Sichuan University

About: Sichuan University is a education organization based out in Chengdu, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Population. The organization has 107623 authors who have published 102844 publications receiving 1612131 citations. The organization is also known as: Sìchuān Dàxué.

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

Abstract: 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 Methane emissions from aquatic systems contribute approximately half of global methane emissions, according to meta-analysis of natural, impacted and human-made aquatic ecosystems and indicating potential mitigation strategies to reduce emissions