Tim Cullen has been looking at the role of methane in space science – and in the politikking of CAGW. He claims this is 'another giant step for mankind, the mainstream created the Ozone Hole Science by removing the connection between the level of atmospheric water vapour and the level of atmospheric ozone' and by banishing the photodissociation of water vapour the mainstream 'in another bit of creative genius' managed to create an endlessly looping Water Cycle – see http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/methane-myopia-6-space-science/
The Water Cycle has no beginning – it just is. It has no end – and goes on forever. The fate of the hydrogen liberated by the photodissociation of methane and water, has been equally tragic, and the hydrogen cycle just seems to fizzle out. A few decades ago solar radiation was said to dissociate water vapour into hydrogen and hydroxyl radicles. In a twist of fate hydrogen (liberated by the banished photodissociation of methane and water) is accused of being a secondary greenhouse gas and of interfering with the removal of methane from the atmosphere because it inter-acts with 'hydroxyl radicles'. This is strange as it seems CAGW has somehow changed atmospheric chemistry – but has created lots of problems for the chemists.
This is equally true of the search for life in space. Tim Cullen looks at the solar system search and finds methane is used as a marker (without the distinction between abiogenic and biogenic). Hence, methane found on Mars, Enceladus, Titan, and Venus are being touted as a possible location for life (and the search is on) when in fact that methane is abiogenic and is not an indicator of life at all. Biogenic methane comes from ruminants such as cows, from termites, in sedimentary organics, in the atmosphere, from plants, in natural gas, in rice paddies, in peat deposits, from methanogens, in seafloor hydrates, and in Greenland silty ice etc. Methane on the Moon was found to be abiogenic as well as on the methane on Titan.