Martha is writing a report on the landfill gases near her house. Fill in the blanks to complete her report.
Use this table for calculations:
Residence Time (T)
Mass (m)
methane
8 years
4.3 × 1015 g
Landfill Methane
Humans produce a huge amount of waste every day. Landfills were designed to combat this large amount of waste by accumulating and disposing it.
Organic waste from landfills undergoes decomposition in the absence of oxygen, producing gases. Methane gas is a large percentage of the gases emitted from landfills.
If we consider a landfill a reservoir, the flow rate of methane is .
Methane has a longer residence time than CO2, and it is a greenhouse gas that traps heat very effectively. Therefore, methane the temperature of the reservoir.
