Renewed methane increase for five years (2007–2011) observed by solar FTIR spectrometry

Sussmann, Ralf; Förster, Frank; Rettinger, Markus; Bousquet, Philippe

doi:10.5194/acp-12-4885-2012

Cited by 60 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…After a decade of near-zero growth Heimann, 2011;Pison et al, 2013), global methane concentrations started to rise again in 2007 (Rigby et al, 2008;Bousquet et al, 2011;Frankenberg et al, 2011;Sussmann et al, 2012;Nisbet et al, 2014). Since then the methane burden has continuously increased with particularly strong growth in 2014 (Nisbet et al, 2015).…”

Section: P Hausmann Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second step involves a least squares fit of a linear trend to the deseasonalized time series and bootstrap resampling of the residuals to determine the linear trend uncertainty. The trend analysis is performed for two distinct time periods (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014), which correspond to methane trend turning points published in earlier work (e.g., Rigby et al, 2008;Dlugokencky et al, 2011;Sussmann et al, 2012;IPCC, 2013).…”

Section: P Hausmann Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contribution of oil and natural gas production to renewed increase in atmospheric methane (2007–2014): top–down estimate from ethane and methane column observations

2016

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Abstract. Harmonized time series of column-averaged mole fractions of atmospheric methane and ethane over the period 1999-2014 are derived from solar Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements at the Zugspitze summit (47 • N, 11 • E; 2964 m a.s.l.) and at Lauder (45 • S, 170 • E; 370 m a.s.l.). Long-term trend analysis reveals a consistent renewed methane increase since 2007 of 6. 2 [5.6, 6.9] ppb yr −1 (parts-per-billion per year) at the Zugspitze and 6.0 [5.3, 6.7] ppb yr −1 at Lauder (95 % confidence intervals). Several recent studies provide pieces of evidence that the renewed methane increase is most likely driven by two main factors: (i) increased methane emissions from tropical wetlands, followed by (ii) increased thermogenic methane emissions due to growing oil and natural gas production. Here, we quantify the magnitude of the second class of sources, using long-term measurements of atmospheric ethane as a tracer for thermogenic methane emissions. and can be assigned to thermogenic methane emissions with an ethane-to-methane ratio (EMR) of 12-19 %. We present optimized emission scenarios for 2007-2014 derived from an atmospheric two-box model. From our trend observations we infer a total ethane emission increase over the period 2007-2014 from oil and natural gas sources of 1-11 Tg yr −1 along with an overall methane emission increase of 24-45 Tg yr −1 . Based on these results, the oil and natural gas emission contribution (C) to the renewed methane increase is deduced using three different emission scenarios with dedicated EMR ranges. Reference scenario 1 assumes an oil and gas emission combination with EMR = 7.0-16.2 %, which results in a minimum contribution C > 39 % (given as lower bound of 95 % confidence interval). Beside this most plausible scenario 1, we consider two less realistic limiting cases of pure oil-related emissions (scenario 2 with EMR = 16.2-31.4 %) and pure natural gas sources (scenario 3 with EMR = 4.4-7.0 %), which result in C > 18 % and C > 73 %, respectively. Our results suggest that long-term observations of columnaveraged ethane provide a valuable constraint on the source attribution of methane emission changes and provide basic knowledge for developing effective climate change mitigation strategies.

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Section: P Hausmann Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: P Hausmann Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of oil and natural gas production to renewed increase in atmospheric methane (2007–2014): top–down estimate from ethane and methane column observations

2016

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“…Since [2005][2006], a renewed increase of atmospheric methane has been observed and widely discussed in many studies (Bloom et al, 2010;Dlugokencky et al, 2009;Frankenberg et al, 2011;Hausmann et al, 2016;Helmig et al, 2016;Montzka et al, 2011;Rigby et al, 2008;Schaefer et al, 2016;Spahni et al, 2011;Sussmann et al, 2012;van der Werf et al, 2010), leading to various hypotheses. In this work, for the first time, we report of an increase in methane observed since 2005 at a suite of NDACC sites distributed worldwide, operating Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The recent increase of atmospheric methane from 10 years of ground-based NDACC FTIR observations since 2005

Bader

Bovy²,

Conway

et al. 2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Changes of atmospheric methane total columns (CH 4 ) since 2005 have been evaluated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) solar observations carried out at 10 ground-based sites, affiliated to the Network for Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). From this, we find an increase of atmospheric methane total columns of 0.31 ± 0.03 % year −1 (2σ level of uncertainty) for the 2005-2014 period. Comparisons with in situ methane measurements at both local and global scales show good agreement. We used the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model tagged simulation, which accounts for the contribution of each emission source and one sink in the total methane, simulated over 2005-2012. After regridding according to NDACC vertical layering using a conservative regridding scheme and smoothing by convolving with respective FTIR seasonal averaging kernels, the GEOS-Chem simulation shows an increase of atmospheric methane total columns of 0.35 ± 0.03 % year −1 between 2005 and 2012, which is in agreement with NDACC measurements over the same time period (0.30 ± 0.04 % year −1 , averaged over 10 stations). Analysis of the GEOS-Chem-tagged simulation allows us to quantify the contribution of each tracer to the global methane change since 2005. We find that natural sources such as wetlands and biomass burning contribute to the interannual variability of methane. However, anthropogenic emissions, such as coal mining, and gas and oil transport and exploration, which are mainly emitted in the Northern Hemisphere and act as secondary contributors to the global budget of methane, have played a major role in the increase of atmospheric methane observed since 2005. Based on the GEOSPublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. W. Bader et al.: The recent increase of atmospheric methaneChem-tagged simulation, we discuss possible cause(s) for the increase of methane since 2005, which is still unexplained.

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“…Methane (CH 4 ) is an important greenhouse gas whose atmospheric concentration has more than doubled since the 18th century (MacFarling Meure et al, 2006), with considerable variations in its growth rate over recent decades (Rigby et al, 2008;Dlugokencky et al, 2009;Sussmann et al, 2012). Methane has both anthropogenic and natural emissions, while the main sink for methane is through reaction with hydroxyl radical (OH) in the troposphere and by photolysis in the stratosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulations of atmospheric methane for Cape Grim, Tasmania, to constrain southeastern Australian methane emissions

et al. 2015

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Renewed methane increase for five years (2007–2011) observed by solar FTIR spectrometry

Abstract: Abstract. Trends of column-averaged methane for the time period (1996( , Sep 2011

Cited by 60 publications

References 30 publications

Contribution of oil and natural gas production to renewed increase in atmospheric methane (2007–2014): top–down estimate from ethane and methane column observations

Contribution of oil and natural gas production to renewed increase in atmospheric methane (2007–2014): top–down estimate from ethane and methane column observations

The recent increase of atmospheric methane from 10 years of ground-based NDACC FTIR observations since 2005

Simulations of atmospheric methane for Cape Grim, Tasmania, to constrain southeastern Australian methane emissions

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