Fossil fuel methane emissions 'vastly underestimated'

Emissions from fossil fuel production of the potent greenhouse gas methane is 25 to 40 percent higher than previously understood, researchers reported on Wednesday, shining a harsh spotlight on the global gas industry. "Scientists have been vastly underestimating the amount of methane humans are emitting into the atmosphere via fossil fuels," scientists from the University of Rochester in New York, who led the study, said in a statement. While more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, methane persists for only a tenth as long in the atmosphere, roughly a decade rather than a century.