Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is being added to the atmosphere through both natural processes and human activities, such as energy production and agriculture. To predict the impacts of human emissions, researchers need a complete picture of the atmosphere's methane cycle. They need to know the size of the inputs--both natural and human--as well as the outputs. They also need to know how long methane resides in the atmosphere. For more information see the IDTechEx report on Smart City Opportunities: Infrastructure, Systems, Materials 2019-2029.

To predict the impacts of human emissions, researchers need a complete picture of the atmosphere's methane cycle. They need to know the size of the inputs -- both natural and human -- as well as the outputs. They also need to know how long methane resides in the atmosphere. To help develop this understanding, Tom Weber, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester; undergraduate researcher Nicola Wiseman '18, now a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine; and their colleague Annette Kock at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany, used data science to determine how much methane is emitted from the ocean into the atmosphere each year. Their results, published in the journal Nature Communications, fill a longstanding gap in methane cycle research and will help climate scientists better assess the extent of human perturbations.

By 2025 the aim is for 3.5 million tons more of "permanent, quantifiable greenhouse gas reductions." That would be lot of cuts--akin to the tailpipe output of 2.6 million passenger cars. One of the best spots to reduce emissions is right in BP's oil and gas fields. BP figures that half of its fugitive methane emissions--a fancy way of saying natural gas leaking out of pumps and pipes--come from its operations in the Lower 48. And a good portion of those happen in mature fields like the one near Wamsutter, in the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming.

Tue 13 Feb 2018 11.00 EST Last modified on Tue 13 Feb 2018 11.01 EST Drones invoke varying perceptions, from fun gadget to fly in the park to deadly military weapons. In the future, they may even be viewed as a handy tool in the battle to fight climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions from the tra...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights six main lines of evidence for climate change. First, we have tracked (see chart) the unprecedented recent increase in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial revolution. By burning coal, oil, and natural gas, we accelerate the process, releasing vast amounts of carbon (carbon that took millions of years to accumulate) into the atmosphere every year.