Methane surge outpaces all other greenhouse gases, study finds
Nate Meier
News Article: https://www.dailysabah.com/life/environment/methane-surge-outpaces-all-other-greenhouse-gases-study-finds
Journal Article: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6463
Methane is the second most impactful greenhouse gas, outpaced only by carbon dioxide, and has a much more potent global warming potential (GWP) potential, >80 times more the first twenty years after release, dropping down to ~30 times more the century following. Methane is produced by both natural (wildfires, terrestrial emissions, etc) and anthropogenic (fossil fuels, agricultural waste, biomass burning, etc) sources, but is also consumed in the atmosphere via various reactions, such as the oxidation of methane to carbon dioxide (Figure 1). This process is accelerated by increased NO emissions, primarily from cars and other vehicles, creating an equilibrium of sorts of methane in the atmosphere.
Figure 1: Graphical summary of natural (green) and anthropogenic (orange) methane sources and sinks as of the 2020 Global Methane Budget.
As such, the Global Carbon Project updates the Global Methane Budget (GMB) every few years, which summarizes global atmospheric methane sink and source levels from various sources. A review paper from Environmental Research Letters summarizing the key findings of the budget was published quite recently, on September 10th. Various high impact news outlets, such as CNN, NYT, etc, mentioned this paper, but did not discuss the findings whatsoever. Eventually, the Daily Sabbah, an Istanbul-based news outlet, published an article discussing the GMB's conclusions.
The Daily Sabbah article, written by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Paris, presents the key findings in quite a digestible form, albeit lacking information that would be beneficial for the average reader. The article begins by explaining the concerning increase in methane emissions, and that it is now rising the fastest of any major greenhouse gas, and is 2.6-fold higher than prior to the Industrial Revolution. The article mentions a few key statistics from the journal article, namely the amount of methane added to the atmosphere in the last few decades. A quote from one of the co-authors mentions that anthropogenic sources of methane have increased in most countries of the world, but do not provide specific statistics (which are found in the article itself). The article also, interestingly, notes the decline in NOx concentration in 2020 from the COVID-19 pandemic being paradoxical, since methane can be taken out of the atmosphere via oxidation with NO. The article specifically says that NO is "key" to preventing methane accumulation. I found this to be a bit of an oxymoron, since ideally there would be no excess methane or NOx emissions, whereas the article seems to imply that a way to beat global warming would be to drive more cars. The article concludes by discussing the Global Methane Pledge, and how despite large amounts of methane emissions come from China (Figure 2), they have still not signed said pledge, and how the United States plans a summit later this year.
Figure 2: Global distribution of changes in methane emissions over a four year interval (2019-2023) based on satellite data (TROPOMI).
The journal article, written by Jackson et. al., gives a much more in depth overview of the budget, the methodology, the breakdown of sources and sinks by type and location, and general trends over the last 20 years (2000-2020). The article gave a brief overview of the methods of both data collection and quantification, which for a review of methane emissions as a whole, and not a direct study, this felt sufficient. It was explained that both top-down (TD) and bottom-up (BU) quantification methods were used by the Global Carbon Project, although to a reader unfamiliar with these approaches, this can become meaningless. The article then explains trends found in the data found over the last two decades, including the total quantification of methane sinks and sources by type (Figure 1), by geographical location (Figure 2), and the net change in methane emissions for various main sectors (Figure 3).
Given the "state of affairs" nature of the journal article, and the binary classification given to the rise in methane production (methane is either the fastest growing GHG or it isn't), I felt that the lack of detail ascribed to the findings of said paper in the news article was less of a drawback than I originally anticipated. The journal article itself is a bit overwhelming in that there are numbers upon numbers, and decoding what it all meant was no easy task. The main statistics presented by the news article were the 6.1, 20.9, and 41.8 million tonnes of methane added to the atmosphere in the 2000's, 2010's and 2020's, respectively. These values were somewhat buried in the minutia of the journal article, and were originally presented in Tg/yr, which is a unit most readers are unfamiliar with. Additionally, only the 41.8 Tg/yr value was actually present in the article; 6.1 and 20.9 were for some reason selected as values within the range given by the article (-12-38 and 6-26, respectively). As such, I felt the authors did a fair job presenting these takeaways in a digestible form; if a reader takes nothing else away, it should be that we are adding more methane to the atmosphere than we should.
