk of it melting in certain regions. It is in many places and at least for the sea floor methane we do not need to worry. It is different up north.

Although OT here this is a discussion of the ESAS methane:
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htm

Compare both papers and see how they discuss very different things.
I don´t think this is a thing to be irritated about compared to the actual underuse of science in our climate politics or science being not completely open access. They may have mentioned it in the discussion but that is a known unknown. 
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Sublime_Rime

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Re: Methane sources from oceans, industry and non arctic land sources
« Reply #49 on: October 24, 2022, 03:28:41 PM »
Thanks Oren and Kassy, that makes much more sense to me now, although is quite a bit more frightening. I'll read more carefully next time.
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