Researchers estimate the methane leakage from Nord Stream 1 and 2 to be negligible

A study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the recent methane leak from the two undersea pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 that were sabotaged was very large, but the impact on the Earth’s climate will is rather negligible.

On September 26, two explosions – with as yet unknown perpetrators – destroyed the natural gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany. Huge amounts of gases, mainly methane, escaped into the sea and were then released into the atmosphere for about a week.

Methane is the second-most abundant human-made “greenhouse gas” after carbon dioxide that increases the planet’s temperature and exacerbates climate change, but is the most powerful in impact.

The research

Researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy, led by Dr. Xiaolong Chen, who published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, estimated that the methane leak was about 0.22 million tons (and not 0.5 million tons as originally estimated).

That amount was the largest methane release from a single event ever recorded in human history, more than twice the extent of the worst-case spill to date, an accident in California in 2015. Nevertheless, according to the Chinese scientists, if one considers that annual methane emissions from the oil and gas sector averaged 70 million tons during the period 2008-2017, it is understood that the leaked amount of methane from the Nord Stream pipelines was equivalent to only one day of emissions from the two above sectors of the economy, APE-MPE reports.

The methane in the atmosphere it is gradually removed through its chemical reaction with other substances, thus having a life of about ten years, relatively short compared to carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the amount of heat accumulated per unit mass of methane in the next 20 years after its emission into the atmosphere is estimated to be about 82 times that of carbon dioxide.

Chinese scientists have estimated that over the next 20 years the climate impact of the leaked methane is equivalent to 20.6 million tons of dioxide, which is expected lead to a imperceptible increase in total atmospheric dioxide by only 0.0026 ppm (parts per million). The corresponding global average temperature increase due to leaked methane is estimated to be negligible (1.8 × 10^−5) degrees Celsius).

“Such an insignificant rise in temperature cannot even be felt in ecosystems or human society, so there is no reason to worry on the climate impact of methane leakage,” Chen said.