However, I would have liked to see a few more statistics presented in the article, which could further elucidate prior statistics. For example, it was mentioned that anthropogenic methane emissions increased, but it is not stated by how much, what percent of emissions are anthropogenic, or how much of the estimated added methane was due to anthropogenic sources. Given how much methane is produced from natural sources as well, as opposed to CFC's which are exclusively anthropogenic, those sorts of questions become important. These figures are all present in the article, however. Additionally, the news article did not discuss uncertainty or error analysis, which is unfortunate because the journal article discusses one such model, namely the WETland and CH4 Inter-comparison of Models Project, given the titular acronym, WETCHIMP. Furthermore, the journal article included some excellent figures which helped me contextualize and visualize some of these more abstract results, such as the breakdown of methane emissions by source. I feel that the authors could have benefited from including these graphics, which would have only increased general comprehensibility. Given the decent and digestible summary of the in-depth journal article presented, albeit with sub-par level of detail and lack of figures, I would give this news article a 6.5/10
Despite the news article being an easier read compared to the actual study, it seems to cherry pick some of the statistics and conclusions. Yes, it appears that China and Southeast Asia exhibit the largest total methane emissions but this is specifically referring to 2000-2020; if they consider the 2019-2023 estimates, the regions corresponding to the recent emission increases are in South America and in the Congo. Like you've mentioned, this is also excluding any mention of uncertainty. It's reasonable to point out regions with large methane emissions as a call to action but do so with additional context. They also stated that Europe and Australia exhibited a decreasing trend in emissions instead of Europe and Australasia, which could be considered semantics in another context but the distinction is needed here if they binned specific regions. The inclusion of nitrogen oxide and La Nina also threw me for a bit because I didn't recall seeing those two topics mentioned anywhere in the actual journal. They might have been referring to the journal's mention of correcting for variability from the "El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)" but this is just speculation.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the article definitely cherry picked statistics. I was also wondering why China was singled out when emissions over South America were so high, and my best guess was to just emphasize that China has not yet signed the Global Methane Pledge. I also agree that calls to action should be accompanied by sufficient context. I hadn't considered the difference semantics could make in this context, but that's an excellent point!
DeleteI too agree that some of the statements and claims mentioned by the article remain quite vague. Sure, they included a lot evidence ranging from papers and scientist comments, but there aren't any formal references to the paper, nor much details on when and where the statement/figures were gathered from. The article was a bit hard to navigate through since it just felt like a bunch of facts rather than a cohesive and developing narrative in my opinion, nor is it very beginner friendly to the general public. Writers could improve this by defining a few terms (such as La Nina), or adding to more context of what the "Global Methane Pledge" is and why is it so important to the global environmental scene. Overall as I already mentioned, the article mimics a factsheet/leaflet rather than a significant report, simply emphasizing that the weather is getting worse while not adding any information on possible ways to prevent/remedy the situation gives the text a very naggy and unassertive tone.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Chadwin, the article itself did feel a little haphazard in its organization. I also absolutely agree that some key definitions would have benefited this article, and many others like it. I also agree that the article did not have much of a cohesive narrative, but one could argue that the Global Methane Budget itself doesn't have much of a narrative either and is itself just a collection of facts. In that regard, I found that the article at least attempted, albeit imperfectly, to boil down said collection of facts, which I respect.
DeleteYour review provides a thoughtful analysis of both the journal article on the Global Methane Budget and the accompanying news coverage. It highlights the importance of balancing accessibility for general readers with maintaining scientific rigor. I appreciate the detailed breakdown of what the news article did well, such as presenting key statistics in a digestible way, while also pointing out its shortcomings—specifically the lack of deeper insights on anthropogenic methane emissions and the omission of error analysis. I agree with your suggestion to include figures from the journal article to aid comprehension because visuals can significantly enhance understanding of complex data.
ReplyDeleteI agree, visuals often do help make sense of otherwise complex data. I also believe visuals help grab a reader's attention, especially if that reader wouldn't have cared about the environment otherwise. The more people who can access and comprehend this sort of information, the more people we have actively trying to reduce our harm on the planet, which is a win in my mind.
