Xiuying Zhang Hong Jiang Xuehe Lu Miaomiao Cheng Xiaomin Zhang Xinhui Li Linjing Zhang. Estimate of methane release from temperate natural wetlands using ENVISAT-SCIAMACHY data in China. Atmospheric Environment 2013http://dx.doi.org-10.1016-j.atmosenv.2012.12.023.

Abstract

Since wetlands are the largest natural sources of atmospheric CH₄ it is important to estimate the CH₄ emissions from natural wetlands at regional scale and over a long time period. The annual CH₄ efflux from temperate natural wetlands excluding water surface in China was estimated based on atmospheric CH₄ concentrations from SCIAMACHY-ENVISAT. The atmospheric CH₄ concentrations showed obvious seasonal cycles and CH₄ emission from natural wetlands dominated the temporal variations of CH₄ concentrations in north China accounting for about 67.94% of the variations of CH₄ concentrations. The chemical transport model MOZART-4 (Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers version 4) was used to simulate the spaceborne CH₄ column concentrations to the surface level and then the relationship between surface concentrations and emissions of CH₄ from natural wetlands was simulated by a linear regression model. The results showed that the estimated annual budget of CH₄ emission from natural wetlands in the temperate zone of China was about 4.81 Tg CH₄ which was within the range of 2.38 to 4.91 Tg CH₄ estimated by spatial distribution of wetland and the published CH₄ release fluxes during the 1990s to 2000s. This demonstrated that the method of using spaceborne CH₄ column concentrations to estimate CH₄ emissions from natural wetlands was reliable.