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Guillaume Monteil

Researcher

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Enhanced methane emissions from tropical wetlands during the 2011 la Niña

Author

  • Sudhanshu Pandey
  • Sander Houweling
  • Maarten Krol
  • Ilse Aben
  • Guillaume Monteil
  • Narcisa Nechita-Banda
  • Edward J Dlugokencky
  • Rob Detmers
  • Otto Hasekamp
  • Xiyan Xu
  • William J. Riley
  • Benjamin Poulter
  • Zhen Zhang
  • Kyle C. McDonald
  • James W C White
  • Philippe Bousquet
  • Thomas Röckmann
Show all

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system

Publishing year

2017-04-10

Language

English

Publication/Series

Scientific Reports

Volume

7

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Climate Research

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2045-2322