Monitoring, Understanding, and Predicting the Growth of Methane Emissions in the Arctic

Technical Report · Wed Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1562416· OSTI ID:1562416

Bambha, Ray P. ^[1]; LaFranchi, Brian W. ^[1]; Schrader, Paul E. ^[1]; Roesler, Erika Louise ^[2]; Taylor, Mark A. ^[2]; Lucero, Daniel A. ^[2]; Ivey, Mark D. ^[2]; Michelsen, Hope A. ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
2. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Concern over Arctic methane (CH₄) emissions has increased following recent discoveries of poorly understood sources and predictions that methane emissions from known sources will grow as Arctic temperatures increase. New efforts are required to detect increases and explain sources without being confounded by the multiple sources. Methods for distinguishing different sources are critical. We conducted measurements of atmospheric methane and source tracers and performed baseline global atmospheric modeling to begin assessing the climate impact of changes in atmospheric methane. The goal of this project was to address uncertainties in Arctic methane sources and their potential impact on climate by (1) deploying newly developed trace-gas analyzers for measurements of methane, methane isotopologues, ethane, and other tracers of methane sources in the Barrow, AK, (2) characterizing methane sources using high-resolution atmospheric chemical transport models and tracer measurements, and (3) modeling Arctic climate using the state-of-the-art high- resolution Spectral Element Community Atmosphere Model (CAM-SE).

• Research Organization: Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 1562416
• Report Number(s): SAND-2016-9340; 647585
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English