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Patryk Lakomiec

Doctoral student

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New contributions of measurements in Europe to the global inventory of the stable isotopic composition of methane

Author

  • Malika Menoud
  • Carina Van Der Veen
  • Dave Lowry
  • Julianne M. Fernandez
  • Semra Bakkaloglu
  • James L. France
  • Rebecca E. Fisher
  • Hossein Maazallahi
  • Mila Stanisavljević
  • Jarosław Nȩcki
  • Katarina Vinkovic
  • Patryk Łakomiec
  • Janne Rinne
  • Piotr Korbeń
  • Martina Schmidt
  • Sara Defratyka
  • Camille Yver-Kwok
  • Truls Andersen
  • Huilin Chen
  • Thomas Röckmann
Show all

Summary, in English

Recent climate change mitigation strategies rely on the reduction of methane (CH4) emissions. Carbon and hydrogen isotope ratio (δ13CCH4 and δ2HCH4) measurements can be used to distinguish sources and thus to understand the CH4 budget better. The CH4 emission estimates by models are sensitive to the isotopic signatures assigned to each source category, so it is important to provide representative estimates of the different CH4 source isotopic signatures worldwide. We present new measurements of isotope signatures of various, mainly anthropogenic, CH4 sources in Europe, which represent a substantial contribution to the global dataset of source isotopic measurements from the literature, especially for δ2HCH4. They improve the definition of δ13CCH4 from waste sources, and demonstrate the use of δ2HCH4 for fossil fuel source attribution. We combined our new measurements with the last published database of CH4 isotopic signatures and with additional literature, and present a new global database. We found that microbial sources are generally well characterised. The large variability in fossil fuel isotopic compositions requires particular care in the choice of weighting criteria for the calculation of a representative global value. The global dataset could be further improved by measurements from African, South American, and Asian countries, and more measurements from pyrogenic sources. We improved the source characterisation of CH4 emissions using stable isotopes and associated uncertainty, to be used in top-down studies. We emphasise that an appropriate use of the database requires the analysis of specific parameters in relation to source type and the region of interest. The final version of the European CH4 isotope database coupled with a global inventory of fossil and non-fossil δ13CCH4 and δ2HCH4 source signature measurements is available at 10.24416/UU01-YP43IN .

Department/s

  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • ICOS Sweden

Publishing year

2022-09-23

Language

English

Pages

4365-4386

Publication/Series

Earth System Science Data

Volume

14

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Copernicus GmbH

Topic

  • Climate Research

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1866-3508