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A large increase in U.S. methane emissions over the past decade inferred from satellite data and surface observations

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TLDR
In this article, the authors used satellite retrievals and surface observations of atmospheric methane to suggest that U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions have increased by more than 30% over the 2002-2014 period.
Abstract
The global burden of atmospheric methane has been increasing over the past decade, but the causes are not well understood. National inventory estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate no significant trend in U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions from 2002 to present. Here we use satellite retrievals and surface observations of atmospheric methane to suggest that U.S. methane emissions have increased by more than 30% over the 2002–2014 period. The trend is largest in the central part of the country, but we cannot readily attribute it to any specific source type. This large increase in U.S. methane emissions could account for 30–60% of the global growth of atmospheric methane seen in the past decade.

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Is Green Growth Possible

TL;DR: The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecological breakdown as mentioned in this paper, and green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our sustainable development goals.
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Methane Feedbacks to the Global Climate System in a Warmer World

TL;DR: In this article, the authors synthesize biological, geochemical, and physically focused CH4 climate feedback literature, bringing together the key findings of these disciplines, and discuss environment-specific feedback processes, including the microbial, physical, and geochemical interlinkages and the timescales on which they operate.
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The growing role of methane in anthropogenic climate change

TL;DR: The recent rapid rise in global methane concentrations is predominantly biogenic-most likely from agriculture-with smaller contributions from fossil fuel use and possibly wetlands as discussed by the authors, but the reasons for this renewed growth are still unclear, primarily because of uncertainties in the global methane budget.
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Ambiguity in the causes for decadal trends in atmospheric methane and hydroxyl

TL;DR: It is concluded that the current surface observing system does not allow unambiguous attribution of the decadal trends in methane without robust constraints on OH variability, which currently rely purely on methyl chloroform data and its uncertain emissions estimates.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project

TL;DR: The NCEP/NCAR 40-yr reanalysis uses a frozen state-of-the-art global data assimilation system and a database as complete as possible, except that the horizontal resolution is T62 (about 210 km) as discussed by the authors.
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Three decades of global methane sources and sinks

S. Kirschke, +50 more
- 01 Oct 2013 - 
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors construct decadal budgets for methane sources and sinks between 1980 and 2010, using a combination of atmospheric measurements and results from chemical transport models, ecosystem models, climate chemistry models and inventories of anthropogenic emissions.
Journal ArticleDOI

An atmospheric perspective on North American carbon dioxide exchange: CarbonTracker

TL;DR: An estimate of net CO2 exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere across North America for every week in the period 2000 through 2005 is presented, derived from a set of 28,000 CO2 mole fraction observations in the global atmosphere that are fed into a state-of-the-art data assimilation system for CO2 called CarbonTracker.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Total Carbon Column Observing Network

TL;DR: The TCCON provides a link between satellite measurements and the extensive ground-based in situ network and achieves an accuracy and precision in total column measurements that is unprecedented for remote-sensing observations.
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