Critical needs to close monitoring gaps in pan-tropical wetland CH<sub>4</sub> emissions

Abstract Global wetlands are the largest and most uncertain natural source of atmospheric methane (CH 4 ). The FLUXNET-CH 4 synthesis initiative has established a global network of flux tower infrastructure, offering valuable data products and fostering a dedicated community for the measurement and analysis of methane flux data. Existing studies using the FLUXNET-CH 4 Community Product v1.0 have provided invaluable insights into the drivers of ecosystem-to-regional spatial patterns and daily-to-decadal temporal dynamics in temperate, boreal, and Arctic climate regions. However, as the wetland CH 4 monitoring network grows, there is a critical knowledge gap about where new monitoring infrastructure ought to be located to improve understanding of the global wetland CH 4 budget. Here we address this gap with a spatial representativeness analysis at existing and hypothetical observation sites, using 16 process-based wetland biogeochemistry models and machine learning. We find that, in addition to eddy covariance monitoring sites, existing chamber sites are important complements, especially over high latitudes and the tropics. Furthermore, expanding the current monitoring network for wetland CH 4 emissions should prioritize, first, tropical and second, sub-tropical semi-arid wetland regions. Considering those new hypothetical wetland sites from tropical and semi-arid climate zones could significantly improve global estimates of wetland CH 4 emissions and reduce bias by 79% (from 76 to 16 TgCH 4 y −1 ), compared with using solely existing monitoring networks. Our study thus demonstrates an approach for long-term strategic expansion of flux observations.

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Publication Details

Journal
Environmental Research Letters
Published
2024-09-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad8019
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.28

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article

Critical needs to close monitoring gaps in pan-tropical wetland CH4 emissions

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Critical needs to close monitoring gaps in pan-tropical wetland CH4 emissions

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article en
1 citations

Abstract

Abstract Global wetlands are the largest and most uncertain natural source of atmospheric methane (CH 4 ). The FLUXNET-CH 4 synthesis initiative has established a global network of flux tower infrastructure, offering valuable data products and fostering a dedicated community for the measurement and analysis of methane flux data. Existing studies using the FLUXNET-CH 4 Community Product v1.0 have provided invaluable insights into the drivers of ecosystem-to-regional spatial patterns and daily-to-decadal temporal dynamics in temperate, boreal, and Arctic climate regions. However, as the wetland CH 4 monitoring network grows, there is a critical knowledge gap about where new monitoring infrastructure ought to be located to improve understanding of the global wetland CH 4 budget. Here we address this gap with a spatial representativeness analysis at existing and hypothetical observation sites, using 16 process-based wetland biogeochemistry models and machine learning. We find that, in addition to eddy covariance monitoring sites, existing chamber sites are important complements, especially over high latitudes and the tropics. Furthermore, expanding the current monitoring network for wetland CH 4 emissions should prioritize, first, tropical and second, sub-tropical semi-arid wetland regions. Considering those new hypothetical wetland sites from tropical and semi-arid climate zones could significantly improve global estimates of wetland CH 4 emissions and reduce bias by 79% (from 76 to 16 TgCH 4 y −1 ), compared with using solely existing monitoring networks. Our study thus demonstrates an approach for long-term strategic expansion of flux observations.

Environmental Research LettersVol. 19(11)
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (FR)
U.S. Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Met Office, Office of Science, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Biological and Environmental Research, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 42%
Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
0.28
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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