Methane Refrain

Over a 20 year timespan, methane is a 'greenhouse gas', 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Forty percent of methane comes from wetlands. The remainder is, however, anthropogenic (generated by human activities, including cattle farming, extraction of fossil fuels and landfill). Since 2007, there has been a rapid rise in atmospheric methane. Methane's levels are currently three times those seen in the Pre-Industrial Era. This seems strange, because the Covid19 pandemic curtailed lots of anthropogenic activity (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/05/global-heating-causes-methane-growth-four-times-faster-than-thought-study). This rise in atmospheric methane levels, may be a consequence of that gas being four times more sensitive to global heating than was formerly thought. Atmospheric methane levels are determined by the balance between the liberation/production of the gas and the rate at which it is removed. Global heating seems to slow down the chemical reactions between methane and hydroxyl radicles. This means that methane stays longer in the atmosphere, to further increase global heating.