A rancher waited patiently at the recent Schachter Energy Conference in Calgary, Canada, while I spoke to a businesswoman about why methane was not the dangerous greenhouse gas that Canada’s government says it is.
She wasn’t buying my argument and left without buying my book.
Having overheard my unsuccessful pitch, the rancher suggested that I watch this video by Dr. Thomas Sheahen based on this presentation.
He’s concerned because Canada is signaling it will follow the Netherlands and Sri Lanka in significantly reducing both methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agriculture.
As his cattle feed on crops grown with nitrogen-based fertilizer (the fertilizer produces N2O and then produces CH4 in their digestive tracts), the rancher’s livelihood is threatened by the proposed new regulations.
He asked me to get back to him with a layman’s explanation of Dr. Sheahen’s message so he could share it with his ranching community. He then bought a copy of my book, and now I’m getting back to him.
This changes everything.
Dr. Sheahen’s video is a scientist-to-scientist summary of a paper written by two eminent physicists, Dr. W. A. van Wijngaarden and Dr. W. Happer.
They determined that the current greenhouse-gas effect of methane and nitrous oxide is negligible, and still would be even if there were many more multiples of them in the atmosphere.
Their calculations are confirmed by data observed from satellites, which makes their equations compliant with the scientific method.
Wijngaarden and Happer’s calculations and method are in stark contrast to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Government of Canada’s claims that methane and nitrous oxide are significant contributors to global warming.
What Wijngaarden And Happer Did
Wijngaarden and Happer developed the mathematics to accurately calculate the greenhouse-gas effect for the five most important greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.
The paper was written by PhDs in physics for PhDs in physics, and most of the 59 pages of content consist of complicated calculus that can be followed and understood only by an elite few (I’m not one of them, and I would like to thank Mark Ramsay, P. E., for his valuable insights and clarifications).
But we don’t have to understand the equations to understand the concept they describe, because the proof is that physical observations support their results.
Wijngaarden and Happer knew from previously established science that the Earth absorbs short-wavelength radiation from the sun and releases it as longwave infrared radiation, i.e., heat energy.
They also knew how much of each wavelength of infrared radiation is released, and how that differs around the planet.
They cited the Sahara, with lots of infrared radiation released over the hot landscape and very little humidity; the Mediterranean with less radiation given off over warm water and high humidity; and Antarctica, which has little infrared radiation released over ice.
Satellite measurements show how much of each wavelength of infrared radiation generated by each region escapes the Earth’s atmosphere into space. The overall difference between the Earth’s heat radiation and what escapes into space is what is absorbed by greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, and that’s called the greenhouse-gas effect.
It’s what makes the surface of the Earth warmer (plus 15°C) than the surface of the moon (minus 19°C).
The Wijngaarden and Happer calculations predicted with remarkable accuracy the infrared radiation absorption for each of the five greenhouse gases over the Sahara, the Mediterranean, and Antarctica. It almost perfectly matched the observed satellite data.
This is extremely important because matching a computational model to observed data is how the scientific method works. The satellite data verify the computational model.
The IPCC models, and there are over a hundred of them, fail to do that. They consistently forecast higher global warming compared to physically observed temperatures over time.
What it Means
In the current mixture of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, water makes up most of the greenhouse-gas effect, carbon dioxide is the second largest at about 25%, and all the other gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, are insignificant.
[Note to reader: Often water is quoted as a much higher contributor to the greenhouse-gas effect. That’s because the subject calculations and satellite measurements were done in a clear-sky situation. In a separate lecture, Dr. Happer confirms that when clouds (which largely consist of water molecules attached to aerosol particles) are added the water contribution is 90 to 95 percent of the total greenhouse-gas effect.]
The IPCC would like you to ignore water vapor and think that if carbon dioxide was a garden hose feeding global warming, then methane and nitrous oxide would each be a fire hose.
The reality is that when it comes to the greenhouse-gas effect, if carbon dioxide is a garden hose, then methane and nitrous oxide are each a dripping tap, and water vapor is a fire hose.
Winjgaarden and Happer acknowledge that methane is 30 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, similar to the IPCC stance of 25 times as powerful.
But that is on a per-molecule basis, and there aren’t a lot of methane molecules in the atmosphere to contribute meaningfully to global warming.
They also calculated how much of an increase in the greenhouse gas effect there would be if the concentration of each gas were doubled:
Doubling each of the current concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide increases each of the greenhouse gas effects by only a few percent.
