BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Methane - Speaker to be confirmed DTSTART:20190312T130000Z DTEND:20190312T170000Z UID:TALK120541@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Alison Ming DESCRIPTION:Methane has the second largest radiative forcing after CO2. Th e concentration of CH4 has increased by a factor of 2.5 since preindustria l times\, from 722 ppb in 1750 to 1803 ppb in 2011. There is very high con fidence that the atmospheric CH4 increase during the industrial era is cau sed by anthropogenic activities [IPCC\, AR5].\n\nCome join us for an excit ing and diverse range of talks around methane from wetland emissions to ec onomics and policy.\n\n\n1.00 to 1.40 pm Andrew Tanentzap (Cambridge): Why lakes get gassy and why it matters.\n\n1.40 to 2.20 pm Euan Nisbet (Royal Holloway): Rising methane - wetlands? cows? hydroxyl? fossil fuels? or al l of these? - is the warming feeding the warming?\n\n2.20 to 3.00 pm Miche lle Cain (Oxford): Methane's role in the Paris Agreement and why it's so o ften misunderstood\n\n3.00 to 3.30 pm coffee break in Archaeology common r oom with cake!\n\n3.30 to 4.10 pm Eleanor Burke (MetOffice): Modelling the northern high latitudes carbon cycle feedbacks in a changing climate\n\n4 .10 to 4.50 pm Paul Balcombe (Imperial): Methane emissions from natural ga s: super emitters and climate metrics\n\n\n5.00 to 6pm Nibbles.Archaeolog y common room.\n\n"| Sign up required for catering purposes |":https://goo .gl/forms/WZIKIXC05RGyCpzG3\n\nAbstracts:\n\nDr Michelle Cain\n\nOxford Ma rtin School and Environmental Change Institute\, University of Oxford\n\nT itle: Methane's role in the Paris Agreement and why it's so often misunder stood\n\nFor policy makers to make informed decisions to mitigate against climate change\, the effects of different climate pollutants must be compa red against each other. Carbon dioxide is the main driver of anthropogenic climate change. Other climate pollutants\, including methane and nitrous oxide\, contribute half as much warming again\, and will become more impor tant as carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.\n\nHowever\, many of these o ther pollutants are short-lived\, unlike carbon dioxide. Methane has a lif etime of the order of a decade\, so although the immediate effect of a mol ecule of methane on temperature is stronger than from carbon dioxide\, in 50 years the impact will be much smaller.\n\nHow do we compare the differe nt forcing agents when they cause different amounts of warming over differ ent time periods? Currently\, Global Warming Potential over 100 years is t he most common emission metric\, however it can give misleading results un der ambitious mitigation scenarios (e.g. RCP2.6). This is going to become increasingly important as the world makes plans to achieve the goals of th e Paris Agreement.\n\nIn this seminar\, I will discuss the problem with us ing GWP under ambitious emissions mitigation scenarios\, with a particular focus on methane. I will go on to discuss alternatives such as a modified use of GWP\, which provides a more robust link between greenhouse gas emi ssions and temperature response\, which was first proposed in Allen et al. (2016) and demonstrated in Allen et al.\, (2018).\n\n-------------------- -----\n\nDr Andrew Tanentzap\n\nDepartment of Plant Sciences\n\nUniversity of Cambridge \n\nTitle: Why lakes get gassy and why it matters.\n\nFreshw aters are the one of the largest sources of global methane emissions and t heir contribution is expected to rise with global change. However\, there remains large uncertainty as to how different sources of organic compounds will influence biological routes of methane production in freshwaters. I n this talk\, I explore how changes in vegetation cover surrounding freshw ater may influence the global methane budget. I will highlight the import ance of understanding variation in the age and composition of organic matt er.\n\n\n-------------------------\n\nDr Paul Balcombe\n\nDepartment of Ch emical Engineering\n\nImperial College\n\nMethane emissions from natural g as: super emitters and climate metrics\n\nCO2 emissions from natural gas a re lower than other fossil fuels\, but recent studies suggest that methane emissions from the supply chain reduce this climate benefit and are highl y variable. The high variability of emissions across different supply chai n technologies and regions means that greater analysis is required to unde rstand how best to minimise emissions. Additionally\, the appearance of su per emitters in every stage of the supply chain skews the distribution sig nificantly. Methane is a very potent but short-lived greenhouse gas\, wher e Global Warming Potentials are typically used to compare gases with ‘CO 2 equivalences’\, but there is growing acknowledgment of their limitatio ns and a desire to use other metrics and time horizons.\n\nResearch at the Methane and Environment Programme\, Sustainable Gas Institute at Imperial College London\, examines the effect of the variability of methane emissi ons and the use of different climate metrics\, and time horizons\, on the potential contribution of natural gas to governmental decarbonisation path ways. The research determines the variability of supply chain emissions us ing a technology-rich probabilistic emissions model and then conducting li fe cycle assessment of different supply chains and end-uses. We assess the benefits of using different climate metrics\, such as the global temperat ure change potential (GTP)\, as well as other timeframes\, for different i ndustrial\, governmental and academic applications.\n\nResults from the pr obabilistic assessment is that the distribution of emissions is extremely heavily skewed\, resembling a log-log-logistic distribution for most suppl y chains: median estimates which represent typical routes are modest at 18 -24 gCO2eq./MJ\, but mean estimates\, which account for the super emitters \, are 22-107 gCO2eq./MJ\, using GWP100. Estimates vary by a factor of 100 across metrics\, gas fields and supply chain routes. Placing these values into context\, natural gas combustion emissions are approximately 55 gCO2 /MJ. Thus\, some supply chain scenarios are major contributors to total gr eenhouse gas emissions from natural gas. The role of natural gas in decarb onisation pathways must be managed carefully to avoid unintended consequen ces of increased supply chain methane emissions. Given the short-lived nat ure of atmospheric methane\, the timing of natural gas production (and emi ssions) is a key consideration in energy transitions and minimising peak t emperatures. LOCATION:Lecture Theatre\, Department of Plant Sciences\, Downing Site END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR