Climate experts see methane as a quick win. If the world stopped emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) tomorrow, global temperatures wouldn't begin to cool for many years because of how long the gas stays in the atmosphere. Methane, on the other hand, has a large warming impact for about nine years, said Xin Lan, a research scientist working at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory.

"That means if we reduce methane emissions now, we should be able to see the atmosphere levels coming down rather quickly in a few years," she said. "That's slightly different than CO2, which stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, so it takes a lot more efforts to do the reduction."

This incredibly potent planet-warming gas just set another record for the second year in a row