In a lecture on the same paper, Winjgaarden gave a range of what doubling the greenhouse gas effect for carbon dioxide and methane means in terms of increased surface temperature.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently about 410 parts per million, and is increasing at a rate of 2.3 parts per million each year; it will take 180 years to double.
Using the clear-sky calculations this should equate to a ground temperature increase of between 1.4°C and 2.3°C, depending on how humidity changes. The midpoint is 1.8°C over 180 years, resulting in a warming trend of 0.1°C per decade.
[Note to reader: This matches Dr. Roy Spencer’s satellite-based warming trend of the last four decades of 0.1C per decade.]
The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is currently about 1.8 parts per million and is increasing from all natural and human sources at a rate of 0.0076 parts per million each year. It will take 240 years to double.
For every new molecule of methane going into the air, there are 300 molecules of new carbon dioxide emissions, but the methane molecule is 30 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas.
That means when the amount of methane is doubled, it will produce only one-tenth (30/300) of the global warming that occurs when carbon dioxide is doubled. This amounts to 0.18°C over 240 years or 0.008°C per decade.
Adding the 30 times more powerful methane molecule to the atmosphere but at 1/300th the rate of carbon dioxide results in a ground-level warming trend of only 8% of that caused by carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide would take one century to raise global temperatures by 1°C.
It would take methane well over 1,000 years to warm the planet by 1°C, longer if we happen to have clouds.
In a subsequent paper, Happer and Winjgaarden released comparable numbers for nitrous oxide. N2O is 230 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (that is also the IPCC and media-scare headlines).
It is currently at an atmospheric concentration of 0.34 parts per million and increasing by 0.00085 parts per million each year. It will take 400 years to double, resulting in a warming trend of 0.006°C per decade.
It would take nitrous oxide well over 1,500 years to warm the planet by 1°C; that’s the number the media doesn’t tell you. It would take even longer if we happened to have clouds.
To The Rancher Near Calgary (Or Anywhere)
You don’t have to understand the math to accept the results when independent observations verify the mathematical model. Unlike the IPCC models, the calculations are compliant with the scientific method.
The layman can feel comfortable accepting the message of Dr. Sheahen’s video—that the greenhouse gas effect of methane and nitrous oxide is negligible—because satellite data confirms that.
This changes everything: Cows don’t cause global warming. Neither does nitrogen-based fertilizer.
Ron Barmby (www.ronaldbarmby.ca) is a Professional Engineer with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, whose 40+ year career in the energy sector has taken him to over 40 countries on five continents. His book, Sunlight on Climate Change: A Heretic’s Guide to Global Climate Hysteria (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), explains in layman’s terms the science of how natural and human-caused global warming work. Please contact me via my website if you would like to purchase an autographed copy, it has been recommended for the concerned but open-minded young person on your gift list.
You may use all or part of this article provided that any such use is accompanied by author attribution and source link to the original article.
The fact that Cows have been on this earth since the beginng but its only now according to some cracked urns that their causing Global Warming/Climate Change and we must now eat plant based junk and those jerks pour out milk on the floor or blocking the meat section should al be stranded on an Island for life
Spurwing, my city, Calgary, has the nickname “Cowtown”. We have a lot of cows in the area!. But before the cattle appeared there was a lot of bison, which has an almost identical digestive tract. One could easily make the agument that the balance of methane producing ruminants has been unchanged in North America for many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Why is a domestic beef steer a climate change issue when the free range bison it replaced is not?
Ron, it’s because the white man has mastered the Earth. The Gaians want us to back up 200 years, struggle for our food, shelter and warmth. I’ll allow that waltzing into the supermarket with a debit card and leaving with a months worth of red meat is not nature’s way, but it works for me. Instead of herding buffalo over a cliff, today’s cattle are harvested humanely.
Sonnyhill; I think there is a misperception promoted my some politicians/media that if a molecule is produced by nature then it’s OK, but if the same molecule is emitted by a modern industrial economy then it’s pollution. So methane from bison herds was good, but methane from domestic cattle herds is bad, even if the overall amount of methane is approximately the same. This emotional distinction doesn’t exist in science because the physical and chemical properties are the same.
We agree. BTW, I have extended family Wetaskiwin and Red Deer.
