Global wetland contribution to 2000–2012 atmospheric methane growth rate dynamics
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BORIS DOI
Date of Publication
2017
Publication Type
Article
Division/Institute
Author
Poulter, Benjamin | |
Bousquet, Philippe | |
Canadell, Josep G | |
Ciais, Philippe | |
Peregon, Anna | |
Saunois, Marielle | |
Arora, Vivek K | |
Beerling, David J | |
Brovkin, Victor | |
Jones, Chris D | |
Gedney, Nicola | |
Ito, Akihito | |
Kleinen, Thomas | |
Koven, Charles D | |
McDonald, Kyle | |
Melton, Joe R | |
Peng, Changhui | |
Peng, Shushi | |
Prigent, Catherine | |
Schroeder, Ronny | |
Riley, William J | |
Saito, Makoto | |
Tian, Hanqin | |
Taylor, Lyla | |
Viovy, Nicolas | |
Wilton, David | |
Wiltshire, Andy | |
Xu, Xiyan | |
Zhang, Bowen | |
Zhang, Zhen | |
Zhu, Qiuan |
Subject(s)
Series
Environmental Research Letters
ISSN or ISBN (if monograph)
1748-9326
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Language
English
Publisher DOI
Description
Increasing atmospheric methane (CH₄) concentrations have contributed to approximately 20% of anthropogenic climate change. Despite the importance of CH₄ as a greenhouse gas, its atmospheric growth rate and dynamics over the past two decades, which include a stabilization period (1999–2006), followed by renewed growth starting in 2007, remain poorly understood. We provide an updated estimate of CH₄ emissions from wetlands, the largest natural global CH₄ source, for 2000–2012 using an ensemble of biogeochemical models constrained with remote sensing surface inundation and inventory-based wetland area data. Between 2000–2012, boreal wetland CH4 emissions increased by 1.2 Tg yr⁻¹ (−0.2–3.5 Tg yr⁻¹), tropical emissions decreased by 0.9 Tg yr⁻¹ (−3.2−1.1 Tg yr⁻¹), yet globally, emissions remained unchanged at 184 ± 22 Tg yr⁻¹. Changing air temperature was responsible for increasing high-latitude emissions whereas declines in low-latitude wetland area decreased tropical emissions; both dynamics are consistent with features of predicted centennial-scale climate change impacts on wetland CH₄ emissions. Despite uncertainties in wetland area mapping, our study shows that global wetland CH₄ emissions have not contributed significantly to the period of renewed atmospheric CH₄ growth, and is consistent with findings from studies that indicate some combination of increasing fossil fuel and agriculture-related CH₄ emissions, and a decrease in the atmospheric oxidative sink.
File(s)
File | File Type | Format | Size | License | Publisher/Copright statement | Content | |
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poulter17erl.pdf | text | Adobe PDF | 2.54 MB | Attribution (CC BY 4.0) | published |