化石燃料的甲烷排放量可能被严重低估了

A new study suggests that methane emissions from fossil fuels has been severely underestimated.

一项新的研究表明，化石燃料的甲烷排放量被严重低估。

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. It is a lot more potent than CO2 in trapping heat in our atmosphere, but on the flip side, it tends to degrade and disappear in less than a decade compared to the century it takes for carbon dioxide.

甲烷是造成全球变暖的第二大因素，仅次于二氧化碳。在吸收大气中的热量方面，它比二氧化碳要强得多，但另一方面，与二氧化碳所需的一个世纪相比，它往往会在不到十年的时间里降解和消失。

Alfredo Carpineti

As reported in the journal Nature, researchers have estimated how much methane is released from natural sources compared to that from human activity, mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels. The team looked at air bubbles trapped in Greenland ice cores from the time before the Industrial Revolution to today, as well as previous data from Antarctica. In samples from 1750 to 2013, they found that the levels of natural methane emissions is about 10 times lower than previously reported. This means that the total methane emissions generated in the burning of fossil fuels is between 25 and 40 percent higher than expected.

据《自然》杂志报道，研究人员已经估算出，与人类活动相比，自然资源释放出的甲烷有多少，其中大部分是由于燃烧化石燃料。研究小组观察了从工业革命之前到现在格陵兰冰芯中被困住的气泡，以及之前来自南极洲的数据。在1750年至2013年的样本中，他们发现天然甲烷排放水平比之前报道的低了大约10倍。这意味着燃烧化石燃料产生的甲烷排放总量比预期高出25%到40%。

Many of the previous estimates used an inventory-based assessment of the natural sources of methane from around the world. This current work provides an actual measurement from the air trapped in ice before the Industrial Revolution began.

之前的许多评估都是基于对全球甲烷天然来源的库存评估。目前的工作提供了从空气被困在冰之前的工业革命开始的一个实际的测量。

An infographic summarizing the findings. University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw)

"If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would still persist for a long time," lead author Dr Benjamin Hmiel, from the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "Methane is important to study because if we make changes to our current methane emissions, it's going to reflect more quickly."

“如果我们今天停止排放所有的二氧化碳，大气中的高二氧化碳水平仍将持续很长一段时间，”来自罗切斯特大学的主要作者本杰明·赫米尔博士在一份声明中说。“研究甲烷很重要，因为如果我们改变目前的甲烷排放，它将更快地反映出来。”

"I don't want to get too hopeless on this because my data does have a positive implication: most of the methane emissions are anthropogenic, so we have more control. If we can reduce our emissions, it's going to have more of an impact," Hmiel added. "Placing stricter methane emission regulations on the fossil fuel industry will have the potential to reduce future global warming to a larger extent than previously thought."

“我不想在这个问题上太绝望，因为我的数据确实有积极的含义:大部分甲烷排放是人为的，所以我们有更多的控制。如果我们能够减少排放，就会产生更大的影响。”“对化石燃料行业实施更严格的甲烷排放法规，将有可能在更大程度上减轻未来的全球变暖，其程度超出此前的预期。”