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dc.contributor.authorPrinn, Ronald G
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-11T15:15:58Z
dc.date.available2017-05-11T15:15:58Z
dc.date.issued2016-12
dc.date.submitted2016-09
dc.identifier.issn1866-3516
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108811
dc.description.abstractThe global methane (CH[subscript 4]) budget is becoming an increasingly important component for managing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. This relevance, due to a shorter atmospheric lifetime and a stronger warming potential than carbon dioxide, is challenged by the still unexplained changes of atmospheric CH[subscript 4] over the past decade. Emissions and concentrations of CH[subscript 4] are continuing to increase, making CH[subscript 4] the second most important human-induced greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Two major difficulties in reducing uncertainties come from the large variety of diffusive CH[subscript 4] sources that overlap geographically, and from the destruction of CH[subscript 4] by the very short-lived hydroxyl radical (OH). To address these difficulties, we have established a consortium of multi-disciplinary scientists under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project to synthesize and stimulate research on the methane cycle, and producing regular (∼ biennial) updates of the global methane budget. This consortium includes atmospheric physicists and chemists, biogeochemists of surface and marine emissions, and socio-economists who study anthropogenic emissions. Following Kirschke et al. (2013), we propose here the first version of a living review paper that integrates results of top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models, inventories and data-driven approaches (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, and inventories for anthropogenic emissions, data-driven extrapolations). For the 2003–2012 decade, global methane emissions are estimated by top-down inversions at 558 Tg CH[subscript 4] yr[superscript −1], range 540–568. About 60 % of global emissions are anthropogenic (range 50–65 %). Since 2010, the bottom-up global emission inventories have been closer to methane emissions in the most carbon-intensive Representative Concentrations Pathway (RCP8.5) and higher than all other RCP scenarios. Bottom-up approaches suggest larger global emissions (736 Tg CH[subscript 4] yr[superscript −1], range 596–884) mostly because of larger natural emissions from individual sources such as inland waters, natural wetlands and geological sources. Considering the atmospheric constraints on the top-down budget, it is likely that some of the individual emissions reported by the bottom-up approaches are overestimated, leading to too large global emissions. Latitudinal data from top-down emissions indicate a predominance of tropical emissions (∼ 64 % of the global budget, < 30° N) as compared to mid (∼ 32 %, 30–60° N) and high northern latitudes (∼ 4 %, 60–90° N). Top-down inversions consistently infer lower emissions in China (∼ 58 Tg CH[subscript 4] yr[superscript −1], range 51–72, −14 %) and higher emissions in Africa (86 Tg CH[subscript 4] yr[superscript −1], range 73–108, +19 %) than bottom-up values used as prior estimates. Overall, uncertainties for anthropogenic emissions appear smaller than those from natural sources, and the uncertainties on source categories appear larger for top-down inversions than for bottom-up inventories and models. The most important source of uncertainty on the methane budget is attributable to emissions from wetland and other inland waters. We show that the wetland extent could contribute 30–40 % on the estimated range for wetland emissions. Other priorities for improving the methane budget include the following: (i) the development of process-based models for inland-water emissions, (ii) the intensification of methane observations at local scale (flux measurements) to constrain bottom-up land surface models, and at regional scale (surface networks and satellites) to constrain top-down inversions, (iii) improvements in the estimation of atmospheric loss by OH, and (iv) improvements of the transport models integrated in top-down inversions. The data presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/GLOBAL_METHANE_BUDGET_2016_V1.1) and the Global Carbon Project.en_US
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherCopernicus GmbHen_US
dc.relation.isversionofhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-697-2016en_US
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licenseen_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/en_US
dc.sourceCopernicus Publicationsen_US
dc.titleThe global methane budget 2000–2012en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dc.identifier.citationSaunois, Marielle et al. “The Global Methane Budget 2000–2012.” Earth System Science Data 8.2 (2016): 697–751.en_US
dc.contributor.departmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciencesen_US
dc.contributor.mitauthorPrinn, Ronald G
dc.relation.journalEarth System Science Dataen_US
dc.eprint.versionFinal published versionen_US
dc.type.urihttp://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticleen_US
eprint.statushttp://purl.org/eprint/status/PeerRevieweden_US
dspace.orderedauthorsSaunois, Marielle; Bousquet, Philippe; Poulter, Ben; Peregon, Anna; Ciais, Philippe; Canadell, Josep G.; Dlugokencky, Edward J.; Etiope, Giuseppe; Bastviken, David; Houweling, Sander; Janssens-Maenhout, Greet; Tubiello, Francesco N.; Castaldi, Simona; Jackson, Robert B.; Alexe, Mihai; Arora, Vivek K.; Beerling, David J.; Bergamaschi, Peter; Blake, Donald R.; Brailsford, Gordon; Brovkin, Victor; Bruhwiler, Lori; Crevoisier, Cyril; Crill, Patrick; Covey, Kristofer; Curry, Charles; Frankenberg, Christian; Gedney, Nicola; Höglund-Isaksson, Lena; Ishizawa, Misa; Ito, Akihiko; Joos, Fortunat; Kim, Heon-Sook; Kleinen, Thomas; Krummel, Paul; Lamarque, Jean-François; Langenfelds, Ray; Locatelli, Robin; Machida, Toshinobu; Maksyutov, Shamil; McDonald, Kyle C.; Marshall, Julia; Melton, Joe R.; Morino, Isamu; Naik, Vaishali; O&amp;apos;Doherty, Simon; Parmentier, Frans-Jan W.; Patra, Prabir K.; Peng, Changhui; Peng, Shushi; Peters, Glen P.; Pison, Isabelle; Prigent, Catherine; Prinn, Ronald; Ramonet, Michel; Riley, William J.; Saito, Makoto; Santini, Monia; Schroeder, Ronny; Simpson, Isobel J.; Spahni, Renato; Steele, Paul; Takizawa, Atsushi; Thornton, Brett F.; Tian, Hanqin; Tohjima, Yasunori; Viovy, Nicolas; Voulgarakis, Apostolos; van Weele, Michiel; van der Werf, Guido R.; Weiss, Ray; Wiedinmyer, Christine; Wilton, David J.; Wiltshire, Andy; Worthy, Doug; Wunch, Debra; Xu, Xiyan; Yoshida, Yukio; Zhang, Bowen; Zhang, Zhen; Zhu, Qiuanen_US
dspace.embargo.termsNen_US
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5925-3801
mit.licensePUBLISHER_CCen_US
mit.metadata.statusComplete


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