Articles | Volume 23, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8429-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8429-2023
Research article
 | 
28 Jul 2023
Research article |  | 28 Jul 2023

Atmospheric data support a multi-decadal shift in the global methane budget towards natural tropical emissions

Alice Drinkwater, Paul I. Palmer, Liang Feng, Tim Arnold, Xin Lan, Sylvia E. Michel, Robert Parker, and Hartmut Boesch

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Cited articles

Allen, R. J., Zhao, X., Randles, C. A., Kramer, R. J., Samset, B. H., and Smith, C. J.: Surface warming and wetting due to methane's long-wave radiative effects muted by short-wave absorption, Nat. Geosci., 16, 314–320, 2023. a
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Bloom, A. A., Bowman, K. W., Lee, M., Turner, A. J., Schroeder, R., Worden, J. R., Weidner, R., McDonald, K. C., and Jacob, D. J.: A global wetland methane emissions and uncertainty dataset for atmospheric chemical transport models (WetCHARTs version 1.0), Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 2141–2156, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2141-2017, 2017a. a
Bloom, A. A., Bowman, K., Lee, M., Turner, A. J., Schroeder, R., Worden, J. R., Weidner, R. J., McDonald, K. C., and Jacob, D. J.: CMS: Global 0.5-deg Wetland Methane Emissions and Uncertainty (WetCHARTs v1.0), ORNL DAAC [data set], Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1502, 2017b. a
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Short summary
Changes in atmospheric methane over the last few decades are largely unexplained. Previous studies have proposed different hypotheses to explain short-term changes in atmospheric methane. We interpret observed changes in atmospheric methane and stable isotope source signatures (2004–2020). We argue that changes over this period are part of a large-scale shift from high-northern-latitude thermogenic energy emissions to tropical biogenic emissions, particularly from North Africa and South America.
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