Methane and Nitrogen Triflouride: The Greenhouse Ghosts

(Note: Previously published at Pinoy Barking Hall)

Man-made greenhouse is the big haunted house that scares its creator. Greenhouse for gardening system was built to confuse and then evolve to greenhouse effect to keep humans in its unending worries of existence. Although the terms “greenhouse” and “greenhouse effect” operate on different mechanism, it has a similar function of heat trapping through infrared absorbing gases. And with the greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere, it keep hounding humans instead of providing a life-giving shield to all living things.

We have been warned of the hazards of man-made carbon dioxide emission as a component of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The proponents of man-made global warming were able to infuse in the minds of horrified populace that unhampered carbon dioxide emission is the main cause of warming they themselves had created. However, sensing that carbon dioxide emission will not forever hold as the causative effect of the concocted global warming hypothesis, the alarmist are now looking for scapegoats to lay the blame and to sustain their warming scare.

Methane and Nitrogen Triflouride are being eyed as the next man-made global warming culprits. Both are greenhouse gases with global warming potential (GWP) much greater than carbon dioxide. Methane has a GWP of 23 when compared to carbon over a 100 year period while Nitrogen Triflouride has a GWP of 17,200 more times greater than CO2 which has only 1 GWP. However, carbon dioxide remains an important gas in view of its higher level of presence and growth in the atmosphere. As more and more scientists have been doubting and challenging the anthropogenic global warming brought about by the increase CO2 emission, it is just appropriate for the advocates of carbon trading to lay another card. And they may be banking on the release of a research of Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego which will be published Oct. 31 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Solar Panel, the provider of clean source of energy from the sun, is now being targeted as the next contaminant emitting more nitrogen triflouride in the atmosphere after painting mud and nearly demolishing the source of fossil fuel oil. It is worthwhile to mention that the said gas is used for cleaning in the manufacture of liquid crystal display of television and computer monitors and for the thin-film solar panels. According to the research, ”Nitrogen trifluoride levels in the air — measured in parts per trillion — have quadrupled in the last decade and increased 30-fold since 1978.” And in as much as it is one of the more potent gases, thousands of times stronger at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, Solar Panel, as wattsupwiththat put it, will be for naught. “There’s a new boogeyman in the world of global warming: Nitrogen Trifluoride.” With the rising popularity of Solar Panel, others will take advantage and envious to pull it down unless given a share –a slice of the pie.

Not to be ignored is the information that may be obtained from greenleft.org about Methane. The more potent gas than CO2, it is being considered as the future worry for global warming. The same research put the levels of methane gas in the atmosphere as higher than normal. This natural gas which is formed when organic matter decayed under water in marshes, swamps, and in the shallow waters of Arctic Ocean is the subject of investigation of the proponent of global warming. With the assumptions that billions of tons of methane were laid frozen in permafrost wetlands and in the ocean floor, worse warming will be a serious concern when freed as the Arctic begins to warm.

But what about water vapor? No mention has ever made with water vapors which are abundantly crowding the atmosphere. It is the major component of what they called “greenhouse gases.” If the above-mentioned gases are really the great contributor of global warming, what more of water vapor that absorbed more heat and deflect the infrared radiation back to earth to sustain life.

But these are all suppositions and conjectures, a crumbled hypothesis of man-made global warming advocacy. Human has the propensity to adapt with the natural environment of the Earth. And as the nature is always here to guide us, shall we always be haunted by greenhouse ghosts?