Methane Emissions from Wetlands Increase Significantly over High Latitudes

Wetlands are Earth’s largest natural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is about 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. A research team analyzed wetland methane emissions data across the entire Boreal-Arctic region and found that these emissions have increased approximately nine percent since 2002.

‘Roving sentinels’ discover new air pollution sources

Google Street View cars equipped with instrumentation sampled air quality at a scale fine enough to capture variations within neighborhoods in the Salt Lake Valley. A new atmospheric modeling method, combined with these mobile observations, can be used to identify pollution emission sources in many cities.

New catalyst could dramatically cut methane pollution from millions of engines

Today’s catalysts for removing unburnt methane from natural-gas engine emissions are either inefficient at low, start-up temperatures or break down at higher operating temperatures. A new single-atom catalyst solves both these problems and removes 90% of the methane.

Scientists find iron cycling key to permafrost greenhouse gas emissions

The interaction of elemental iron with the vast stores of carbon locked away in Arctic soils is key to how greenhouse gases are emitted during thawing and should be included in models used to predict Earth’s climate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists found.

Whole Ecosystem Warming Stimulates Methane Production from Plant Metabolites in Peatlands

While peatlands have historically stored massive amounts of soil carbon, warming is expected to enhance decomposition, leading to a positive climate change feedback effect. This study experimentally warmed peatlands in northern Minnesota and observed increased methane production relative to carbon dioxide release. This methane release process is likely to amplify global climate warming.

Burping bacteria: Identifying Arctic microbes that produce greenhouse gases

As greenhouse gases bubble up across the rapidly thawing Arctic, Sandia National Laboratories researchers are trying to identify other trace gases from soil microbes that could shed some light on what is occurring biologically in melting permafrost in the Arctic.Sandia bioengineer Chuck Smallwood and his team recently spent five days collecting lakebed soil and gas samples.

Three URI professors win $735,000 grant from NASA-EPSCoR to study methane emissions from rocks common to Earth, Mars

KINGSTON, R.I. – Aug. 10, 2022 – Over the next three years, three University of Rhode Island researchers are hoping to broaden the scientific understanding of methane emission dynamics in ultramafic rock systems – work that one day may help answer the mystery of the existence of past or present microbial life on Mars.Dawn Cardace and Soni Pradhanang, associate professors of geosciences, and Serena Moseman-Valtierra, an associate professor of biological sciences, have been awarded a $735,000 grant by the NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to study methane gas emissions at a site in northern California that has a rock system comparable to known sites on Mars.

Converting Methane to Methanol—With and Without Water

Adding water to the catalytic reaction that converts methane into useful methanol makes the process more effective, but it creates challenges for industry due to steam from the water. Now scientists have identified a common industrial catalyst, copper-zinc oxide, that completes the conversion along different pathways depending on whether water is present or not. This could potentially keep methane, a potent greenhouse gas, out of Earth’s atmosphere and instead turn it into useful products.

Solar energy from the deep repository

During the winter months, renewable energy is in short supply throughout Europe. An international project is now considering an unconventional solution: Renewable hydrogen and carbon dioxide are pumped into the ground together, where naturally occurring microorganisms convert the two substances into methane, the main component of natural gas.

Saving the climate with solar fuel

Produced in a sustainable way, synthetic fuels contribute to switching mobility to renewable energy and to achieving the climate goals in road traffic. In the mobility demonstrator “move” Empa researchers are investigating the production of synthetic methane from an energy, technical and economic perspective – a project with global potential.

Mitigating emissions in the livestock production sector

A new study shows that emission intensity per unit of animal protein produced has decreased globally over the past two decades due to greater production efficiency, raising questions around the extent to which methane emissions will change in the future and how we can better manage their negative impacts.

Finding fire and ice: Modeling the probability of methane hydrate deposits on the seafloor

A team of researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have developed a new system to model the likelihood of finding methane hydrate and methane gas that was tested in a region of seafloor off the coast of North Carolina. This test was published on March 14 in the scientific journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

Rutgers Legal Expert Available to Discuss Environmental, Climate Change Priorities

New Brunswick, N.J. (Jan. 21, 2021) – Rutgers University Professor Cymie R. Payne, an expert on United States and international environmental laws, is available for interviews on how the administration of President Biden can strengthen laws and regulations and efforts to…

Cornell University to Extract Energy from Manure to Meet Peak Heating Demands

Cornell University is developing a system to extract energy from cattle manure to meet the campus’s peak demands for heat in the winter months. In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists involved with the project give a detailed analysis of the issues required to make this work, including scientific, economic, and energy policy considerations.

UNH Collaborates with 13 Universities to Understand Climate Change and Ecosystems

The University of New Hampshire is one of 14 universities from around the globe that have collectively been awarded $12.5 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a new Biology Integration Institute (BII), called EMERGE, which will focus on better understanding ecosystem and climate interactions—like the thawing of the Arctic permafrost—and how they can alter everything from the landscape to greenhouse gases.

‘Blinking” Crystals May Convert CO2 into Fuels

Imagine tiny crystals that “blink” like fireflies and can convert carbon dioxide, a key cause of climate change, into fuels. A Rutgers-led team has created ultra-small titanium dioxide crystals that exhibit unusual “blinking” behavior and may help to produce methane and other fuels, according to a study in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The crystals, also known as nanoparticles, stay charged for a long time and could benefit efforts to develop quantum computers.

When peatlands burn in mega-fires, stored methane is rapidly released into the atmosphere. #EmissionsGap #ClimateAction @UNEP @MTUcfres

According to a report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment, Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and…