Methane fluxes from Arctic &amp; boreal North America: comparisons between process-based estimates and atmospheric observations

Liu, Hanyu; Ishizawa, Misa; Vogel, Felix R.; Zhang, Zhen; Poulter, Benjamin; Feng, Leyang; Chen, Ao; Gagné-Landmann, Anna L.; Huntzinger, Deborah N.; Melton, Joe R.; Yadav, Vineet; Gaeta, Dylan C.; Huang, Ziting; Worthy, Douglas E. J.; Chan, Douglas; Miller, Scot M.

doi:10.5194/acp-26-1229-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-1229-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-1229-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 2

Research article

|

26 Jan 2026

Research article |

| 26 Jan 2026

Methane fluxes from Arctic & boreal North America: comparisons between process-based estimates and atmospheric observations

Hanyu Liu, Misa Ishizawa, Felix R. Vogel, Zhen Zhang, Benjamin Poulter, Leyang Feng, Ao Chen, Anna L. Gagné-Landmann, Deborah N. Huntzinger, Joe R. Melton, Vineet Yadav, Dylan C. Gaeta, Ziting Huang, Douglas E. J. Worthy, Douglas Chan, and Scot M. Miller

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-1229-2026-supplement

Data sets

CAMS global emission inventories Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service https://doi.org/10.24381/1d158bec

CarbonTracker-CH4 Global Monitoring Laboratory https://doi.org/10.25925/40jt-qd67

Gridded inventory of Canada's anthropogenic methane emissions for 2018 T. Scarpelli et al. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CC3KLO

Gridded EPA U.S. Anthropogenic Methane Greenhouse Gas Inventory (gridded GHGI) (v1.0) E. E. McDuffie et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8367082

Global Fire Emissions Database, Version 4.1 (GFEDv4) (Version 4.1) J. T. Randerson et al. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1293

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Short summary

We find that the state-of-the-art process-based methane flux models have both lower flux magnitude and reduced inter-model uncertainty compared to a previous model inter-comparison from over a decade ago. Despite these improvements, methane flux estimates from process-based models are still likely too high compared to atmospheric observations. We also find that models with simpler parameterizations often result in better agreement with atmospheric observations in high-latitude North America.