ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040239
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

SCIENTISTS' EMISSIONS FIGURES OFF, STUDY SAYS

Scientists may have overestimated by about 25 percent in calculating worldwide emissions of a gas that promotes global warming, a study says.

That means efforts to reduce atmospheric buildup of methane by attacking such sources as natural gas leaks may have more effect than previously thought, said A.R. Ravishankara.

Ravishankara, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., was co-author of the work published in today's issue of the British journal Nature.

The estimate of worldwide methane emission is calculated from measurements of atmospheric concentrations of methane and its rate of removal from the atmosphere, the scientists said.

The new laboratory study suggests that the rate of removal has been overestimated. - Associated Press 


 by CNB