Half of global methane emissions come from highly variable aquatic ecosystem sources

Rosentreter, JA; Borges, Alberto; Deemer, BR; Holgerson, MA; Liu, S; Song, C; Melack, J; Raymond, PA; Duarte, CM; Allen, GH; Olefeldt, D; Poulter, B; Battin, TI; Eyre, BD

doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00715-2

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Half of global methane emissions come from highly variable aquatic ecosystem sources

Rosentreter, JA; Borges, Alberto; Deemer, BR et al.

2021 • In Nature Geoscience, 14 (0), p. 225-230

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https://hdl.handle.net/2268/258628

DOI
10.1038/s41561-021-00715-2

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Keywords :

CH4; river; lake

Abstract :

[en] Atmospheric methane is a potent greenhouse gas that plays a major role in controlling the Earth’s climate. The causes of the renewed increase of methane concentration since 2007 are uncertain given the multiple sources and complex biogeochemistry. Here, we present a metadata analysis of methane fluxes from all major natural, impacted and human-made aquatic ecosystems. Our revised bottom-up global aquatic methane emissions combine diffusive, ebullitive and/or plant-mediated fluxes from 15 aquatic ecosystems. We emphasize the high variability of methane fluxes within and between aquatic ecosystems and a positively skewed distribution of empirical data, making global estimates sensitive to statistical assumptions and sampling design. We find aquatic ecosystems contribute (median) 41% or (mean) 53% of total global methane emissions from anthropogenic and natural sources. We show that methane emissions increase from natural to impacted aquatic ecosystems and from coastal to freshwater ecosystems. We argue that aquatic emissions will probably increase due to urbanization, eutrophication and positive climate feedbacks and suggest changes in land-use management as potential mitigation strategies to reduce aquatic methane emissions.

Research center :

FOCUS - Freshwater and OCeanic science Unit of reSearch - ULiège

Disciplines :

Aquatic sciences & oceanology

Author, co-author :

Rosentreter, JA

Borges, Alberto ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Chemical Oceanography Unit (COU)

Deemer, BR

Holgerson, MA

Liu, S

Song, C

Melack, J

Raymond, PA

Duarte, CM

Allen, GH

More authors (4 more)

Language :

English

Title :

Half of global methane emissions come from highly variable aquatic ecosystem sources

Publication date :

06 April 2021

Journal title :

Nature Geoscience

ISSN :

1752-0894

eISSN :

1752-0908

Publisher :

Nature Publishing Group, United Kingdom

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

225-230

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00715-2

Available on ORBi :

since 06 April 2021

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399

Scopus citations^®
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366

OpenCitations

185

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