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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 9:35 am

Texas spews a lot of methane:

http://www.myhighplains.com/story/d/sto ... u94Kqulhhg

Drought in Texas:

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Could methane leakage be contributing to the severity of drought conditions in the southern plains by creating a micro climate of some kind?



InventorDave
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29 Jan 2015, 11:26 am

Well, methane is a greenhouse gas and when in the atmosphere can create warming, by trapping heat below. That said it is usually warming on a global scale as in the seas and ocean temperatures. Which can create extra rain or stronger storms. This in turn can disrupt weather patterns and pushing new levels of extremes e.g. in temperature and wind forces. The weather pattern is most likely to cause the drought at the moment. Methane does not help the bigger picture though.
Hope this helps..



0_equals_true
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29 Jan 2015, 12:13 pm

The key is understanding the difference between climate and weather.

The only localisation of green house gases is to do with the southern and northern hemisphere. Otherwise it roams the globe, and it is very complex interaction.

Texas is often dry, the question is can it survive it. This is down to water resource and irrigation.

Also the dust bowl effect, were you have overgrazed soil, when a dry spell happen it just blows away.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 1:38 pm

I said contributor to making a drought more extreme. What about a micro-climate due to an excess of methane in a concentrated location?

Same with smog. Can smog cause micro-climates as well? Can pollution help create areas of drought across a continent?



Humanaut
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29 Jan 2015, 1:49 pm

"Micro climates" doesn't exist.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 1:51 pm

Humanaut wrote:
"Micro climates" doesn't exist.

Are you absolutely sure about that? What about valleys and what not? What about around mountains??? Deserts? Oasis???



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29 Jan 2015, 1:54 pm

Nope. Nothing.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 1:56 pm

Humanaut wrote:
Nope. Nothing.

Seems like there are micro-climates when you think about it caused by various factors like mountains.



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29 Jan 2015, 1:57 pm

Mountains do not create micro climates either. Nobody has ever found a micro climate anywhere.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 1:58 pm

The Rain Shadow sounds like a micro-climate. In fact, earth has many micro-climates and seems to be made up of them otherwise it would be the same temperature and rainfall all over. It isn't.



Humanaut
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29 Jan 2015, 2:07 pm

That's called weather.



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29 Jan 2015, 2:16 pm

My heated greenhouse has a 'micro-climate' or at least the tropical plants think so ;-)



Humanaut
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29 Jan 2015, 2:18 pm

It's actually a valid concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microclimate



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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29 Jan 2015, 2:26 pm

Well duh, lol. ;)



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29 Jan 2015, 2:36 pm

To put it simply, no. Enough methane would likely lead to some warming and warmer air can carry more moisture than cooler air. It seems likely that rainfall would be more plentiful with warming, but there would likely be some places with less rain.

In any case, the drought is far more widespread than just Texas. Furthermore, Texas has suffered from droughts many times before.