Methane

What do you guys think about methane being a worse gas than CO2? I mean do you guys think it will have more of an affect on the climate than the possible effects CO2 has? I've found several articles that says it does.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/...bon_dioxide.htm

Methane gas is a flammable gas right?

LOGICALLY Methane gas can never be used as a source of global warming and here's why.

Methane is inflammable which means it will be destroyed by any wiff of lightning.

There are over 2000 electrical storms happening around the globe every second.
Just A fact not published by the global warming cash cow machine.

CO2
Fact: More CO2 is absorbed by young plants than by grown-up trees. If all we are worried about is CO2 absorption, it would make more sense to cut down the rain forests and plant saplings or even leave it as grass, both of which would absorb far more CO2 than mature trees do.

So I don't think methane is a worse gas than CO2 considering it really does not really have a chance to actually make any difference to global warming in any way due to what I have LOGICALLY explained above.

[aslkahuna]

In terms of its ability to absorb IR Methane is very much more effective than CO2. A flammable mix of Methane in the atmosphere would contain far more Methane than the amount in parts per billion needed to equal the IR absorbing ability of the current amount of 388 parts per million of CO2. Currently, the majority of Methane is sequestered in Permafrost layers and in Methane Hydrate deposits in the Oceans the release of large quantites of either would result in Methane levels certainly capable of equalling or exceeding the effects of CO2 without ever reaching a point where it would be a flammable mix. It's the Permafrost Methane that is most worrisome to some as it melts with the increase in temperatures in the high latitudes which is expected to be greater than in the lower latitudes. BTW Methane already exists as a trace GHG in our atmosphere and it hasn't caught fire yet. Incidentally, lightning occurs in the Jovian and Saturnian atmsophere all of the time with far greater energy and temperature and there are large quantities of Methane in both atmospheres and they haven't caught fire yet. Because of the high temperature of a lightning discharge it's more likely to result in disassociation, ionization and formation of a plasma rather than a fire involving atmospheric gases.

Steve

[Series2]

This is really just backing up aslkahuna's post, with a few numbers.

Methane is a powerful GHG (one molecule of methane has about 21 times the warming effect as a molecule of CO2). However it is still seen as a minor GHG, as it's concentration in the atmosphere is only about 1.7 ppm (as compared to CO2's 388 ppm).
Methane comes from a variety of sources (for example landfill sites, paddy fields, slurry, and termites). Methane concentrations have risen by about 150% since pre-industrial times, but started slowing down about 20 years ago and have been pretty flat over the last decade.

(from the US EPA)

Methane doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as CO2 does - it lasts for about 8 years. Mostly it reacts with hydroxyl radicals (-OH) and breaks down into water and CO2. As aslkahuna says, it's far too diffuse to "ignite" - lightning probably does burn some molecules, but the heat generated isn't enough to cause a global chain reaction.

The amount of methane that could be released from clathrates and permafrost is a concern, but the science is poor at the moment - we don't have a good idea of how much could be released, or when it would happen.
When the science is poor, the IPCC exclude it - so any future release of methane in the future would make things worse than already predicted.

Personally I'm not worried about methane. I suspect that if we warm the planet enough to start it to release copious amounts of methane, we'll already have ruined it.

One final point - the fact that the Jovian and Saturnian atmospheres don't explode every time lightning strikes is probably due to an absence of oxygen.

Methane gas is a flammable gas right?[/b]

A flippant remark backed up in fairly simple terms with no real research into the how's,whys and whens.

So, not one to ever just post and run I spent a few hours looking into my "flippant" theory which sort of leads to the Question Dustin asked in the first place which Is methane a worse gas than CO2?.

So the "Theory"
CH4 or Methane with a Flash point of -188 °C, an Autoignition temperature of 537 °C is instantly dispersed amongst the lower atmosphere due to lightning and What is not broken down in this way is attacked by hydroxyl radicals "nature's detergents" in the upper atmosphere.

I also found out that
"methane is photochemically converted to water vapor in the upper atmosphere" Source:SPARC

So following that line of thinking, still in very simple basic terms,
"Methane" is beneficial to the preservation of life on this planet.
However : "When averaged over 100 years each kg of CH4 warms the Earth 25 times as much as the same mass of CO2. The total warming effect of CH4 is smaller than that of CO2, since there is approximately 220 times as much CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere as methane." Source :wikipedia
Methane traps a significant amount of heat, helping the planet remain warm and habitable.

So therefore in answer to the question in my opinion Methane whilst seemingly the bad boy is perhaps a lot more beneficial than we would expect it to be on the face of it.

Short answer: CH4 v CO2
CO2 wins by overwhelming strength in volumes over time.