What have we learned?
Before I realized, my first semester at UCL and therefore, my 14 weeks of blogging are nearing an end. Let's reflect back on the journey and what this end looks like. I started writing this blog with a few questions. What are the sources and sinks of methane and what are their relative contribution? We have explored the sources and sinks , and saw that there is still much uncertainty about the relative contributions. Can global warming lead to a tipping point at which a large amount of methane in the permafrost will be released? We have seen that a carbon explosion is not likely to happen, but that gradual release can lead to a large addition to the atmosphere. Why did global methane concentrations level off from the 1980s and why did they increase again after 2007? We saw that the stabilization was caused by a stabilization in fossil fuels use and that the cause for the abrupt increase is still a topic of debate . Additionally, we explored the ways to measure methane c...
