A Climate Mystery Warns Us to Heed the Unknown

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By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: A basic fact about climate change is curiously absent from public consciousness. ...Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, has been rising in the atmosphere at an accelerating rate since 2007. But the cause of the acceleration remains unknown. Today, NOAA announced more sobering news. In 2021, methane rose more than other any other year on record, according to a preliminary analysis of weekly measurements taken at 40 sites globally. 2020 also broke records. ...It’s rare to feel like climate change is a mystery anymore. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed, controversy besieged even basic facts: Is the planet warming? Are sea levels rising? Those squabbles have long since ebbed, ...With so much at stake, there’s a heightening sense that the science is settled. Science historian Naomi Oreskes called for the end of the IPCC’s deliberations on the physical science of climate change, arguing that all efforts must instead go toward finding solutions. But when it comes to methane, the science is not settled.…

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