How does methane affect the earth temperature?

Answer 1

Saying that it causes global warming may be a bit of an overreach.

However, it is a greenhouse gas, 21 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide, and could certainly be a contributing factor.

Answer 2

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. When released into the atmosphere, methane absorbs and emits radiation, leading to increased temperatures on Earth. This can intensify the greenhouse effect and accelerate climate change.

Answer 3

Methane is a dangerous greenhouse gas, twenty times more powerful than carbon dioxide. So it is contributing to global warming.

Methane is largely the same as natural gas, a fossil fuel. It is also being released by melting tundra, by belching cattle, and by some animal manure.

A:At present, a relatively small part. But that can drastically change.

As a greenhouse gas, methane is much more powerful then for example carbon dioxide. Over a 100 year period an emission of methane has 25 times the impact on temperature then a carbon dioxide emission.

But the emissions of man-made methane today are relatively low when compared to those of carbon dioxide.

Yet there is a threat: there are huge quantities of natural methane gas trapped in permafrost (soil which has been frozen uninterrupted for long periods of time) and which are situated primarily in the Arctic regions of Russia. The temperature increase which the earth is already experimenting today (as a result of the global warming caused by carbon dioxide) could melt this permafrost and thus release those large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Scientists believe that earlier mass extinctions of species on earth (particularly the Permian--Triassic extinction event in which it is estimated that 96% of all marine species were killed) could have been caused by a natural event which released similarly large amounts of trapped methane.

Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas.

A:Methane is a greenhouse gas, which absorbs some of the heat being reradiated from the earth as infrared radiation, preventing it from escaping into space. However, not all greenhouse gases are the same: each gas block infrared at particular wavelengths only, allowing the radiation to pass through at other frequencies. If we imagine infrared radiation, which is invisible to us, as having many different colours in much the way visible light does, then different greenhouse gases would have different colours. Methane blocks about 21 times as much infrared radiation as does carbon dioxide, another common greenhouse gas.

Yes, methane is a greenhouse gas, 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It escapes from agriculture and animal farming as well as from melting tundra. A substantial amount escapes from coal gas fracking.

Answer 4

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Additional emissions from agricultural practices like cattle rearing and pig farming, as well as from the melting of permafrost, tundra and frozen lakes, are increasing the levels of greenhouse gases in The atmosphere , causing global warming which in turn is responsible for climate change.

Answer 5

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is twenty times as potent, molecule for molecule, as carbon dioxide. It can therefore be a very important contributor to global warming. Fortunately, it is at extremely low atmospheric concentrations, but society needs to minimise any increase in levels.

Answer 6

The Greenhouse effect is when heat is prevented from radiating into space by the Earth's atmosphere.

Most of us have heard all about how Carbon Dioxide (often truncated to "carbon") emissions contribute to the greenhouse effect. Methane is 21-times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide by weight.

Total Greenhouse Gas Contributions as a percent of total Greenhouse Effect:

(Corrected for GWP/Global Warming Potential, heat retention characteristics)

95.000% -- Water Vapor

3.618% -- Carbon Dioxide

0.360% -- Methane

0.950% -- Nitrous Oxide

0.072% -- Other (CFC's, etc.)

(see related link)

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The methane affects the earth temperature because of the greenhouse effect.

Answer 7

Yes, methane is the major constituent of natural gas, a fossil fuel. So burning it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

If methane is not burnt, but released into the atmosphere, as happens from pipe leaks, agriculture, melting tundra and other things, then it is a greenhouse gas 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. So it is better to burn it.

Answer 8

Carbon dioxide and methane are both greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases hold the earth's heat in the greenhouse effect. Too much of these gases is causing global warming.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4) are transparent to visible light energy but somewhat opaque to thermal or infrared radiation or energy.

They allow light energy in but block the out going radiation somewhat, precisely the way glass in a greenhouse does. Hence the name greenhouse gases.

Answer 9

well, basically, using humour in my answer, it keeps the earth warm because when cows release methane (via belching) It goes up into the atmosphere (as well as making it spell bad) and does the same as CO2. Methane absorbs infrared radiation very well, and as its concentration increases earth's temperature does too.

Answer 10

It has the additive effect; twenty-one times greater than CO2.