A more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, methane emissions will leap as Earth warms

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/pu-amp032714.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 27-Mar-2014

Contact: Morgan Kelly
Princeton University

A more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, methane emissions will leap as Earth warms

While carbon dioxide is typically painted as the bad boy of greenhouse gases, methane is roughly 30 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas. New research in the journal Nature indicates that for each degree that the Earth's temperature rises, the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from microorganisms dwelling in lake sediment and freshwater wetlands — the primary sources of the gas — will increase several times. As temperatures rise, the relative increase of methane emissions will outpace that of carbon dioxide from these sources, the researchers report.

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