DeleteThe news article was a serviceable overview of why methane emissions are bad, and certainly stated that they were increasing, but it was a very poor representation of the Environmental Research Letters paper. Many of the sentences felt contextless and out of place: For example, the sentence about La Nina did not describe what the weather phenomenon is or why it increases methane emissions from natural sources, and instead just says that it does and moves on. This is bad practice in an article for people without expertise in that field, as they may fixate on the natural weather phenomenon rather than preventable methane emissions from human-made sources. It feels as though it simply uses the paper to lend it legitimacy, but does not do the work required to analyze and report the findings of Jackson et al. Due to its scattered nature and lack of reporting on the paper, I would give it an even worse score than 6.5/10.
ReplyDeleteThat is an excellent point, Lauren! I hadn't considered the idea of using a legitimate source to feign legitimacy in the article, but there are definitely signs of that here. I absolutely agree that while it is important to emphasize how much we're hurting the planet, fearmongering and context-less statistics are not the way to go about it. I also wish the article did a more in-depth analysis of the findings, because while "we're adding methane to the atmosphere" is technically true, it absolutely does not paint the whole picture.
DeleteI agree that the article is vague. I wonder how much of that is related to challenges with translation. This article was originally written by AFP (Agence France Press) which, while very well respected among journalists, is a French publication. The Daily Sabah, however, is written in English, so translation had to be done on the original article. Additionally, the Daily Sabah does not have the same respected position among journalists as AFP -- they are considered to be a rather biased organization and I wonder if this may have influenced the article's translation.
ReplyDeleteI do think the news article was able to convey that methane emissions are increasing and that this is a bad thing. I think the article fails to articulate why this is such a bad thing and I don't think they provide sufficient context for the average reader to understand the significance of the research.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/afp-agence-france-presse/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-sabah/
I actually hadn't considered that! Ideally I was looking for a CNN or New York Times article, but given how recent the article was at the time I found it, there were not many high credibility news sources who had written a story about it yet. I wonder how the article would have been different if translated and summarized by a different news outlet. I hadn't fully considered political biases when choosing what information to convey and how in the environmental realm, but that is an excellent thing to note!
DeleteI agree that the news article could have done a better job of portraying the results of the journal article, but given that the news article had such a low word count, I think a better use of this word limit would have been to explain the science behind the journal article rather than state more statistics, or to talk about emissions by source type rather than by country. Like you mentioned above, the article definitely cherry-picked some seemingly random statistics about the amount of methane emitted in different recent decades. However, I think a more meaningful statistic to include would have been data from the box plot of methane emissions between the five main sectors: wetlands, biomass burning, fossil fuels, agriculture, and other natural sources (Fig. 2 of the journal article). I felt that the main point of the journal article was to portray that the largest sources of methane emissions are anthropogenic, which is clearly supported by the data in Figure 2. The news article seemed to focus on comparing methane emissions from various countries, highlighting trends in Europe, Australia, China, and Southeast Asia. While this is a noble effort, I think a thorough analysis of emissions by country would require a much longer article, which this news article didn't have the word count for. Therefore, I would agree with your low rating of a 6.5, because while the article did publish (somewhat) correct information, it could have gone about it in a more meaningful and impactful way for a general audience.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your low rating here. I think we talk a lot in class about how much of the details we can/should include for a news article to still be easily digestible to the reader while accurately representing the science from the peer-reviewed publication. This is an example where I really think that they could have included more from the paper without overwhelming the average reader. I agree with you that some of the graphics from the paper are incredibly helpful and visualizing what specifically is causing this methane surge, and I think a normal reader could find these things genuinely interesting. Additionally, when I first read the Daily Sabbah article, I also noticed the comment about about how decreased travel during COVID was held as a responsible party for current methane emissions and thought that it was a somewhat misleading statement. I think this is definitely one of the worse articles we’ve and it deserves the rating you gave it. The only comment I have on the contrary is that it seems to be a testament that the article covered any information from the GMB and the scientific publication at all given your observations on how it was handled with other news outlets.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the values they give in table 1 of the article is the average and then the range. I think that it's fine the popular news article just focused on the average, but agree that at least a mention of how they got there is important. The value 41.8 was correctly described as the average, but the other two values were close, but not right.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the way the news article discussed the lowering of NOx in 2020 wasn't great. To not give any context for that fact feels quite lazy to me, especially when Jackson et al. clearly linked to an article titled "Wetland emission and atmospheric sink changes explain methane growth in 2020" by Peng et al. in their paper.
