The greenhouse gases we’re not accounting for
MIT Technology Review - AI
Aug 7, 2025 09:00
James Temple
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airesearchtechnology
Summary
Climate scientists observed a record surge in atmospheric methane levels in 2020, despite reduced economic activity during covid-19 lockdowns, raising concerns about unaccounted greenhouse gas sources. This highlights the need for advanced AI-driven monitoring and analysis tools to better track and understand complex climate dynamics and emissions sources.
In the spring of 2021, climate scientists were stumped. The global economy was just emerging from the covid-19 lockdowns, but for some reason the levels of methane—a greenhouse gas emitted mainly through agriculture and fossil-fuel production—had soared in the atmosphere the previous year, rising at the fastest rate on record. Researchers around the world set…