St. Maarten Private Eye

I am not sure what this temperature diagram has to do with global warming. This graph is about meteorology and not about climatology. Measurements of methane show that there has been no increase in atmospheric concentration since 2001. So this anomaly isn't having much of a measurable impact. So Joe Romm's (the reference) speculation is just that.

As I am sure that you know, atmospheric processes are very complex. In addition to forcing, there are feedback processes that mitigate the forcings. Even if this anomaly occurs over a long period of time, the oceans may absorb the excess methane. The oceans sequester very large amounts of CO2 and methane. The amount of ocean absorption and release depends upon the water temperature which is primarily dependant on the amount of solar radiation.

Most of the methane is on the bottom of the ocean as a compound of water. Ocean temperatures are stratified. Changing the surface temperature of the ocean a few degrees would have almost no impact on the deep sea temperature, certainly not enough to release enough methane to make a difference in the methane concentrations in the atmosphere. Mr. Romm's statement doesn't pass the laugh test.

Most of the "soaking up" of CO2 is done by trees / plant life in the tropical zones. Planting a tree in SXM will have more impact than a dozen trees planted in New York.

Water is over 200 times as radiative as CO2, but it is not considered a forcing, but a feedback for a number of scientific reasons. Methane competes with CO2 and water for radiative absorption in the atmosphere. Just to state that methane is 20 times (actually the real value is 27) more damaging is not correct if you mean to insinuate that this is the case in the earth's atmosphere & not just by itself.

I don't mean to be negative (I suppose that I come across that way), but some of the AGW claims are not sustained by any scientific evidence and some of the data is cherry picked.