I appreciate the brevity of the news article but it's lacking context for the reader and fully agree that a figure would do so much to help the reader understand. I don't think the figures in the scientific article would be good as they stand. Figure 1 could be simplified to take out the main points or maybe a globe depicting where the highest emitters are.
I'm also not sure how I feel about Agence France-Presse attempting to convey a perspective to the public without giving any context as to what a perspective is or how it comes about.
I agree with the low rating of this article. For one, the article makes essentially no mention of the methods or the Global Methane Budget; rather, it just launches into listing a few statistics at random. The author of the article also seems to be picking certain statistics as a means of drawing attention to certain countries - for example, stating that the largest increases in methane concentrations come from China and Southeast Asia (which is only actually the case from 2000-2020, while tropical regions contributed more from 2019-2023; moreover, in the paper, the largest increases are not reported to only arise from these two regions, but also from South Asia and the Middle East). The author also fails to highlight the large uncertainties associated with these increase measurements, which could be used to argue that there is not necessarily a significant difference between the increase in emissions in these regions and in some other global regions. The article certainly could have benefited from presenting the data more methodically, and I agree that including more figures from the paper could have enhanced the digestibility of the article. While there is always an argument that adding more methods and data to a news article can make an article more confusing for the general public, I believe that in this case the article would have greatly benefited from more context about the methods, as well as more data points. Considering the vast quantity and diversity of data actually presented in the paper, the article hardly scratches the surface of summarizing the paper.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the author only lightly references the Environmental Research Letters paper, and they do not provide a link to the actual paper, nor the title of the paper - this makes it difficult for the reader to locate the source material and make their own evaluations about the findings of the peer-reviewed paper. Finally, the flow of the writing itself is not at the level expected of professional journalism. As an example, the following sentence from the article is written rather poorly, considering the redundancy of using the word "also" twice: "The La Nina weather phenomenon has also led to an increase in methane from natural sources, they also found." Moreover, this is not even an accurate representation of a finding from the paper - the paper references the climactic variability arising from the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which includes both El Niño and La Niña, while this quote only references the La Niña portion of this oscillation.
I liked this article however I found it quite short and the title a little click baity. Is in intresting to see these facts displayed in this way and learning how methane is growing so rapidy. I would like to see the article pay a little more attention to the actual paper in terms of the method used in the research and how the data was collected. I enjoyed the end when the "Global Methane Pledge" was introduced.
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ReplyDeleteGreat job on the blog post. This article does a solid job of breaking down the complex issue of methane emissions for everyday readers. The quotes from experts add some credibility and help drive home how urgent this issue is.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it would be even better with a bit more detail. Including specific numbers on the difference between human-made and natural methane sources would give readers a fuller picture. Plus, adding some charts or graphs could really help people visualize the trends. Overall, a little more depth would make the article even more informative and engaging! I totally agree with the 6.5 rating. I really enjoyed reading the blog post.
Nice post. I agree that the article surely could include more context and statistics to strengthen their claims and in properly recapping the paper. I don't see much of a need for methods description in news articles nor the inclusion of uncertainty in measurement. People who are interested in such things can always consult the actual paper for that information and I don't really think it is necessary to be included in the popular media beyond a sentence or two – the conclusions, findings, and cultural implications are much more important. I thought some of the other comments made about language and translation are very interesting things to consider, and I had not initially. Like you point out I think including at least a figure or two would have helped this article.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I definitely agree with all of the previous commenters, and I will contend that despite the relative statistical complexity of the research paper, it should nonetheless be the task of the journalist to elucidate and demystify the meaning behind these numbers, without dumbing down the information (as is the case to a degree with this article). I think you correctly pointed out the shortcomings here, and I agree with your low rating.
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