Methane, methane, and more methane,...Hot House Earth
Regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia)
Southcentral Wisconsin, USA
2022-07-16 _F2A3375aaa
“Full 2022 year, concentration greater then 2000e-09”
“Methane orbital monitoring. January 2023. Points with concentration greater then 1975e-09”
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Sam Carana:
”Methane breaking down into CO2 and water vapour"
MOISTENING ATMOSPHERE
Moistening of the atmosphere occurs as the temperature rises as a result of emissions by people. Since warmer air holds more water vapor, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has been increasing for some time.
Most of the extra water vapor that is entering the atmosphere will come from oceans. As the sea surface heats up, more evaporation takes place. Some of the extra water vapor will also come from the soil and from transpiration from leaves, stems and flowers of plants. Evapotranspiration includes water evaporation into the atmosphere from the soil surface, evaporation from the capillary fringe of the groundwater table, and evaporation from water bodies on land.
The stratosphere normally is cold and very dry. Rising temperatures can increase water vapor in the stratosphere in a number of ways. As temperatures rise, water vapor in the Troposphere increases and the intensity of storms increases. This can result in stronger storms moving more water vapor inland over the U.S., and such storms can cause large amounts of water vapor to rise high up in the sky. As a result, water vapor can reach stratospheric altitudes causing loss of ozone.
Furthermore, extra water vapor in the atmosphere can result from changes taking place in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, as described at the page Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic.
As illustrated by the Stratospheric Moistening image, relative humidity was as high as 35% at 10 hPa in the stratosphere over the North Atlantic on January 24, 2023 12:00 UTC (at the green circle).
Furthermore, when methane decomposes, water vapor is formed and both methane and water vapor are potent greenhouse gases. Methane already contributes strongly to the temperature rise and methane has the potential to cause even more damage on top of this, as extra water vapor can reach the stratosphere and this can damage the ozone layer.
Large amounts of heat and water vapor can enter the Stratosphere during a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event.
Around the time of the December Solstice, very little sunlight is reaching the Arctic and temperatures over land at higher latitudes can get very low. At the same time, global warming has made oceans warmer and this keeps air temperatures over water relatively warm in Winter. This can lead to a number of events including Sudden Stratospheric Warming and moistening of the stratosphere.
The top image shows that, on February 1, 2023 11:00 UTC, the temperature in the stratosphere at 10 hPa was as high as 14.4°C or 57.8°F (at the green circle).
The 1-day area weighted 2 m temperature anomaly over the Arctic was 3.47°C on January 31, 2023.
Finally, extra water vapor can enter the Stratosphere as a result of submarine volcano eruptions. The Tonga eruption in January 2022 sent a huge plume up into the Stratosphere. Because it was a submarine volcano eruption, a huge amount of water vapor entered the Stratosphere.
As temperatures keep rising, runaway heating may well turn Earth into a lifeless planet. This danger was discussed in a 2013 post, warning that Earth could move into a moist-greenhouse state and without anything stopping the temperature rise, this will continue to eventually destroy the ozone layer and the ice caps, while the oceans would be evaporating into the atmosphere's upper stratosphere and eventually disappear into space, as this 2019 post warns.
In the 2013 analysis Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene, Will Steffen et al. warn that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced.
From 'Moistening Atmosphere', at:
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