化石燃料的甲烷排放量可能被嚴重低估了

化石燃料的甲烷排放量可能被嚴重低估了

A new study suggests that methane emissions from fossil fuels has been severely underestimated.

一項新的研究表明，化石燃料的甲烷排放量被嚴重低估。

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. It is a lot more potent than CO2 in trapping heat in our atmosphere, but on the flip side, it tends to degrade and disappear in less than a decade compared to the century it takes for carbon dioxide.

甲烷是造成全球變暖的第二大因素，僅次于二氧化碳。在吸收大氣中的熱量方面，它比二氧化碳要強得多，但另一方面，與二氧化碳所需的一個世紀相比，它往往會在不到十年的時間里降解和消失。

Alfredo Carpineti

As reported in the journal Nature, researchers have estimated how much methane is released from natural sources compared to that from human activity, mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels. The team looked at air bubbles trapped in Greenland ice cores from the time before the Industrial Revolution to today, as well as previous data from Antarctica. In samples from 1750 to 2013, they found that the levels of natural methane emissions is about 10 times lower than previously reported. This means that the total methane emissions generated in the burning of fossil fuels is between 25 and 40 percent higher than expected.

據(jù)《自然》雜志報道，研究人員已經估算出，與人類活動相比，自然資源釋放出的甲烷有多少，其中大部分是由于燃燒化石燃料。研究小組觀察了從工業(yè)革命之前到現(xiàn)在格陵蘭冰芯中被困住的氣泡，以及之前來自南極洲的數(shù)據(jù)。在1750年至2013年的樣本中，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)天然甲烷排放水平比之前報道的低了大約10倍。這意味著燃燒化石燃料產生的甲烷排放總量比預期高出25%到40%。

Many of the previous estimates used an inventory-based assessment of the natural sources of methane from around the world. This current work provides an actual measurement from the air trapped in ice before the Industrial Revolution began.

之前的許多評估都是基于對全球甲烷天然來源的庫存評估。目前的工作提供了從空氣被困在冰之前的工業(yè)革命開始的一個實際的測量。

An infographic summarizing the findings. University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw)

"If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would still persist for a long time," lead author Dr Benjamin Hmiel, from the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "Methane is important to study because if we make changes to our current methane emissions, it's going to reflect more quickly."

“如果我們今天停止排放所有的二氧化碳，大氣中的高二氧化碳水平仍將持續(xù)很長一段時間，”來自羅切斯特大學的主要作者本杰明·赫米爾博士在一份聲明中說。“研究甲烷很重要，因為如果我們改變目前的甲烷排放，它將更快地反映出來。”

"I don't want to get too hopeless on this because my data does have a positive implication: most of the methane emissions are anthropogenic, so we have more control. If we can reduce our emissions, it's going to have more of an impact," Hmiel added. "Placing stricter methane emission regulations on the fossil fuel industry will have the potential to reduce future global warming to a larger extent than previously thought."

“我不想在這個問題上太絕望，因為我的數(shù)據(jù)確實有積極的含義:大部分甲烷排放是人為的，所以我們有更多的控制。如果我們能夠減少排放，就會產生更大的影響。”“對化石燃料行業(yè)實施更嚴格的甲烷排放法規(guī)，將有可能在更大程度上減輕未來的全球變暖，其程度超出此前的預期。”