Global Warming/Climate Change is a excuse for World government under the UN
I read all of your excellent work Ron. Kudos. Years ago John O’Sullivan published a crude graph I did in his PSI site. Jay Lehr did something similar
Draw 1,000,000 squares and then blacken 415 of them in one corner. It visually confirms the math that that minute a quantity cannot have the massive temperature effect that we’re being told it has. Political science, not science.
Cheers
Alan, Thanks! There is much more material on my website, https://ronaldbarmby.ca/, including tow introductory powerpoint presenations. I appreciate the support. Regards, Ron
Ron…
Is it not true that the earth’s water cycle cools the earth?
If so how can CO2 do the opposite?
Experiment: Get a tub of dry ice and pretend that that is the atmosphere of the earth [100% CO2]
Now get a can of pop as your pretend planet Earth and push it into the middle of the tub of dry ice.
Will the dry ice trap heat from the can and back radiate it to make the can of pop hotter and hotter?
Not very likely in my opinion.
What do you say Ron?
Allan, I’m going to use apporoximate numbers here. Of all the shortwave radiation that hits the Earth and warms it up, about 70% is returned to space by the process of evaporating water, generating convection currents, and then radiating that energy back into space. That is what I think you are referring to as the water cycle, and it represents about 70% of the cooling of the Earth. It is indepedant of the greenhouse gas effect. About 30% of the shortwave energy that hits the Earth and warms it up is released as longwave infrared radiation. CO2 as a gas can only adsorb and release a very narrow wavelength band of that energy, between 14 and 16.5 micrometers. That is COs’s contribution to the greenhouse gas effect. The wavelengths that the Earth gives off can be predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmann black body curve, and it changes for different parts of the planet. It is doubtfull that the pop can gives off much heat in the 14 to 16.5 mircon wavelength, so there is little energy that CO2 can absorb. The pop can is not a good analogy for the whole Earth.In fact the pop can would be more like Antarctica, which gives off only 10% of the 14 to 16.5 micron infrared heat as does the Sahara. If the pop can only gave off energy in the 14 to 16.5 micron range, then CO2 gas (not solid ice) could absorb it all. The dry ice is not a good analogy for the atmosphere because it is solid. I hope this helps!
To Allan and Ron,
Lingua Franca Scientifica. I’m a business major not a trained scientist and I’m confused. It seems to be two different terms for the same action of heat transfer. The entire cycling of earth’s heat revolves around the 2nd Law of Thermo. Correct??
I don’t understand the terminology of radiation which insinuates a directed ray of insolation in this case. A ray of LIGHT, 186k ft/sec., correct?? Remember the incidence of light refraction angle. Then there is the loss of energy even with albedo.
But here’s the puzzle in my head and it’s the world convection, long wave and it is most certainly not moving at the velocity of incoming short wave. Then we’re told that the short wave is bouncing off of a mere 415ppm, continually. If anything the GH is slowing the transfer at the very lower altitudes but there are ~999,955 open spaces for the heat to move to space as it always has. BTW
Alan, Sorry for the typos below! The entire universe obeys the second law, including the cooling of the earth. Infrared radiation from the top of the our atmosphere cools the earth, but the heat from the surface of the Earth reaches the top of the atmosphere by two mechanisms. The first mechanism, 70% of the cooling, is the water cycle mentioned by Allan (above), which is a combination of evaporation and convection.Once that heat gets to the top or the atmosphere it radiates out according to the 2nd law. The second mechanism is that direct radiation from the surcace of the earth is recycled back to the earth by the greenhouse gas effect. But eventually that all gets radiated to space also by the 2nd law. It is the recycling of the infrared radiation by the greenhouse gas effect that keeps us warmer than the surface of the moon. Please watch the two slide shows under “Presentations” on my website below. Regards, Ron. PS: My book was written for the reader you self-describe as!
One of the most informative and concise articles I have read on this website. Definitely the most encouraging when it comes to refuting the alarmists disinformation. I’ll believe the satellites before I believe Al Gore.
Sonnyhill; Thank you so much! I think it is crazy that farmers and ranchers are being targeted with psuedo-science, and we definately can’t live without them. Please pass on the article to anyone who likes beef or the people who raise it. Farmers too. Regards, Ron.
Ron, it’s not just the ranchers and farmers who are being targeted. It is all of us who are consumers of their output. We got the crap from the “greens” telling us we need to stop eating meat because of all the damage cattle cause and eat insects instead. Sorry, but they’ll have to pry my ribeye from my cold dead fingers!