Global methane concentrations have not risen as strongly during El Niño years 2023 and 2024 as they did from 2020 to 2022, as illustrated by the above image, showing monthly methane concentrations through May 2025, and the image below, showing annual methane growth through 2024. The question is, why did the growth in methane concentrations slow down in 2023 and 2024?
Is the rise in methane releases partly masked?
One possible mechanism, described here earlier, is that, as temperatures increase and water vapor in the atmosphere increases accordingly (7% more water vapor for every 1°C warming), more hydroxyl in the atmosphere, more methane gets broken down by the increased hydroxyl in the atmosphere. Accordingly, the stronger methane breakdown by more hydroxyl in 2023 and 2024 may give the impression that methane releases appeared to slow down, whereas methane releases may actually have kept growing and because this growth was getting masked, it was overlooked.
In other words, methane releases may have continue to grow at accelerating pace, but since an increasingly large part of the methane releases was decomposed by more hydroxyl, the growth in methane concentrations in the atmosphere only appeared to slow down because methane releases were partly masked by growth in hydroxyl, as discussed in earlier posts such as this 2017 one.
According to this mechanism, methane releases actually started to increase more strongly (partly due to more methane erupting from the seafloor of oceans) from the early 2000s, but hydroxyl also kept increasing, slowing down growth in methane concentrations. Eventually, increasing methane releases (including seafloor methane releases) progressively overwhelmed the growth in hydroxyl, contributing to a stronger rise in overall methane concentrations in the atmosphere.
Note that the high methane concentrations near Antarctica are not in the same spot where the earthquake occurred. This can be attributed to the wind moving air clockwise around Antarctica. The combination image below shows wind at 10 m (left) and at 250 mb or hPa (right) on October 11, 2025.
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[ screenshot from earlier post ] |
The methane danger has been described in many earlier posts, e.g. the image below is from a 2014 post. The image shows a polynomial trend based on IPCC AR5 data from 1955 to 2011, pointing at methane reaching mean global levels higher than 3000 ppb by the year 2030. If methane starts to erupt in large quantities from clathrates underneath the seafloor of oceans and from thawing permafrost, then something like this may well happen and the amount of methane in the atmosphere could double by 2030.
UN secretary-general António Guterres recently spoke about the need for “a credible global response plan to get us on track” regarding the international goal of limiting the global temperature rise. “The science demands action, the law commands it,” Guterres said, in reference to a recent international court of justice ruling. “The economics compel it and people are calling for it.”
What could be added is that the situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as this 2022 post and this one and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.
• Focus on Antarctica
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/focus-on-antarctica.html
• Record low Arctic sea ice volume minimum highlights methane danger
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/10/record-low-arctic-sea-ice-volume-highlights-methane-danger.html
• Global methane concentration and annual growth
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4
also discussed on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10163340957609679
• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html
• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html
• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html