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Atmospheric methane

About: Atmospheric methane is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2034 publications have been published within this topic receiving 119616 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 2010-Icarus
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report results of laboratory studies of methane adsorption onto JSC-Mars-1, a martian soil simulant, and suggest that this process could explain the observations.

38 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the role of termite populations in the change of global atmospheric methane concentrations was evaluated based on a model that uses literature information on termite population size in primary forest and pasture 1 to 10 years after forest conversion, wood consumption and methane emission rates of termites.

38 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a "Methane remote Lidar mission" which uses the surface backscatter to measure the total atmospheric methane column at precisions of 1.2, 1.7, and 2.1% over land, water, and snow or ice surfaces.
Abstract: Future spaceborne lidar measurements of key anthropogenic greenhouse gases are expected to close current observational gaps particularly over remote, polar, and aerosol-contaminated regions, where actual in situ and passive remote sensing observation techniques have difficulties. For methane, a “Methane Remote Lidar Mission” was proposed by Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt and Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales in the frame of a German-French climate monitoring initiative. Simulations assess the performance of this mission with the help of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations of the earth's surface albedo and atmospheric optical depth. These are key environmental parameters for integrated path differential absorption lidar which uses the surface backscatter to measure the total atmospheric methane column. Results show that a lidar with an average optical power of 0.45 W at 1.6 µm wavelength and a telescope diameter of 0.55 m, installed on a low Earth orbit platform (506 km), will measure methane columns at precisions of 1.2%, 1.7%, and 2.1% over land, water, and snow or ice surfaces, respectively, for monthly aggregated measurement samples within areas of 50 × 50 km2. Globally, the mean precision for the simulated year 2007 is 1.6%, with a standard deviation of 0.7%. At high latitudes, a lower reflectance due to snow and ice is compensated by denser measurements, owing to the orbital pattern. Over key methane source regions such as densely populated areas, boreal and tropical wetlands, or permafrost, our simulations show that the measurement precision will be between 1 and 2%.

38 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Feb 2008-Geology
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed that microbial methanogenesis along the shallow margins of sedimentary basins provides a source of atmospheric CH 4 temporally connected with both advance and retreat of continental ice sheets.
Abstract: Methane (CH 4 ) is an important greenhouse gas and amplifier of climate change. However, the causes of atmospheric CH 4 variations over glacial-interglacial cycles remain unresolved. We propose that microbial methanogenesis along the shallow margins of sedimentary basins provides a source of atmospheric CH 4 temporally connected with both advance and retreat of continental ice sheets. Extensive biodegradation of hydrocarbons in the Antrim Shale Formation, Michigan, United States, is associated with an active subsurface consortium of fermentative and methanogenic microorganisms. This activity was initially stimulated when saline formation waters were diluted by meltwater derived from overriding Pleistocene ice sheets. During glaciation, CH 4 produced by this community accumulated in the shale at a rate of 1 Tg CH 4 per 1000 yr as a result of ice coverage and increased hydrostatic pressure. We estimate that at present the Antrim Shale contains only 12%–25% of the cumulative mass of CH 4 generated in the shale over the Pleistocene, indicating that CH 4 that had accumulated during glaciation was subsequently released following ice-sheet retreat. While release from the Antrim Shale represents only a small part of the global CH 4 budget, when extended to other glaciated sedimentary basins, subsurface methanogenesis may generate a substantial, previously unrecognized source of atmospheric CH 4 during deglaciation.

38 citations

01 Dec 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the results from SCIAMACHY data and the TM5 model were compared with atmospheric chemistry models and first results of source inversions using SCIAMA data.
Abstract: SCIAMACHY onboard ENVISAT enables the retrieval of atmospheric methane with high sensitity towards the ground Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas However, the partitioning of global methane sources is still highly uncertain Further, a newly discovered additional source, viz direct plant emissions, requires other sources to be reassessed SCIAMACHY from its vantage point in space now offers the possibility of sensing methane globally However, high accuracy is needed in order to employ the retrievals in source inversion models This work shows latest methane results from SCIAMACHY with special focus on retrieval accuracy The retrievals are compared with atmospheric chemistry models and first results of source inversions using SCIAMACHY data and the TM5 model will be shown These inversions comfirm previous studies that tropical methane sources are so far underestimated

38 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202395
2022153
202175
202077
201974
201872