Solving the Case of California's Extra Methane

[limpyhobbler]

A new paper details the culprits behind excess emissions of the potent greenhouse gas in the Los Angeles basin

In Southern California, scientists knew the missing methane had to be coming from somewhere. Was it dairies? Landfills? Natural seeps? Oil and gas operations?

Emissions of methane from the Los Angeles basin had been estimated in the mid-2000s as part of the state's landmark cap-and-trade bill, known as A.B. 32, which regulates emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas. But later measurements of the air in the region showed there was a lot more methane being emitted than was accounted for, more than a third as much.

Where was this "missing" methane coming from? Methane has 20 times the global warming potency of CO2. If regulators could identify the source, they could also get those methane emitters to reduce the amount of the gas they release.

Now, Jeff Peischl, an associate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, has solved this puzzle, outlining the sources of the missing methane in a paper published yesterday in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
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more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solving-the-case-of-californias-extra-machine


(Spoiler alert: it's just leaking all over the place)

[wtmusic]

1. We need to turn off the fossil fuel spigot now.

K&R.