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Title: Enhanced methane emissions from tropical wetlands during the 2011 La Niña

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep45759· OSTI ID:1476481
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [3];  [3];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13]
  1. Inst. for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht (Netherlands); SRON Netherlands Inst. for Space Research, Utrecht (Netherlands)
  2. Inst. for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht (Netherlands); SRON Netherlands Inst. for Space Research, Utrecht (Netherlands); Wageningen Univ. & Research (Netherlands). Dept. of Meteorology and Air Quality (MAQ)
  3. SRON Netherlands Inst. for Space Research, Utrecht (Netherlands)
  4. Lund Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  5. NOAA Earth System Research Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Division; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). CAS Key Lab. of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia. Inst. of Atmospheric Physics
  7. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Division
  8. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Inst. on Ecosystems. Dept. of Ecology
  9. Swiss Federal Inst. for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Birmensdorf (Switzlerland)
  10. City College of New York, NY (United States)
  11. Inst. of Arctic and Alpine Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  12. Lab. for Sciences of Climate and Environment (LSCE), Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  13. Inst. for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht (Netherlands)
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Year-to-year variations in the atmospheric methane (CH4) growth rate show significant correlation with climatic drivers. The second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011 experienced the strongest La Niña since the early 1980s, when global surface networks started monitoring atmospheric CH4 mole fractions. We use these surface measurements, retrievals of column-averaged CH4 mole fractions from GOSAT, new wetland inundation estimates, and atmospheric δ13C-CH4 measurements to estimate the impact of this strong La Niña on the global atmospheric CH4 budget. By performing atmospheric inversions, we find evidence of an increase in tropical CH4 emissions of ~6–9 TgCH4 yr-1 during this event. Stable isotope data suggest that biogenic sources are the cause of this emission increase. We find a simultaneous expansion of wetland area, driven by the excess precipitation over the Tropical continents during the La Niña. Two process-based wetland models predict increases in wetland area consistent with observationally-constrained values, but substantially smaller per-area CH4 emissions, highlighting the need for improvements in such models. Overall, tropical wetland emissions during the strong La Niña were at least by 5% larger than the long-term mean.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; ALW-GO-AO/11-24
OSTI ID:
1476481
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 7; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (14)

Influence of Atmospheric Transport on Estimates of Variability in the Global Methane Burden journal February 2019
ENSO‐Influenced Drought Drives Methane Flux Dynamics in a Tropical Wet Forest Soil journal July 2019
Emerging role of wetland methane emissions in driving 21st century climate change journal August 2017
The Role of the Intertropical Discontinuity Region and the Heat Low in Dust Emission and Transport Over the Thar Desert, India: A Premonsoon Case Study journal December 2019
Radiative forcing of methane fluxes offsets net carbon dioxide uptake for a tropical flooded forest journal April 2019
Satellite and In Situ Observations for Advancing Global Earth Surface Modelling: A Review journal December 2018
Global distribution of methane emissions, emission trends, and OH concentrations and trends inferred from an inversion of GOSAT satellite data for 2010–2015 journal January 2019
Satellite and In Situ Observations for Advancing Global Earth Surface Modelling: A Review text January 2018
Solar UV radiation in a changing world: roles of cryosphere–land–water–atmosphere interfaces in global biogeochemical cycles journal January 2019
Age of air as a diagnostic for transport timescales in global models journal January 2018
Constraints and biases in a tropospheric two-box model of OH journal January 2019
Enhanced response of global wetland methane emissions to the 2015–2016 El Niño-Southern Oscillation event journal June 2018
Eddy Covariance Measurements of Methane Flux at a Tropical Peat Forest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo journal May 2018
Enhanced response of global wetland methane emissions to the 2015-2016 El Nino-Southern Oscillation event text January 2018

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