gases

Sandia National Laboratories technologist Jenna Schambach working with a sample of Alaska lakebed soil. By studying the microbes in the soil, and the gases they emit, Schambach and project lead Chuck Smallwood hope to improve our understanding of the rapidly melting Arctic permafrost and improve computer models of climate change. Credit: Craig Fritz As greenhouse gases bubble up across the rapidly thawing Arctic, Sandia…

Nord Stream Pipelines 1 and 2 were likely sabotaged, according to the results of a preliminary Swedish investigation, which found evidence of the use of explosive devices. The pipelines cross the Baltic sea, delivering natural gas from Russia to Germany. Four suspicious leaks appeared in the pipelines at the end of September, and now Sweden’s findings bolster the widely held view that the pipelines were intentionally damaged.“We can confirm that there have been detonations at Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Swedish economic…

A gas flare at the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery in Norco, Louisiana.Photo: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)The oil and gas industry may be seriously undercounting its greenhouse gas emissions. A technique used to burn off methane during production may be getting rid of less of the greenhouse gas than previously thought, a new study finds—which could mean that emissions from flaring could be as much as five times higher than previous estimates.A study published Thursday in Science looks at the efficiency of a process…

A leak from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, September 28.Photo: Swedish Coast Guard (AP)The war between Europe and Russia may be responsible for a new horror: a shockingly large release of damaging greenhouse gas.Earlier this week, three leaks in two natural gas pipelines, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Poland were discovered by officials, with monitoring stations logging big spikes in methane from the leaks. On Thursday, Swedish officials said that they…

A huge oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused a hellish fire in the ocean last year, has been releasing massive amounts of planet-warming methane. Reuters reported last week on satellite data that shows that the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oilfield leaked 44,064 tons of methane into the atmosphere over the course of 24 days in August. That’s the equivalent of 3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide—what 653,106 homes emit by using electricity over the course of one year. Researchers with the European Space Agency found that the…

Hubble Space Telescope has often captured stunning images of mysterious events in space. It has allowed astronomers to widen their research and uncover new details. Recently, the telescope was trying to understand how young stars influenced their environment and it witnessed a shock wave of colliding luminous gases in the 'Running Man' Nebula. The image of the Herbig-Haro object, known as HH 45, showed clouds of gas and dust glow. Herbig-Haro is a type of nebula that forms when gas from a newborn star collides with dust…

The US coal industry is in a long-term decline, and the recent Supreme Court ruling in the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency case won’t change that. The case centers on a 2015 EPA regulation called the Clean Power Plan aimed at limiting greenhouse gases from power plants. The rule never went into effect, as it was halted by the Supreme Court in 2016, then replaced under President Donald Trump with a weaker regulation, which in turn was struck down by a federal court in 2021. However, the 6-3 ruling on…

Firefighters search in the debris of homes destroyed by a gas incident in Massachusetts in 2018; one person was killed, while more than 80 fires destroyed buildings in three towns.Photo: Charles Krupa (AP)Leaks from the pipelines that supply gas to your home and stove are happening more often than you may think—with deadly consequences. A new report from a group of environmental nonprofits finds that, over the past decade, there were around 2,600 reported cases of methane leaks in the U.S. gas pipeline system, adding up…

Cows on a farm in in Pretty Prairie, Kansas.Photo: Alice Mannette/The Hutchinson News (AP)Hightemperatures in Kansas last weekend killed thousands of cattle, authorities confirmed this week, after footage of rows of cattle corpses was widely shared online.A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment told multiple media outlets that the agency had gotten reports of at least 2,000 cattle deaths that happened over the weekend of June 11-12 in the southwestern part of the state. The agency said that the…

By now, few people question the reality that humans are altering Earth's climate. The real question is: How quickly can we halt, even reverse, the damage?Part of the answer to this question lies in the concept of 'committed warming,' also known as 'pipeline warming.'  It refers to future increases in global temperatures that will be caused by greenhouse gases that have already been emitted. In other words, if the clean energy transition happened overnight, how much warming would still ensue?Earth's energy budget is out…