Researchers at Harvard University and others say, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that methane emissions in the United States might be 50 percent higher than previously thought.
According to USA Today, methane contributes to climate change as it is a heat-trapping gas.
The higher emissions are a result of cattle and livestock, as well as from areas drilling for oil and are likely higher than the Environmental Protection Agency has claimed. Co-author Steven Wofsy, of Harvard University, said, "We don't know why" the EPA numbers and theirs don't match.
Co-author Anna Michalak, of Carnegie Institution of Science's Department of Global Ecology, says, "It's really a very clear signal" of how much methane is created in the U.S.
The Associated Press reports that in 2008, the report estimates that 49 million tons of methane was released in the air, thanks primarily to livestock in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
The number means that methane contributed to trapping heat in the atmosphere as much as carbon dioxide pollution did, though it doesn't remain in the air for as long. "Something is very much off in the inventories," Michalak commented. "The total U.S. impact on the world's energy budget is different than we thought, and it's worse.
Alisha Johnson, an EPA spokesperson said that the agency is looking through the report and it will "refine our estimates going forward."
image: Wikimedia Commons
