(ORDO NEWS) — Climatologists have come to the conclusion that methane leaks from the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, which were blown up in September, had almost no effect on the state of the planet’s climate – they will increase the air temperature by 0.000018 degrees Celsius in the next 20 years.
“Such a small amount of warming will not be noticed by humans or ecosystems. Nevertheless, anthropogenic methane emissions remain the second largest driver of global warming.
If we really want to fulfill the Paris climate agreement and keep warming at around 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, humanity needs to avoid such damage to infrastructure,” said Chen Xiaolong, a researcher at the IAF KAN, quoted by the institute’s press service.
The scientists analyzed the data collected by climate satellites and researchers at the site of the explosion of gas pipelines.
These measurements were carried out by their colleagues from Norway and the University of Nanjing.
According to the current estimates of researchers, the terrorist attack led to the release of no more than 0.22-0.25 million tons of methane into the atmosphere and upper layers of the sea.
Based on this information, scientists calculated how the ingress of additional volumes of methane into the atmosphere will affect the average temperature on Earth.
Calculations have shown that even in the short term, when methane acts on the climate ten times more strongly than carbon dioxide, temperatures will rise by no more than 0.000018 degrees Celsius.
According to experts, this value is several orders of magnitude lower than the total contribution of anthropogenic methane sources to global warming, as well as the mass of natural driving causes of rising temperatures on Earth, including the melting of permafrost.
This suggests that gas leaks from the Nord Streams will have almost no effect on the planet’s climate, the scientists concluded.
Attacks on Nord Stream
On September 27, Nord Stream AG announced “unprecedented destruction” that occurred a day earlier on three strings of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines.
Swedish seismologists registered two explosions on September 26 along the pipeline routes.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation initiated the initiation of a case on an act of international terrorism after the damage to gas pipelines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that the Gazprom company was allowed to inspect the sites of explosions at Nord Stream and had already discovered the corresponding damage to gas pipelines.
According to the head of state, the results of the survey prove that the accident at the gas pipelines is an obvious terrorist attack.
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