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EESA Climate Experts Examine Connections Between Temperature and Methane Emissions4 min read

by Christina Procopiou on April 15, 2021

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

EESA postdoc fellow Kuang-Yu Chang led a team of researchers from 46 institutions across the world to analyze methane-temperature relationships measured across 48 global wetland and rice paddy sites to unravel factors controlling methane emissions to the atmosphere. Above: The absolute bias relative to measured CH4 emissions estimated by each model class for each ecosystem type (a). Blue and red bars denote the number of sites and quality-controlled daily data points within each ecosystem type, respectively (b). The abbreviations used in each model group represent air temperature (T), ecosystem-type variability (type), intra-seasonal variability (ISV), hybrid model based on random-forest estimated hysteresis parameter (hybrid), inter-site variability (site), and inter-annual variability (IAV).

EESA climate experts are exploring how wetland emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, are evolving with climate change. Their new research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, examines the degree to which intra- and inter- seasonal changes in air and soil temperatures influence the amount of methane (CH4) released into the atmosphere by wetlands, the largest natural source of methane emissions worldwide. 

Although they did find some empirical relationships between methane emissions and temperature across nearly 50 sites worldwide, the scientists concluded that it will be necessary to disentangle factors controlling those empirical relationships in order to help climate scientists reliably predict how changes in temperature might affect future methane emissions and assess how changes in temperature are impacting the methane emitted by wetlands right now. The relevant factors include things like microbial activity, thermal and hydrological dynamics, and vegetation traits.

EESA postdoc fellow Kuang-Yu Chang led the team of researchers from 46 institutions around the world to analyze methane-temperature relationships measured across 48 global wetland and rice paddy sites to unravel factors controlling methane emissions to the atmosphere. 

“We know that it’s important to discover better ways to quantify global methane emissions because of methane’s shorter lifespan in the atmosphere and how much more potent it is than carbon dioxide. But the reality is that it’s much more difficult to estimate global methane emissions than global carbon dioxide emissions,” Chang said.

In 2020, EESA scientists contributed to a groundbreaking report led by the Global Carbon Project which showed that the difference in global methane emissions between the early and late 2000s was equivalent to 189 million more cars on the world’s roads in the latter part of the decade. This new study led by EESA researchers tried to address a key question that is essential to helping slow down those emissions to curb climate change. 

While it doesn’t linger as long, methane traps much more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide on a molecule by molecule basis. In terms of global warming potential, methane is estimated to be 84 and 28 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide over 20 and 100 year periods, respectively.

“So if you reduce the amount of methane emissions put into the atmosphere now, the upside is way bigger than if you took the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions out because methane has so much greater a warming effect,” Chang said. 

“This fact creates a real opportunity to rapidly mitigate climate change by reducing or regulating methane emissions. As the atmosphere continues to warm, determining the extent to which factors, temperature in particular, increase methane emissions from natural methane sources is critical to finding ways to help reduce these emissions.”

Using global ecosystem-scale observations archived in the FLUXNET-CH4 database, the researchers applied machine learning methods to analyze relationships between methane emissions and temperature and tried to quantify these connections. 

“We asked the question ‘What are the most important factors to include in the next-generation methane models that we use to predict global methane emissions over the next decades?’” said Chang.

Senior Scientist Bill Riley, another EESA contributor to the paper, added, “The Berkeley Lab group developed the wetland model in the current version of DOE’s Earth System Model (E3SM), so these analyses will directly contribute to our ongoing work at site to regional to global scales.”

The researchers concluded that it will be necessary to incorporate microbial dynamics into next-generation methane models as these processes are important and overlooked ecosystem features that could help improve predictions of the relationships between temperature and methane emissions at sites worldwide. 

 

News & Events

EESA Research Scientist Selected for NAE 2022 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium2 min read

May 23, 2022

Mengsu Hu, an EESA research scientist, was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium in September. For more than 25 years, the NAE has identified the best and brightest early-career engineers from large and small companies, research universities, and government laboratories to discuss their leading-edge research and…

Microbial Response to a Changing and Fire-Prone Arctic Ecosystem2 min read

April 27, 2022

Burning more than 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska’s North Slope, the 2007 Anaktuvuk river wildfire is one of the largest fires to occur within Arctic ecosystems. Berkeley Lab scientist Nick Bouskill led a study that used data from this disturbance event to predict ecosystem recovery as fires advance in a changing climate. (Credit:…

Study Evaluates Phosphorus Availability Underground using Plant Leaves as Biosensors3 min read

April 25, 2022

When envisioning renewable energy, sources that often come to mind are the sun, wind, batteries, and water. However, biofuel, a type of renewable energy that converts organic material from plants into liquid fuel, is an important part of a global effort to achieve net-zero emissions. Switchgrass, a deep-rooted native North American grass that grows in…

EESA Multimedia Producer and Digital Strategist Niba Audrey Nirmal Awarded Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship1 min read

Niba Audrey Nirmal, EESA Multimedia Producer and Digital Strategist, has been awarded the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism (OSJ) Fellowship.   In May, Nirmal will join nine other selected fellows on a five-day, experiential-learning based retreat at the WHOI located in Falmouth, Massachusetts to learn about ocean-science concepts ranging from marine biology to…

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